mselves, so that upon them should rest the
burden of all the righteous blood that had been shed for a testimony of
God, from righteous Abel to the martyred Zacharias.[1142] That dread
fate, outlined with such awful realism, was to be no eventuality of the
distant future; every one of the frightful woes the Lord had uttered was
to be realized in that generation.

THE LORD'S LAMENTATION OVER JERUSALEM.[1143]

Concerning scribes, Pharisees, and Pharisaism, Jesus had uttered His
last word. Looking from the temple heights out over the city of the
great King, soon to be abandoned to destruction, the Lord was obsessed
by emotions of profound sorrow. With the undying eloquence of anguish He
broke forth in such a lamentation as no mortal father ever voiced over
the most unfilial and recreant of sons.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest
them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,
and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I
say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Had Israel but received her
King, the world's history of post-meridian time would never have been
what it is. The children of Israel had spurned the proffered safety of a
protecting paternal wing; soon the Roman eagle would swoop down upon
them and slay. The stupendous temple, which but a day before the Lord
had called "My house," was now no longer specifically His; "Your house,"
said He, "is left unto you desolate." He was about to withdraw from both
temple and nation; and by the Jews His face was not again to be seen,
until, through the discipline of centuries of suffering they shall be
prepared to acclaim in accents of abiding faith, as some of them had
shouted but the Sunday before under the impulse of an erroneous
conception, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

A WIDOW'S GIFT.[1144]

From the open courts Jesus moved over toward the colonnaded treasury of
the temple, and there He sat, seemingly absorbed in a revery of sorrow.
Within that space were thirteen chests, each provided with a
trumpet-shaped receptacle; and into these the people dropped their
contributions for the several purposes indicated by inscriptions on the
boxes. Looking up, Jesus observed the lines of donors, of all ranks and
degrees of affluence