apostasy and rebellion, now black with woe, was about to
burst upon a guilty people; and He who alone could save them from their
impending fate had been slighted, abused, rejected, and was soon to be
crucified. When Christ should hang upon the cross of Calvary, Israel's day
as a nation favored and blessed of God would be ended. The loss of even
one soul is a calamity infinitely outweighing the gains and treasures of a
world; but as Christ looked upon Jerusalem, the doom of a whole city, a
whole nation, was before Him,--that city, that nation, which had once been
the chosen of God, His peculiar treasure.

Prophets had wept over the apostasy of Israel, and the terrible
desolations by which their sins were visited. Jeremiah wished that his
eyes were a fountain of tears, that he might weep day and night for the
slain of the daughter of his people, for the Lord's flock that was carried
away captive.(20) What, then, was the grief of Him whose prophetic glance
took in, not years, but ages! He beheld the destroying angel with sword
uplifted against the city which had so long been Jehovah's dwelling-place.
From the ridge of Olivet, the very spot afterward occupied by Titus and
his army, He looked across the valley upon the sacred courts and
porticoes, and with tear-dimmed eyes He saw, in awful perspective, the
walls surrounded by alien hosts. He heard the tread of armies marshaling
for war. He heard the voice of mothers and children crying for bread in
the besieged city. He saw her holy and beautiful house, her palaces and
towers, given to the flames, and where once they stood, only a heap of
smouldering ruins.

Looking down the ages, He saw the covenant people scattered in every land,
"like wrecks on a desert shore." In the temporal retribution about to fall
upon her children, He saw but the first draught from that cup of wrath
which at the final judgment she must drain to its dregs. Divine pity,
yearning love, found utterance in the mournful words: " 'O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent
unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as
a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!'(21) O
that thou, a nation favored above every other, hadst known the time of thy
visitation, and the things that belong unto thy peace! I have stayed the
angel of justice, I have called thee to repentance, but in vain. It is not
merely servants, delegates,