many broken hearts; how many citizens disfranchised; how many laws perverted; how many crimes of oppression, extortion, injustice, cry from their midst to heaven for vengeance!
" And the king, being angry, sent his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned their city." From the past the parable now turns to the future, and foretells the most signal instance of divine vengeance that history affords — the siege and capture and destruction of Jerusalem. Thirty-seven years after Christ's Ascension, a Roman army, guided and aided from on high, attacked the Jewish capital, captured and enslaved ninety-seven thousand; slew sixteen hundred thousand; burned the Temple and razed the city to the ground. Forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, and God slew those murderers and burned their city. The wedding, indeed, was ready, but they that were invited were not worthy. What food for reflection here, my Brethren! How often since then has Christ's invitation to that feast, where He is both host and banquet, been scornfully refused or neglected! " Come to Me," He says, " all ye that labor and are burdened, and I will refresh you." But men mistrust Him. They fear His yoke is neither sweet nor His burden light, and so they turn from Him to the world, its allurements and its slavery. As surely as the darkness follows the light, so surely will God's vengeance overtake these men and destroy these murderers of their own souls, and burn those temples of pleasure, their vile bodies. But God's mercy, though superseded for a moment
