the twelve sons of Jacob, were led to it by their great lawgiver, Moses, after suffering a very long captivity in Egypt. During their journey across the desert of Arabia the children of Israel were favored by the divine interposition in most miraculous ways, until they were securely settled in this land of promise. It was "a land flowing with milk and honey," but its fruitfulness was conditioned upon the people's fidelity to God, for naturally it is subject to frequent visitations of drought. While the Israelites were true to God the soil was fruitful, and when they turned to false gods the hot wind of the desert blasted their fields and pastures. It was the divine purpose to compel the Jews to keep alive the fire of His true worship as in a carefully guarded sanctuary, until in the fulness of time it should be brought forth to illumine the whole world.

The location was well chosen: on one side was the sea-coast almost entirely without good harbors, and on the other frontiers were bleak deserts or rugged mountains. The Israelites could easily hold their own against the neighboring pagan nations, and ever did so except when God delivered them into the hands of their enemies in punishment of their sins. This little family of the Lord by His special providence in their location, their warlike ardor, the racial and social rules of the law of Moses, and the constant interference of His strong right arm, preserved

their strikingly peculiar traits of character and perpetuated their ancestral traditions of the true religion.

The twelve tribes of Israel had at one era of their history become a powerful nation, whose golden age was under the kingship of David and his son Solomon. Afterwards it was broken into two separate and usually antagonistic kingdoms: that of Juda, embracing the tribe of that name and the tribe of Benjamin, whose capital was Jerusalem; and that of Israel, composed of the other ten tribes. Many most important political changes afterwards took place, chief among them the long captivity of nearly the entire people in Babylon, the domination of Alexander the Great and his successors, and the wars of independence under the Machabees. Rome had conquered the country some sixty years prior to the birth of Christ, at which date it was a province of the vast empire ruled by Cæsar Augustus. It was divided into four parts: Jerusalem was the seat of government for the whole province, with Judea for its immediate jurisdiction; Samaria, lying north of Judea, was another legal division; yet further north was Galilee; the nearer region beyond the Jordan was called the Perea.

JERUSALEM AND JUDEA.

Jerusalem, otherwise called Sion (perhaps the Salem of Melchisedech), was the centre of the Jewish religion. Wherever scattered, the hearts of the people yearned for Sion, the City of God, the site of His holy Temple. Happy the day when the weary pilgrim entered its gate to offer his prayers at the one spot on the whole earth in which God had commanded sacrifice to be offered to His sovereign majesty, and where He most lovingly listened to the prayers of His people happier still the Jew who always dwelt in the

sacred atmosphere of the Holy City. Every earnest Israelite trusted most firmly that this city was in God's own time, now close at hand, to fulfil the forebodings. of the Roman soothsayers and conquer the world. Few of them, however, were willing to believe that this conquest would not be one of violence, but rather (according to the meaning of the city's name, the City of Peace) a moral and religious revolution as meek as it would be irresistible.

The city was divided into three parts, or rather three hills to the west and south Mount Sion; to the east Mount Moriah, crowned by the Temple; and the northern and most inhabited section, called Acra. The place was strongly fortified, being surrounded by frowning walls overlooking, in most parts, deep ravines, and garnished with beetling towers. At the time of Christ there were one hundred and fifty thousand residents, a population enormously increased at various. seasons by the great throngs of Jewish pilgrims from all over the world, drawn by the

festivals of their religion.

Although its ancient glory had departed, Jerusalem was a great and splendid city. Among its gorgeous palaces was that of King Herod the Great, standing on the northern slope of Mount Sion and adorned with a profusion of silver and gold and costly marbles. At the northern border was the magnificent tower called Antonia, once the abode of the heroic Machabees. It was now the fortress of the Roman garrison and dominated the whole city.

In it the governor of the coun-
try was like the prison physi-
cian holding the pulse of the
criminal under torture and
watching the limits of his en-
durance. But palaces and for-
tresses and governors and sol-
diers could not take from Jeru-
salem its true character: it was
the Holy City. Everything
gave place to religion, not only
in the general seeming of things
but in the souls of the citizens
and the multitudes of pilgrims.

Jerusalem was crowned by the Temple of Jehovah,
and Jehovah was uppermost in the thoughts and
affections of the people, however wildly and even
erroneously directed. Although the people of
Israel were politically enslaved, yet experience
had shown even the resistless Romans how dan-
gerous it was to tamper with their faith.
insult to the house of God or to the venerable
rites of His worship transformed them into a
nation of martyrs.

An

The Temple-to the Jews the point of union between earth and heaven-was, says Josephus, of such dazzling beauty that from a distance it looked like a mass of snow sparkling in the sunlight. It was built of marble, and its interior was overlaid with plates of gold. The exterior was enclosed by a majestic colonnade forming the outer court, that of the Gentile converts; a railing bearing Latin and Greek inscriptions barred their entrance to a second and more elevated court, in which worshipped the children of Abraham, the women being railed off from the more honorable place of the men.

Within this again, and raised still higher, was a court reserved exclusively for the priests and Levites, and sacred to the celebration of the sacrifices. Finally, there was the very sanctuary of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, quite hidden by the sacred veil, and whose precincts were trodden by the High-Priest alone.

To the north and east of the capital were many memorials of Israel's glory; Jericho, which had fallen at the sound of the Levites' trumpets, now embowered in palm-trees and roses; many ancient battle-fields of the long Philistine wars-the scenes of Samson's victories, of David's conquest of Goliath, of the call of the father of the Machabees to the last successful war of liberation, and the final era of Israel's national independence. To the south was Bethlehem and the tomb of Rachel, and the field of Boöz, in which Ruth, our Saviour's ancestress, had gleaned after the reapers and won her husband. But greater than all was Bethlehem itself. It was the city of David, and was foretold by Amos and other prophets as the birthplace of the promised Messias so often spoken of and saluted by the patriarchs, whose sacred ashes reposed in their rocky cells at Hebron, not far to the southward. Upon Bethlehem the eyes of all Israel were often turned in expectation of their Redeemer.

An austere sect called Essenes lived in a kind of community life near the Dead Sea. They renounced marriage, mortified the flesh with extreme severity, and practised every hardship known to the ascetics. But they were, it seems,

PLAN OF THE TEMPLE IN THIS TIME OF CHRIST.
A.The Holy of Holics.
The Holy Place

C. The Altar of Burnt-offerings
D The brazen Laver
The court of the Priests
The ecter of Lares
0. The gate Nicentr
The court of the Water.

L. The gate Beautiful.

J. The court of the Gentiles

K. The Eastern or Shaaban g

L Bolomon's Porch, or colonnade