Our Lord, The Lord, the hereditary King of the Jews according to the
flesh, as well as the God of the Jews according to the Spirit,
foresaw the destruction of the work of his own hands, of the spot on
earth which was most precious to him. The ruin would be awful, the
suffering horrible. The daughters of Jerusalem were to weep, not for
him, but for themselves. Blessed would be the barren, and those that
never nursed a child. They would call on the mountains to cover
them, and on the hills to hide them, and call in vain. Such
tribulation would fall on them as never had been since the making of
the world. Mothers would eat their own children for famine. Three
thousand crosses would stand at one time in the valley below with a
living man writhing on each. Eleven hundred thousand souls would
perish, or be sold as slaves. It must be. The eternal laws of
retribution, according to which God governs the world, must have
their way now. It was too late. It must happen now. But it need
not have happened: and at that thought our Lord's infinite heart
burst forth in human tenderness, human pity, human love, as he looked
on that magnificent city, those gorgeous temples, castles, palaces,
that mighty multitude which dreamt so little of the awful doom which
they were bringing on themselves.
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