Around him were groups of his people, some of whom were standing, some sitting, some kneeling, while others were lying prostrate upon the stone pavement. Here sat a group of Jewish matrons, whose black tresses time had whitened, weeping as if broken-hearted; there stood an old man, leaning, like the patriarch Jacob, upon his staff, reciting, with faltering voice, his complaint before the Lord. Nearer the wall were men in the prime of life, absorbed in their recitations from the Prophets; while along the whole length of the wall, with their sacred books resting against it, were men and women of all ages, reading, weeping, and ever and anon smiting their troubled breasts. In the northeast corner of the inclosure, half hidden by the pavement, is one stone more sacred than the rest. Around it were gathered the rich and elegantly attired mothers and daughters of Israel, waiting to bow low and affectionately kiss the relic as a thing of love. Some, with a copy of Isaiah before them, audibly read, “Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity forever; behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy people. Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burnt up with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt thou refrain thyself for these things, O Lord? wilt thou hold thy peace and afflict us very sore?”[112] Others, reading from the Psalms, would passionately break forth, “O God, the heathen have come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps. We are become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are round about. How long, Lord? wilt thou be angry forever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?”[113]