is in
them, when they cast their leaves._"[105] "_The generation to come, of
your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall
come from a far land, shall say, * * * Wherefore hath the Lord done thus
unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger?_"[106]

It is superfluous to adduce proof of the undeniable and acknowledged
fulfillment of these predictions, but as an example of the way in which
God causes scoffers to fulfill the prophecies, let us again hear Volney:
"I journeyed in the empire of the Ottomans, and traversed the provinces
which were formerly the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria. I enumerated the
kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and Samaria. This Syria,
said I to myself, now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred
flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets. What
has become of so many productions of the hand of man? What has become of
those ages of abundance and of life? _Great God! from whence proceed
such melancholy revolutions? For what cause is the fortune of these
countries so strikingly changed? Why are so many cities destroyed?_ Why
is not that ancient population reproduced and perpetuated? A mysterious
God exercises his incomprehensible judgments. He has doubtless
pronounced a secret malediction against the earth. He has struck with a
curse the present race of men in revenge of past generations."[107] The
malediction is no secret to any who will read the twenty ninth chapter
of Deuteronomy; nor is the avenging of the quarrel of God's covenant
confined to the sins of past generations. The philosopher who would
understand the fates of cities and empires should read the prophecies.

The Word of God specifies no less distinctly and definitely the destiny
of the Jewish than of the Babylonian capital, but fixes on a widely
different kind of destruction. Babylon was never to be built again, but
devoted to solitude; busy Tyre to become a place for spreading nets; the
caravans, which once brought the wealth of India through Petra, were to
cease, and the doom was to "cut off him that passeth by and him that
returneth." But Jerusalem, it was predicted, should long feel the
miseries of a multitude of oppressors, should never enjoy the luxury of
a solitary woe, but "_be trodden down of the Gentiles_."[108] Saracens,
Tartars, Turks, and Crusaders, Gentiles from every nation of the earth,
fulfilled the prediction of old, even as hosts of pilgrims