JERUSALEM THE SACRED CITY--ALEXANDRIA NOTED FOR PHILOSOPHY--SCHOOL OF HYPATIA--MOB MURDERS HER--DOCTRINES OF CYRIL--JERUSALEM A SCENE OF SUFFERING--FULFILLMENT OF PROPHECY--HERCULANEUM AND POMPEII--THEIR DESTRUCTION--EVIDENCES OF THEIR WICKEDNESS--EXCAVATIONS--ROMAN RULE--REMOVAL OF CAPITAL--CRIMES OF CONSTANTINE--COMMENCEMENT OF GREEK EMPIRE--DESCRIPTION OF CONSTANTINOPLE--ITS CAPTURE BY CRUSADERS--TAKEN BY THE TURKS--INTELLECTUAL DEGRADATION--PRIESTCRAFT--DEBAUCHERY--TURKISH RULE. The four great cities of medieval times were Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria and Constantinople. The first named has ever been the sacred city, not merely of the Jews, but also of devout Christian pilgrims of all ages. During the crusades it was the great object for the possession of which so much blood and treasure were expended. Alexandria, for the first three centuries of the Christian era, was the commercial metropolis of the world, as well as the chief seat of pagan learning and philosophy. It was here that Hypatia, the daughter of Theon, the mathematician, held her famous school. Each day before her academy stood a long train of chariots. Her lecture room was crowded with the cultured classes of Alexandria. They came to ask those profound questions that human reason, unaided, can never answer: "What am I? Where am I? What can I know?" At this time, Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, was attempting to force upon the world his trinitarian views. His absurd ideas could not endure the sharp criticism of philosophic {45} minds. Cyril employed a mob of Alexandrian monks. Amid the fearful yelling of these bare-legged and black-cowled fiends, Hypatia was dragged from her chariot. In mortal terror she fled to an adjacent church, and was there brutally murdered by the club of Peter the Reader. But this was not all. We can only get a faint idea of the depraved condition of paganized Christianity, when we call to mind the fact that the monks finished their infernal crime by dismembering her body and scraping the flesh from her bones with oyster shells. Cyril then procured the banishment of all who held opposing doctrines, and thus his absurd doctrines were forced upon society. Such was the debased condition of society in a city where had been planted one of the apostolic churches. As vice increased her prosperity decreased. During the reign of Constantine, the influence of Alexandria was much diminished, and with the Mahometan conquest it fell to the rank of a provincial town. Jerusalem, once the "glory of the earth, and the pride of the nations," never recovered from the siege by Titus, in A. D. 70. The answer which the Jews made to Pilate, "_His blood be upon us and upon our children_," which they spake in reference to the Savior, has been terribly and literally fulfilled. It may be safely asserted that Jerusalem has witnessed more scenes of human suffering than any other spot on earth.