the countries not enter into it; and he that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take anything out of his house; and he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat. For these are the days of vengeance, that all things may be fulfilled that are written."

So dreadful are the facts of history about the siege and destruction of Jerusalem under Titus, A.D. 70, that they strain the power of belief. The city was crowded with pilgrims to the Passover when it was surrounded by the Roman legions, and thus a million of people were enclosed in the city walls. These were divided into two warring factions, and finally into three, butchering one another while endeavoring to beat back the terrible enemy outside. The siege lasted from early spring-time till the first week in September, and during that time upwards of 700,000 Jews, men, women, and children, are said to have perished by every conceivable kind of death, including self-murder, child-murder, starvation, plague, and cannibalism, the city being meantime surrounded by a circle of never ending slaughter in the struggle between the regular combatants on either side. At last the city fell, the Roman eagles were placed over the Temple, the pagan gods were adored in the Holy of Holies, and the splendid edifice, the glory of the chosen people, one of the noblest memorials of the religious sentiment of the human race, was totally destroyed. Jerusalem was razed to the ground, its last vestiges being demolished during the next century; the plough passed over the city of David and the place where the name of the Lord had been honored for so many ages. Previous to the siege, and for the sake of depriv ing the Jews of any other refuge after they had lost their capital, every fortified place in Palestine had

been captured and garrisoned by the Romans or totally destroyed. The end was the dispersion, utter and perpetual, of the remnant of the people. Hence the picture our Saviour draws is not too gloomy, nor is it unworthy of being selected to typify the final calamities preceding the end of the world and the day of judg

ment.

"But woe to them that are with child, and give suck in those days, for there shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captives into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, till the times of the nations be fulfilled."

"But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the Sabbath; for there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened."

Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. For there shall rise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. Behold I have told it you beforehand. If therefore they shall say to you: Behold he is in the desert, go ye not out; Behold he is in the closets, believe it not. For as lightning cometh out of the east and appeareth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together. And immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves, men withering away with fear and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. And he shall send his angels with a trumpet and a great voice; and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the utmost bounds of them.

Amid the convulsions of the Roman invasion false Christs, history informs us, arose to incite the unfortunate people to fresh outbreaks or to vain resistance. Our Saviour plainly foretells the same for the end of the world.

It

What does the Master mean by "the sign of the Son of Man," unless it be a great luminous cross? will be resplendent in the sky, lighting up the dark

ened heavens with the victorious standard of the Crucified, a sign of love, a sign of power. When Christians begin any act of religion they mark themselves with the sign of the cross. So shall Jesus mark Himself and His universe as He opens His great court for the world's judgment.

Many learned men have tried reverently to fix the future date of this last act in the drama of God and Man, but in vain. Even Jesus Himself, though He must have known it, received it from the Father as something reserved from revelation: "But of that day or hour no man knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone."

CHAPTER XXII.

PERSONAL APPLICATION OF THE VISION OF JUDGMENT.

Matt. xxiv. 32-51; Mark xiii. 28-37; Luke xxi. 28-36. THE Master's application of His prophecy to the judgment of every single soul at the point of death is directly associated with His teaching of the general judgment, being here interjected between the first scene-the destruction of the present material world together with the divine heraldry of the Great Cross-and the detailed narrative of the event itself.

"But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand. And He spoke to them a similitude: see the the trees, when they now shoot forth know that summer is nigh: so you shall see these things come to pass,

fig-tree and all their fruit you also when you know that the