Not long before the outbreak of the Jewish War, seven years before the siege of Jerusalem, a man, by name Jesus, came to the city at the Feast of Tabernacles, and in a fit of abstraction cried continually, "Woe to the city! woe to the Temple!" He alarmed the authorities, who ordered him to be scourged as a madman; but he continued these exclamations, and during the siege he was last seen sitting on the wall, still repeating the same cries, till a missile put an end to him. The Jews rebelled against the Romans in 66. The Christians, remembering our Lord's admonition (Matt. xxiv. 15), forsook the city, and fled beyond the Jordan. In April 70, when the city was filled with strangers, the siege began, and history records no other instance of such obstinate resistance, such desperate bravery and contempt of death. The Castle of Antonia was surprised and taken by night. The famine was so severe that many swallowed their jewels; a mother even roasted her own child. Titus wished to spare the Temple. But in a fresh assault a soldier, unbidden, hurled a firebrand through the golden door. When the flame arose the Jews raised a hideous yell. The Roman legions vied with each other in feeding the flames. It was burnt on August 10th, 70, the same day of the year on which the first Temple was, according to tradition, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The sight was terrible. The mountain seemed enveloped in one sheet of flame; all was covered with corpses; over these heaps the soldiers pursued the fugitives. Josephus says the number of Jews slain was 1,100,000, and the number sold into slavery was 90,000. The Christian Church was by this event liberated from local influences, and took up an independent position in the world. ANTIOCH THE FIRST GENTILE CHURCH.