punishment and the vengeance of the Almighty? You are "treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God."

God is now displaying his forbearance, not willing that any of you should perish; but if you disregard him, he will visit you in wrath, and that may be very speedily.

What an awful reality will you find at the last great day in those matters which you now treat with contempt! Follow your present course, and eternal damnation will be the inevitable consequence.

Flee from the wrath to come, and pray earnestly that the Holy Spirit may lead you to the "Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world."

You have many opportunities for meditation. Let me entreat you to reflect seriously on the state of your immortal souls: on what the word of God says respecting the wicked :—" The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolators, and all liars, shall have their portion in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone !"-Who among you is able to dwell with everlasting burnings?

Oh! most blessed God! be pleased to enlighten and convert my poor brother sailors. Though in times past thou hast seemed to pass them by, yet now appear in all the glory of thy power, and turn them effectually to thyself; that the ships of our native country may be manned with heaven-seeking souls, who in visiting foreign countries may no longer convey the seeds of evil, to render the world more wicked and miserable, but who may carry the blessings of the gospel of peace, to spread and multiply the sources of social welfare and individual happiness! And when it shall please thee, oh! most glorious Father! to accomplish this, seamen will prove a blessing to the world, an honour to their country, and the surest bulwark it can possess.

AN OLD SAILOR.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE HOLY CITY.

The picture which Josephus has given us of the siege and overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus, is drawn in gloomy colours, and presents a fearful succession of disease, famine, suffering, and slaughter. The Romans had beseiged the city at a time when multitudes of the Jews were collected in it to celebrate the Passover. First came pestilence, and then famine and the sword; so that, according to the same historian, there perished during the siege not less than eleven hundred thousand persons, while ninety-seven thousand more were made captives. The devastation of the temple and the city was terrific, and in a sense complete. The former was burned with fire; and the walls of both, with the exceptions hereafter to be mentioned, were levelled with the ground, so that the passer by would not have supposed that the place had ever been inhabited.

Yet amid all this destruction, and the insatiable fury of the Roman soldiers, there is no evidence that it was the intent of Titus to lay a ban upon the city, and devote it to perpetual desolation. This, indeed, was sometimes done by the Romans, in respect to conquered cities; the plough was made to pass over their ruins, as a symbol of exauguration, and they might then never be again built up. But Jerusalem

was not thus made a doomed site; no plough was passed over its ruins, as has sometimes been reported, and no superstitious curse rested upon its future renovation. Josephus, the eye-witness and participator in all those scenes, who describes in minute detail the events and consequences of the siege, is wholly silent as to any such desecration. The report in question has no doubt arisen in modern times, from confounding a notice relating to the time of Adrian with the events which occurred under Titus.

The destruction of Jerusalem, however terrible, was nevertheless not total. Josephus expressly relates, that, by order of Titus, the whole western wall of the city, and the three towers of Hippicus, Phasäelus, and Mariamne, were left standing; the former as a protection for the troops that remained here in garrison, and the latter as a memorial to posterity of the strength of the fortifications which Roman valour had overcome. Titus stationed here, at his departure, the whole of the tenth legion, besides several squadrons of cavalry and cohorts of foot. For these troops and their attendants, there of course remained dwellings; and there is no reason to suppose that such Jews as had taken no part in the war, or perhaps also christians, were prohibited from taking up their abode amid the ruins, and building them up so far as their necessities might require. But, on the other hand, the language of Eusebius is no doubt exaggerated, when, in commenting upon a passage in Zechariah, he assumes, in order to explain it, that the city was only half destroyed under Titus. The remark of Jerome is probably nearer the truth, that, for fifty years after its destruction until the time of Adrian, there still existed remnants of the city. This accords, also, with other subsequent accounts.

For half a century after its destruction, there is no mention of Jerusalem in history. The Jews in Egypt had revolted under Trajan, and had been subdued. The Emperor died in A. D. 117, and was followed by Adrian, who spent the greater part of his reign in journeying through the provinces of his vast empire. He appears to have been in Palestine about A. D. 130; up to which time, with slight exceptions, the Jews had remained quiet, though waiting doubtless for a favourable opportunity of shaking off the yoke of Roman oppression, and reasserting their national independence. The emperor could not but be aware of the state of feeling prevalent among them; and it was natural that he should adopt precautionary measures to secure the fidelity and quiet of the province. One of these was to disperse the remaining Jews in colonies, in various parts, especially along the northern coast of Africa. A measure, more important in its consequences, was the rebuilding of Jerusalem as a fortified place, by which to keep in check the whole Jewish population.

This determination of Adrian is assigned, by the historian Dio Cassius, as the cause of the subsequent revolt and war of the Jews, who could not bear that foreigners should dwell in their city, nor that strange gods should be set up within it. Eusebius, on the other hand, relates that the city was rebuilt, and the colony founded, by Adrian, after the revolted Jews had been once more subdued. These accounts are easily reconciled. The works had probably been already commenced, when they were broken off by the rebellion; and after this was quelled, they were again resumed and completed.

