or.
Some of them would be doomed to work in chains in Egyptian mines. Young
boys and girls would be sold as slaves. Many would be slain by wild
beasts and gladiators. Saddest of all would be the Temple scenes. Though
Titus command its preservation his infuriated soldiery will not spare
it. On its altar there would be no sacrifice because no priest to offer
it. That altar would be heaped with the slain. Streams of blood would
flow through the temple courts, and thousands of women perish in its
blazing corridors. The time was to come when John, recalling his
question on Olivet and his Lord's prophecy concerning Jerusalem, could
say,

"All is o'er, Her grandeur and her guilt."

Was he the one of the disciples who hailed the Master, saying, "Behold
what manner of stones, and what manner of buildings!"? If so, with what
emotions he must have recalled his exclamation after the prophecy of
their destruction had been fulfilled. Outliving all his fellow-apostles
the time came when he could stand alone where once he stood with Peter
and James and Andrew, not asking questions "When shall these things be?"
and, "What shall be the sign when these things are all about to be
accomplished?" but repeating the lament of Bishop Heber over Jerusalem
in ruins:

"Reft of thy son, amid thy foes forlorn,
Mourn, widow'd Queen; forgotten Zion, mourn.
Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne,
Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone;
Where suns unblessed their angry luster fling,
And way-worn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?
Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy viewed?
Where now thy might which all those kings subdued?
No martial myriads muster in thy gate;
No suppliant nations in thy temple wait;
No prophet bards, thy glittering courts among,
Wake the full lyre, and swell the tide of song:
But lawless force and meagre want are there,
And the quick-darting eye of restless fear,
While cold oblivion, 'mid thy ruins laid,
Folds its dank wing beneath the ivy shade."

_CHAPTER XXII_

_John a Provider for the Passover_

"He sent Peter and John, saying, Go and make ready for us the
Passover, that we may eat."--_Luke_ xxii. 8.

"And they went ... and they made ready the Passover."--_v._ 13.

The last time we saw Judas was when he left the feast of Bethany,
murmuring at Mary's deed, angry at the Lord's defence of her, and
p