nt, describes those who come
into the church without real faith in the Lord Jesus, and are not
prepared to enter heaven. "For many are called," said Jesus, "but few
are chosen."

Knowing the wickedness of the priests and Pharisees, who stood before
the people as more holy than others, the Lord ended His last day in the
Temple with words to them that must have been sharper than a sword, and
more burning than flames of fire. These words are in the twenty-third
chapter of Matthew, and may no child who reads them ever live to
deserve to hear them for himself. To the hypocrite alone the Lord was
stern and severe, but to the sinner who truly repented He was full of
forgiving love. After telling them of the sorrows and desolations that
must fall upon the Holy City because of the sins of those who should be
true and faithful teachers of their holy religion, He sent forth these
last words of love and sorrow through the Temple courts,

"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.'" And He went out
of the Temple to return no more.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

AN EVENING ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.

Jesus and His friends went out from the Temple and Jerusalem to the
Mount of Olives, and as they looked back upon the beautiful buildings
of marble and gold that made the Temple seem like a great jewel shining
in the sunset, the disciples turned to Jesus and spoke of it, but He
said,

"There shall not be left here one stone that shall not be thrown down."

They sat down on the slope of Olivet where the olive and fig-trees were
putting forth their new leaves, and in that quiet time Peter, and
James, and John, and Andrew drew close about their beloved Master, and
said, "Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign
of thy coming, and the end of the world?" He told them many things
hard to be understood; of the sorrows of Israel when their city should
be destroyed, and the people scattered; of the end of the age, when
they should turn to the Lord they had rejected, and of His coming to
the whole world.

"Watch, therefore," He said, "for ye know not what hour your Lord do