Jerusalem." Finally, in the fortieth year after Christ, when three million Jews were collected in Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover, the Roman army suddenly appeared and laid siege to the city. In their march on Jerusalem they had slain no less than fourteen hundred thousand Jews. But the worst was to come, for now began a war compared to which that of China and Japan was nothing, and the American Revolution as the killing of one man. For the Jews inside the city were divided among themselves, and fought till, from very hunger and disease, they could fight no longer. On the other hand, the deserters and fugitives were all captured and cut open by the enemy, in the hope their captors had of securing the gold the poor wretches had attempted to save by swallowing. War and famine — famine such that the nearest and dearest slew one another for a meal, and mothers secretly cooked and ate their own infants. Dead bodies everywhere, and the living died while trying to bury the dead, until the city became one vast pestilential morgue. And at last, when resistance was no longer possible, the victorious Romans rushed in with fire and sword, and burned and razed the Temple to the ground, and levelled the city walls to the very foundation. Josephus estimates that, at the siege of Jerusalem alone, ninety-seven thousand were taken prisoner, eleven hundred thousand were slain, two thousand were killed by their own people, and two thousand more died by their own hand. Such was the fulfilment of Christ's prophecy, and even had we no historic testimony of this fact, there
