Connecticut western news., 1890-10-15

queens ascending the stairway. o Jer- usalem, Jerusalem Mountain city! City of God! Joy of the whole earth ! Stronger than Gibraltar and Sebasto- pol! Surely it never could have been captured.
 But while standing there on the housetop that December afternoon l hear the crash of the twenty-three mighty sieges which have come against Jerusalem in the ages past. Wonder is the pool of Hezekiah and Siloam, but again and again were those waters reddened with human gore Wonder are the towers, but again and again they fell Wonder are the high walls, but again and again they were leveled. To rob the treasures from her temple and palace and dethrone this queen city of the earth all nations plotted. David taking the throne at Hebron de cides that he must have Jerusalem for his capital, and coming up from the south at the head of two hundred and eighty thousand troops he captures it. Look, here comes another siege of Jer usalem!
 The Assyrians under Sennacherib, enslaved nations at his chariot wheel, having taken two hundred thousand captives in his one campaign; Ph@nician cities kneeling at his feet, Egypt trembling at the flash of his sword, comes upon Jerusalem. Look, another siege! The armies of Babylon, under Nebuchadnezzar, come down and take a plunder from Jerusalem such as no other city ever had to yield, and ten thousand of her citizens trudge off into Babylonian bondage. Look, another siege! and Nebuchadnezzar and his hosts by night go through breach of the Jerusalem wall, and the morning finds some of them seated triumphant in the temple, and what they could not take away because too heavy they break up-the brazen sea and the two wreathed pillars, Jachin and Boaz.
 AssAILED BY THOUSANDS.
 Another siege of Jerusalem, and .Pompey, with the battering rams which a hundred men would roll back, and then at full run forward would bang against the wall of the city, and cata- pults hurling the rocks upon the peo- pie, left twelve thousand dead, and the city in the clutch of the Roman war eagle. Look, a more desperate siege of Jerusalem! Titus, with his tenth legion on Mount of Olives, and ballista arranged on the principle of the pendulum to swing great powders against walls and towers, and miners digging under the city making galleries of beams underground, which, set on fire, tumbled great masses of houses and human beings into destruction and death. All is taken now but the tenn pie, and Titus, the conqueror, wants to save that unharmed, but soldier, contrary to orders, hurls 8 torch into the temple and it is consumed. Many strangers were in the city at the time, and ninety-seven thousand captives were taken and Josephus says one million one hundred thousand lay dead
 GLORIOUS SALADIN.
 But looking from this housetop the siege that most absorbs us is that of the Crusaders. England and France and all Christendom wanted to capture the Holy Sepulcher and Jerusalem, then in possession of the Mohammedans un- der the command of one of the loviest, bravest and mightiest men that ever lived, for justice must be done him though he was Mohammedan-glo- rous Saladinl Against him came the armies of Europe, under Richard, Cmur de Lion, king of England; Philip Augustus, king of France; Tancred, Raymond, Godfrey and other valiant men, marching on through levers and plaques and battle charges and suffer ings as intense as the world ever saw Saladin in Jerusalem. hearing of the sickness of King Richard, his chief en- emy, sends him his own physician, and from the walls of Jerusalem, seeing King Richard afoot, sends him horse. With all the world looking on the armies of Europe come within sight of Jerusalem.
 At the first glimpse of the city they fall on their faces in reverence, and then lift anthems of praise. Feuds and hatred among themselves were qivep up, and Raymond and Tancred, the bitterest rivals, embraced while the armies looked on. Then the battering rams rolled, and the catapults swung, and the swords thrust, and the carnage ragged. Godfrey of Bouillon is the first to mount the wall, and the Crusaders, a cross on every shoulder or breast, having taken the city, march bare headed and barefooted to what they suppose to be the Holy Sepulchre and kiss the tomb. Jerusalem the posses sion of Christendom! But Saladin re- took the city, and for the last four hundred years it has been in possession of cruel and polluted Mohammedan- ism!
 Another crusade is needed to start for Jerusalem, a crusade in this Nine teenth century greater t,l>p all those o1 the past centl..os put together. A crusade in which you and 1 will march. A cr1,;@>ie without weapons of death, but only the sword of the Spirit. A crusade that will make not a single wound nor start one tear of distress, nor incendiarize one homestead. A crusade of gospel peace! And may the cross again be lifted on Calvary. not as once an instrument of pain, but a signal of invitation, and the mosque O1 Omar shall give place to church o1 Christ, and Mount Zion become the dwelling place not of David, but o1 David's Lord, and Jerusalem, purified of all it's idolatries, and taking back the Christ she once cast out, shall be