The fall of Jerusalem and the Roman conquest of Judea . step by step, advancedas far as the Holy House itself. A Roman, climbing onthe shoulders of one of his comrades, then seized a burn-ing brand, and flung it through a golden window into aninner corridor. The flames sprang upward with terribleswiftness, and as they blazed and crackled, and wrote inletters of fire the doom of the wrath of God on the citywhich had persecuted his prophets and murdered his Son,the Jews raised a great shout of lamentation—such, saystheir historian, as so mighty an affliction required—andran together to prevent t
The fall of Jerusalem and the Roman conquest of Judea . step by step, advancedas far as the Holy House itself. A Roman, climbing onthe shoulders of one of his comrades, then seized a burn-ing brand, and flung it through a golden window into aninner corridor. The flames sprang upward with terribleswiftness, and as they blazed and crackled, and wrote inletters of fire the doom of the wrath of God on the citywhich had persecuted his prophets and murdered his Son,the Jews raised a great shout of lamentation—such, saystheir historian, as so mighty an affliction required—andran together to prevent the conflagration; sparing nottheir lives any longer, nor suffering aught to check theii THE DOWNFALL OF THE HOLY CITY. 109 fury, since tbat holy house was perishing for whose sakeit was they had fought so long and so desperately. Titus in vain attempted to arrest the progress of theflames. The Roman soldiers, infuriate with the resist-ance their arms had sustained, disregarded his orders, and,sword in hand, pressed into the smoking, burning SUPPOSED FORM OF THE SECOND TEMPLE. slaying men, and women, and children, until a pile ofdead bodies was raised around the altar. So the fire hadits way, and it shrivelled up the gilded ceilings, anddestroyed the beams of cedar, and crumbled into dust thesplendid hangings, and shattered roof, and wall, and pillar, 110 THE DOWNFALL OF THE HOLY CITY. until the Temple of Jerusalem was no more, and theSaviours words received their terrible fulfilment.* Now, the number of years, says Josephus, that passedfrom its first foundation, which was laid by King Solo-mon, till this its destruction, which happened in the se-cond year of the reign of Vespasian, is computed to beone thousand one hundred and thirty, besides sevenmonths, and fifteen days; and from the second buildingof it, which was done by Zorobabel, in the second year ofCyrus the king, till its destruction under Vespasian, therewere six hundred and thirty-nine years and forty-fiv
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