Such was the Jerusalem of the past, over which the Son of God gazed and wept. What was the Jerusalem of the present, on which He looked; what of the future? It was a doomed city, because in spite of all its chances, its warnings, its opportunities, it repented not. Its Rulers and Chief Priests refused to hear the Word of God spoken by the Messiah. What the common people listened to gladly, what the fishermen of Galilee, and the sick and sorrowing rejoiced to hear, Jerusalem rejected. And so Jerusalem was doomed. Over gorgeous temple, stately palace, and quiet home alike was written Ichabod--thy glory is departed. Already the axe was laid to the root of the tree; already the sentence had gone forth, "cut it down: why cumbereth it the ground?" Already the hand of the destroyer was upon the city; the Roman eagle glittered amid the halls of Zion, and the once glorious sceptre had departed from Judah. Over such a city Jesus wept. And what of the future? The end came soon. Quickly the Jews filled up the measure, of their sins. Little thought they, as they watched with jibe and insult the agonies of God's Son, that those streets of theirs should run red with the blood of their best and bravest. That famine, and pestilence, and treachery, and civil war should all attack them within, whilst the Roman hosts surrounded them without. Little they thought that the temple where Jesus had been presented, where He had talked with the doctors, where He had taught such wondrous lessons, should be burned by the hand of the enemy; that its altars should drip with Jewish blood; the abomination of desolation stand in the holy place, and the golden candlestick grace a victor's triumph in the streets of Rome. Little thought those cruel men, who crucified the Lord of Life, that within a while the Romans should crucify their brethren outside the walls of Jerusalem, till there was no wood left to make a cross. "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this day, the things which belong to thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes!"