"Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise! Exalt thy towering head and lift thine eyes! See a long race thy spacious courts adorn, See future sons and daughters yet unborn! See barbarous nations at thy gates attend, Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend! See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings, And heaped with products of Sabaean springs! No more the rising sun shall gild the morn, Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn; But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays, One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze O'erflow thy courts; the Light himself shall shine Revealed, and God's eternal day be thine! The seas shall waste, the skies to smoke decay, Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away; But fixed His word, His saving power remains: Thy realm forever lasts; thy own Messiah reigns!" JEREMIAH. ABOUT 629-580 B.C. THE FALL OF JERUSALEM. Jeremiah is a study to those who would know the history of the latter days of the Jewish monarchy, before it finally succumbed to the Babylonian conqueror. He was a sad and isolated man, who uttered his prophetic warnings to a perverse and scornful generation; persecuted because he was truthful, yet not entirely neglected or disregarded, since he was consulted in great national dangers by the monarchs with whom he was contemporary. So important were his utterances, it is matter of great satisfaction that they were committed to writing, for the benefit of future generations,--not of Jews only, but of the Gentiles,--on account of the fundamental truths contained in them. Next to Isaiah, Jeremiah was the most prominent of the prophets who were commissioned to declare the will and judgments of Jehovah on a degenerate and backsliding people. He was a preacher of righteousness, as well as a prophet of impending woes. As a reformer he was unsuccessful, since the Hebrew nation was incorrigibly joined to its idols. His public career extended over a period of forty years. He was neither popular with the people, nor a favorite of kings and princes; the nation was against him and the times were against him. He exasperated alike the priests, the nobles, and the populace by his rebukes. As a prophet he had no honor in his native place. He uniformly opposed the current of popular prejudices, and denounced every form of selfishness and superstition; but all his protests and rebukes were in vain. There were very few to encourage him or comfort him. Like Noah, he was alone amidst universal derision and scorn, so that he was sad beyond measure, more filled with grief than with indignation.