E. Is that possible, Mamma? Surely they might have read or heard something of so famous a city.

M. If they had been Christians, Edward, or acquainted even with the Jewish Scriptures, they must have known something of Jerusalem, as every child in a Christian country does: but the Roman governors, you must remember, were still heathens, unacquainted with the Holy Scriptures; knowing little, and caring less, what had been the ancient state of Palestine. I say its ancient state; for already two centuries hadelapsed since Jerusalem had been destroyed, and another city, under a different name, built upon the spot where it had stood: no wonder then that a heathen soldier should be altogether ignorant about it. But, in the time of the first Christian emperor, Jerusalem recovered the name, once so dear to the people of God; and Constantine showed his respect for the place, by causing it to be enlarged and adorned with many stately edifices and beautiful churches, so as to make it quite a Christian city.

E. I shall always love Constantine for that: how pleased the Jews must have been!

M. I am sorry to say that the making it a Christian city was more unwelcome to them, than even if it had continued heathen. They still held the name of Christ in contempt; and they now tried hard to recover Jerusalem, and to rebuild their temple; but with no better success than before. The attempt only ended in their being cruelly punished, marked as rebels, and dispersed over the empire as fugitives, or slaves.

E. I am sorry for them; it was so natural that they should wish to build their temple. But did Jerusalem continue to be a Christian city?

M. For three centuries Christians had the disposal of it, and the Jews were forbidden to come near it; for the hand of the Almighty was still laid heavily on this unhappy people, correcting them sorely for their sins. Not long after Constantine's death indeed an attempt was made by the emperor Julian, to defeat the prophecy respecting Jerusalem, by restoring it to the Jews, and rebuilding their temple for them.

E. Defeat the prophecy, Mamma! was not that very wicked?

M. Wicked it was; and vain as it was wicked. But Julian, though a nephew of Constantine, had forsaken Christianity, and fallen back into heathenism. He is therefore called in history Julian the Apostate.' This accounts for his wicked presumption.

E. And what prevented him? I know it could not be done, when our Saviour said it should not; but I should like to know by what means it was prevented.

M. It will detain us a little; but the circumstances are so remarkable, that we must, I think, dwell upon them for a few moments. The unbelieving emperor, it seems, had fixed his mind very intently upon this unholy work. He gave the charge of it to his chief friend Alypius, and he was warmly supported by the governor of Palestine; whilst, at the call of Julian, the Jews assembled readily, as you may suppose, from all parts of the empire, to accomplish what has been in every age their ruling passion, the rebuilding of the temple. Julian himself was not there, for he was engaged in a Persian war: on his return from which he intended to take an active part in this great

work.

But what are man's intentions! From that war Julian never returned. He received his death wound from a Persian javelin! Meanwhile this presumptuous attempt to rebuild the temple had been interrupted in a still more extraordinary manner.

Whilst Alypius and the governor of Palestine were pushing on the work as fast as possible, dreadful balls of fire burst forth continually from the earth around the foundations, and made it impossible for the men to go on; for they were repeatedly burnt by them, whenever they made the attempt.

E. Then it was interrupted by a miracle?

M. Yes; rather than that prophecy should be defeated, a prodigy was wrought; and this is told us by a heathen writer. How little did Julian think that, in attempting to make our Lord's words false, he was only preparing so wonderful a proof that they were the words of Him who cannot lie! But so it is, that the Lord on high restrains the fierceness of unbelieving men, and turns it to His own praise. But I must try now to carry on the history of Jerusalem a little farther.

Soon after the death of Julian, who was the last heathen emperor, the Roman empire became divided into two parts, the eastern and western; or as they are sometimes called, the Greek and the Roman. Jerusalem came then into the hands of the Greek emperors, who reigned at Constantinople; and the Jews had not the liberty of even approaching the city: and this continued for nearly three hundred years, or till the beginning of the seventh century after Christ. Then the city was taken by the Persians; and afterwards it fell into the hands of the Saracens,

who were the first followers of the false prophet Mahomet. They took possession of it under the command of their governor or Caliph Omar in the year 637. E. How grieved I am to think that it should be again in such unholy hands! This was "the abomination of desolation," I think, once more.

M. Indeed it was, for on the very spot, where the temple of the Lord had once stood, Omar built a Mahomedan temple, or mosque. In the hands of the caliphs Jerusalem continued for more than four centuries; when it passed for a short time into those of the Turks, who had then established themselves in Persia. But the caliph of Egypt soon wrested it from them; and it then became an object of deep interest to all the Christian Churches of Europe.

E. Ha! Mamma, I think you are coming now to the crusades, and Richard the Lion-hearted.

M. I am, my child; and it was, as you know, a most memorable period of history. You have read so much about this in the history of our own dear country, that I need not dwell upon it now. I will only remind you that the crusades, or holy wars, as they were called, proceeded professedly from a religious zeal, among the Christian princes of Europe, to recover Jerusalem under the banner of the cross from the hands of the Mussulmen.

The army of the first crusaders amounted to three hundred thousand fighting men at the least. Perhaps you have not read that they fought their way to Jerusalem, and took it in the year 1099; putting to the sword all who were not Christians. Seventy thousand Mussulmen were massacred, and all the Jews that were found there gathered together and burnt.

E. And was that religious zeal, Mamma? surely that could not have been right?

M. Very far from it, Edward. I would by no means justify the crusaders; for their zeal, if a religious one, was by no means such as the religion of our Lord called for. It was, I fear, more a love of war and military glory than a sincere desire to spread the Gospel, or a real jealousy for their Saviour's honour. The conquests of the cross cannot be accomplished by the sword, unless it be, indeed, by the "sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God," the preaching and teaching of the Gospel of Christ.

But to go on with our narrative. The Franks, as they were called, or Christians of the west, chose Godfrey of Boulogne, their general, to be king of Jerusalem; and there were nine Christian kings of Jerusalem, one after another, during a period of eighty eight years. At the end of this time, the Mussulmen again got possession of the sacred city; and they have continued their dominion there almost ever since, that is, for six hundred and fifty years. Not that the same Mahometan nations have been continually masters of it during that period. There were several changes, besides occasional invasions of conquering armies, which all helped to increase the miseries of Jerusalem, to add to the sufferings of the Jews, and to fulfil our Saviour's predictions.

E. And who are now the masters of Jerusalem ? M. The Turks at present possess it, calling themselves its protectors; for they consider it a holy place: but they are in reality its tyrants and oppressors.

E. There is then still a city of Jerusalem?

M. Yes, there is still a city, such as it is; but with