d where they appeared.

_First--What we are to understand by judgment beginning at the house
of God_. Jesus Christ chose him twelve disciples and commenced the
great work the Father sent him to do. To them he disclosed many
events, that God would in a future day bring upon the world. He
pointed them forward with more than human accuracy into the
approaching revolutions of time, and painted out in noon-day light
those astonishing disasters that would one day burst like a
thunderclap on the thoughtless nations. He marked their certainty, and
warned them accordingly. Among the many things, that lay buried in the
vista of future years, was the destruction of Jerusalem. This was a
point that most solemnly concerned the disciples of Jesus. It was no
less than the destruction of their nation.

Christ was with his disciples in the temple, that splendid edifice
which was forty and six years in building, and, in their presence and
for the last time, addressed the stubborn Jews. He pointed out the
many crimes of which they and their fathers had been guilty in
shedding the blood of the prophets, and persecuting those who were
sent unto them as the messengers of Jehovah. They had also made void
the law of God through their traditions. While pointing out these
things, and setting them home like a thunderbolt to their hearts, he
pronounced them hypocrites, blind guides, devourers of widows' houses,
and declared that all the righteous blood shed upon the earth should
be required of of that generation. While rehearsing these things to
them, Jesus had a perfect view of all their approaching sufferings.
Many of them were to be starved to death. He saw by a prophetic eye
the indulgent father and fond mother weeping over their infant train,
who were begging for bread, but no way to procure it. Eleven hundred
thousand he saw in a state of starvation, who were to fall by famine,
sword and pestilence. He saw their cruel enemies surround the walls of
their city, who would allow no sustenance to be given them, but
determined to reduce them by hunger and sword to one common grave. All
these things, that were coming upon them, rushed at once upon the mind
of the compassionate Redeemer of the world. The affecting scene moved
so strongly upon his heavenly feelings, that he dropped the the
melancholy subject and burst into a flood of tears. He beheld the city
and wept over it--"O Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Thou that killest the
prophets and stonest them