Des Arc citizen., 1860-05-19
The Fall of Jerusalem.

The Fall of Jerusalem.
 The fall of our llustrious and happy city was supernatural. The destruction of the conquered was agaInst the first principles of the Roman policy; and tc the last hour of our national existence Rome held out offers of peace, and la- mented our frantic disposition to be un- done. But the decree was gone forth from mightier throne. During the lat ter days of the siege, hostility, to which that of man was a grain of sand to the tempest that drives it on, overpowered our strength and senses. Fearful shapes and voices in the air; visions startling us from our short and troublesome sleep; lunacy in its hideous forms; sudden deaths in the midst of vgor; the fury of the ele- ments let loose upon the unsheltered heads-we had every terror and evil that could beset human nature; pestilence, the most intoIerable of all, in city crowded with the famishing, the diseased, the wounded, and the dead. Yet, though the streets were covered with unburied bodies, though every well and trench was teem- ing with them, six hundred thousand corpses lay flung over the rampant naked to the sun; pestilence came not, for if il had come the enemy would have been scared away. But the "abomination of desolation,' the pagan standard was fixed where it was to remain until the blow had passed over the ruins of Jerusalem. On this fatal night no man laid his head on his pillow-Heaven and earth were in conflict. Meteors burned above us; the ground shook under our feet; the volcano blazed; the wind shot forth in irresistible blasts, and swep. the living and the dead in whirlwinds, far in the desert. We heard the believing of the distant Med iterranean, as # it's waters were at our side, swelled by the deluge. The lake and rivers roarcd, and inundated the land
 The fiery sword shot out tenfold fire. Lightning in immense sheets of inlensi- ty and duration that turned the darkness into more than day, whitening eye and soul, burned from the zenith to the ground, and shattered the summit of the hills.
 Defence was not thought of, for the mortal enemy had passed from our mind. Our hear, quaked with fear; but it was to see the power of heaven shaken. All cast away the shield and the spear, and crouched before the descending judgment.
 We were conscience smilten. Our cries of remorse. anguish and horror, were heard through the uproar of the storm. We howled 10 the caverns to hide us; we plunged into the sepulchres to escape the wrath that consumed the living we would have buried ourselves beneath the noun. tains.
 I knew the cause, lhe unspeakable cause, and the last hour of crime was at hand. A few fugitives, astonished to see one man among them not sunk into the lowest feebeness of fear, came around me, and besought me to lead them to some safe place, if such were now to be found on earth. 1 openly counselled them to die in hallowed ground of the temple. They followed and I led through streets cumbered with every shape of human suffering, to the foot of Mount Moriah.
 But beyond that we found advance inn possible. Piles of clouds whose darkness was palpable, even in the midnight in which we stood obscured the holy hill. Impatient, and not to be daunted by any thing that man could overcome, I cheered
 my dishear,ened band, and attempted to lead the way up the ascent. But 1 had scarcely entered the cloud when l was swept down by gust that tore the rocks | in hnty shower around me. And now came the last and most wonderful sign that marked the fate of a rejected Israel While lay helpless, heard the whrl-
 wind roar through the cloudy hiillff, and vapors revolve. A pale light, like that of the rising moon, quivered on the edge, and clouds rose rapidly, shaping them selves into the forms of battlements and towers. The sound of voices was heard
 within, low and distinct yet strangely sweet. Still the lusre frightened, and as the airy building rose tower on tower, and baulement on battlement, we knell and gazed on this more than mortal archl- lecture, that continued rising and spread ing, and glowing with serener light, still soft and silyery, yet to which the moonbeam was dim. At last 1t stood forth from earth to heaven, the colossal image of the temple; of the building