ficence of the temple service, failed to extirpate entirely the propensity to idolatry. Occasionally it sprang up and overspread the country, till at last the Almighty saw fit to suffer that temple to be overthrown, his people to be carried into captivity, and his worship to be suspended for seventy years. And his judgments accomplished what his mercies could not effect. That very measure of divine severity, which at first sight threatened to destroy the worship of the true God from the face of the earth, and give up the world to the interminable dominion of idolatry, was the means of establishing it on a firmer basis than ever. Although Jerusalem was overthrown, and the temple razed to its foundation, the captive Jews carried the true Jerusalem in their hearts. Whereever they were, in the splendid cities of the East, or amid the fascinations of Egypt, or the tents of the wandering shepherds, still their affections were in the Holy Land. Like Daniel they turned their faces in their prayers toward the place where they and their fathers had worshipped, or like Nehemiah, when serving in the courts of princes, they mourned and fasted when they heard "that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down, and her gates burned with fire." And that most exquisite elegy of some captive Jew, which we have in the one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm, may be considered as expressing the sentiments of every captive who was led away into slavery.

By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down,

Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.

We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof,
For they that carried us away captive required of us a song,
And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,

Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,

Let my right hand forget her cunning!

If I do not remember thee,

Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,

If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy."

There

There in slavery they had time and opportunity to reflect upon the causes of their calamities. they read in the books of Moses, which were the companions of their exile, the awful curses which he had denounced against them if they forsook the worship of the true God, and felt them to be fulfilled in themselves. There they read the prophecy, which had been written by Moses almost a thousand years before, in the book of Deuteronomy: "If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, the Lord thy God, the Lord will scatter thee among all people from one end of the earth even unto the other. And among these nations thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest, but the Lord shall give thee then a trembling heart, and failing eyes, and sorrow of mind. And thy life shall hang in doubt before

thee, and thou shalt fear night and day, and have no assurance of thy life. In the morning thou shalt say, 'Would God it were evening,' and in the evening, 'Would God it were morning,' for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see."

Smitten to the heart by the fulfilment of such awful threatenings, all propensity to idolatry was forever cured. Never after this period could the allurements of pleasure, nor the threats of pain, neither dens of wild beasts, nor the fiery furnace, neither instant death nor lingering torture, ever induce them to offer sacrifice to idol gods. That same Providence, which had scattered them in foreign lands, now restored them to their own. Their temple was rebuilt, the daily sacrifice was resumed, and was never intermitted, with the exception of about three years under Antiochus Epiphanes, till that great Personage appeared, who declared himself greater than the temple, for whose coming the Mosaic Economy had been preparatory, and who came not as the legislator of a nation, but as the Light of the world; and who declared that henceforth not in Jerusalem nor Mount Gerizim, nor any other particular spot, men should worship the Father, but wherever they could worship him in spirit and in truth.

Thus the mission of Moses was fulfilled. One nation was redeemed from idolatry, and consecrated

to the worship of the only living and true God. The way was prepared for the reception of a universal religion. Judaism under God was the means of introducing Christianity into the world, the original stock upon which the more perfect tree was engrafted. Having thus apparently accomplished the purposes of its existence, the nation soon ceased to be. Jerusalem was overthrown and trodden under foot of the Gentiles. Ruin drove her ploughshare through her crumbling walls, and a temple of an impostor now occupies the very site where abode the Ark of God, and where the Saviour taught. A remnant still survives, for what purpose is known to God alone. Perhaps they are to be restored once more to their native seats, still longer and more gloriously to testify to the truth of God's word.

"Fallen is thy throne, O Israel,
Silence is on thy plains,

Thy dwellings all lie desolate,

Thy children weep in chains.
Where are the dews that fed thee
On Etham's barren shore?

That fire from heaven that led thee,
Now lights thy path no more.

Lord, thou didst love Jerusalem,
Once she was all thy own;
Her love thy fairest heritage,
Her power thy glory's throne,

Till evil came and blighted

Thy long loved olive tree,

And Salem's shrines were lighted
For other gods than thee.

Then sunk the star of Solyma,
Then passed her glory's day,
Like heath that in the wilderness
The wild wind whirls away.
Silent and waste her bowers
Where once the mighty trod,
And sunk those guilty towers
Where Baal reigned as God.

Go, saith the Lord, ye conquerors
Steep in her blood your swords,
And raze to earth her battlements
For they are not the Lord's;
Tell Zion's mournful daughter
O'er kindred bones she'll tread,
And Hinnom's vale of slaughter
Shall hide not half her dead.

But soon shall other pictured scenes

In brighter vision rise,

When Zion's sun shall seven fold shine

On all her mourners' eyes,

And on her beauteous mountains stand

The messengers of peace,

'Salvation from the Lord's right hand' They shout and never cease.'

"But who shall see the glorious day
When throned on Zion's brow,
The Lord shall rend the veil away
Which blinds the nations now;