The undertaking of this renovation, then, was the signal for the Jews to break out into open revolt, so soon as the emperor had forsaken the East, apparently about A. D. 132. The long-smothered embers of hatred and discontent now burst forth into a flame which overran and consumed both the land and the people, with terrible desolation. The leader of this war was the celebrated though mysterious Barcochba, "Son of a Star." His success at first was great. The Jews of Palestine all flocked to his standard; the christians, also, were tampered with, but, refusing to join him, were afterwards treated with horrid cruelty. He appears to have soon got possession of Jerusalem. This is evident from the fact of the subsequent recapture of the city by the Romans; and it would seem, also, that coins (some of which are still extant) were struck by him, in the Holy City. The Romans at first made light of the rebellion, and disregarded the efforts of this despised people; and it was not until the spirit of revolt had spread among the Jews throughout the empire, and the whole world (as Dio expresses it) was moved, that Adrian awoke from his apathy. The rebel Jews had already got possession of fifty fortified places, and nine hundred and eighty-five important villages. The emperor now collected troops from various quarters, and took measures to prosecute the war in earnest. He dispatched his best officers into the revolted country; and recalling his most distinguished general, Julius Severus, from Britain, sent him to take charge of the war in the East. The struggle was long and desperate. The Jews were numerous, and

fought with the bravery of despair. Julius attacked their smaller parties, cut off their supplies of provisions, and thus was able-more slowly, indeed, but also with less danger-to wear out their strength, and finally destroy them.

It is singular, that the siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Romans, during this war, is nowhere described, and only once mentioned by a contemporary writer. The historian Appian, in the same century, gives it a passing note; but all we know further is from the slight mention of it by Eusebius and later authors, the earliest of whom wrote two centuries after the event. The writings of the Rabbins, the repositories of Jewish tradition, are silent as to the siege, though they speak of the desecration of the site of the temple. Yet the various testimonies, although scattered, are too numerous and definite to admit of doubt as to the fact. Jerusalem must naturally have been one of the chief points of Jewish defence, and the possession of it one of the main objects of the Roman policy. Of the circumstances of the siege and capture we have no account. It was not now, as under Titus, the scene of the last great struggle of the war; for this took place in the siege of the strong but now unknown city of Bether, described as situated not far from Jerusalem. Here the bloody tragedy was brought to a close, in the eighteenth year of Adrian, A. D. 135. Thousands and thousands of the captive Jews were sold as slaves; first at the terebinth, near Hebron, where of old the tent of their forefather Abraham had stood, and where there had long been a frequented market; afterwards at Gaza; and then the remainder were transported in ships, as slaves, to Egypt. By a decree of Adrian, the Jews were henceforth forbidden even to approach the Holy City; and guards were stationed to prevent them from making the attempt.

Several of the writers who allude to the capture of Jerusalem under Adrian, speak of the city as having been laid a second time in ruins, and utterly destroyed. But this circumstance stands in direct contradiction with the known purpose of Adrian to rebuild the former city; a purpose which he afterwards accomplished, and which he had probably begun to carry into execution before the war broke out, since this is assigned as the very cause of the war. It must also be remembered, that the writers, who thus speak, all lived some three centuries or more after the event. Nor does a greater credit seem due to the relation of Jewish writers, which is also repeated by Jerome, that the governor of the province, Titus Annius Rufus, caused the plough to be passed over the site of the ancient temple, in order to desecrate it for ever. There is no evidence that the Romans ever applied this symbol of perpetual doom to the sites of single edifices; and further, Adrian is expressly said to have erected a temple to Jupiter upon the same spot, a circumstance entirely inconsistent with such a desecration; and Julian, two centuries later, the zealous protector of ancient superstitions, encouraged the Jews themselves to undertake the rebuilding of their temple. Both these accounts, therefore, would seem rather to belong to the legendary inventions of a later age.

The work of rebuilding the city would appear to have been resumed

immediately after the close of the war, if not before. In A. D. 136, the emperor Adrian celebrated his Vicennalia, on entering upon the twentieth year of his reign. On such occasions, which heretofore only Augustus and Trajan had lived to see, it seems to have been customary to build or consecrate new cities, or else give to former cities new names. At this time the new Roman colony, established upon the site of the former Jerusalem, received the names of Colonica Elia Capitolina; the former after the prænomen of the emperor, Ælius Adrianus; and the latter in honour of the Jupiter Capitolinus, whose fane now occupied the place of the Jewish temple. The place became to all intents a Roman and pagan city; Jupiter was made its patron god; and statues of Jupiter and Venus were then, or later, erected on sites which afterwards were held to be the places of the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord. The city was probably strongly fortified.

(To be continued.)

ICEBERGS.

Our ship was now all cased with ice,-hull, spars, and standing rigging; and the running rigging so stiff that we could hardly bend it so as to belay it, or, still worse, take a knot with it; and the sails nearly as stiff as sheet iron. One at a time, (for it was a long piece of work and required many hands,) we furled the courses, mizen topsail, and fore top-mast stay-sail, and close-reefed the fore and main top-sails, and hove the ship to under the fore, with the main hauled up by the clewlines and buntlines, and ready to be sheeted home, if we found it necessary to make sail to get to windward of an island. A regular look-out was then set, and kept by each watch in turn, until the morning. It was a tedious and anxious night. It blew hard the whole time, and there was an almost constant driving of either rain hail, or snow. In addition to this, it was 66 as thick as muck," and the ice was all about us. The captain was on deck nearly the whole night, and kept the cook in the galley, with a roaring fire, to make coffee for him, which he took every few hours, and once or twice gave a little to his officers; but not a drop of anything was there for the crew. The captain, who sleeps all the daytime, and comes and goes at night as he chooses, can have his brandy and water in the cabin, and his hot coffee at the galley; while Jack, who has to stand through everything, and work in wet and cold, can have nothing to wet his lips, or warm his stomach. This was a " temperance ship," and, like too many such ships, the temperance was all in the forecastle. The sailor, who only takes his one glass as it is dealt out to him, is in danger of being drunk: while the captain, who has all under his hand, and can drink as much as he chooses, and upon whose self possession and cool judgment the lives of all depend, may be trusted with any amount, to drink at his will. Sailors will never be convinced that