Jerusalem, Her Ruins.

royal splendour hardl y realized by moderns . Her palace and temple , in all their arrangements , were beyond the pen of description . The city commanded a prominent position , and had , from her Avails , a grand vieAv of the entire land , ancl Avas the centre of a group of small mountains , Avhich have become Avoven in the history of that

age . _ This grand ancl beautiful city AVUS sevens teen times destroyed during a period of fifteen centuries . At one time her people Avere put to the edge of tbe sword , and tbe city consigned to the flames .

TAvice she Avas completely razed to the ground . Twice her walls wore battered to the earth . Her people became the captives of the adjoining nations . Feuds , quarrels , dissensions and civil wars Avere her lotand revolutions became

, an important part of her lamentable history . By some strange fact or phenomenon , the mins became covered as an heap , and a new people built their homes above them , and the places of interest became the home

of the reptiles of the field . Her urst siege Avas fourteen hundred years B . C ., a very memorable event in her history . She Avas a long time in the possession of the Jebusites , and though the powers of Benjamin and Judah Avere

exerted for their overthrow , it was Avithout effect . At one time David advanced against her with tAvo hundred and ei ghty thousand warriors , but it Avas only after a long and tedious fi ght that he made a conquest of it .

During all of fifteen centuries she Avas continually engaged in war , a series of conflicts and struggles , ancl it would seem that after so many disasters ancl conflicts that she would have succumbed , and her overthroAv been complete ; but each time she repletes her army , rebuilds her

destroyed walls , and rising from the ruins of her former glory , starts again upon her march of progress ; again her busy mart of commerce is all astir with life and activity . Her people Avere the captives of Bab ylonian tyrants , but though two generations nearly passed before they enjoyed a restored liberty , yet again they made the city to rejoice , and again restored

the temple and all the vessels for the Avorship of God . These many vicissitudes of that devoted city furnish to the mind of the lover of Masonry the great thoughts and valuable lessons of human life . We have in her

national and individual history the conflicts and triumphs of life thoroughly exemplified . NOAV when the sacred and national history of that great people , Avith so many other items of interest are brought before our mind in their solemn and impressive form , is there any Avonder that Ave form an attachment for these objects ol interest .

The court and cloisters of the last temple were finished about nine years B . C ., the city at that time being under the power of the Roman government . After the destruction of this temple the city Avas doomed never to re-invest herself

Avith the splendour of the past . Her glory had faded . It mattered not how many future conquests she might have , she was never to have her former glory again . What fearful disaster came upon her after that ancl covered her in heaps of ruins ,

history does not tell . But AVhen Ave assert that this city IIOAV lies numbered among the buried cities , we enter upon the threshold of dispute . Nevertheless , discoveries of late date give conclusive evidence of the fact that the ancient city lies to a considerable depth beneath the present city ;

ancl many queer inquiries are made as to the manner of that accumulation that has so enveloped her , but no authoritative answer can be given , some supposing that other homes Avere builded upon her ruins , while it is not an unreasonable assertion that the Avinds have carried the sands of

the desert , and these combined have made the earth that is now above the city . Suffice it only to say that the present city lies above the ruins of the past . At Avhat time this accumulation began no one can tell . At Avhat time the present

city began its existence may also be very hard to determine ; but enough has been developed to bring to light indubitable evidence of the former city . The conquests of the Crusades , ancl the ruins , as discovered , furnish a theme of themselves . Voice of Masonry , America .