from all
parts of the earth do at this day.

So minute and specific are the predictions of Scripture, that the fate
of particular buildings is accurately defined. One temple to the living
God, and only one, raised its walls in this world, which he had made for
his worship. Its frequenters perverted it from its proper use of leading
them to confess their sinfulness, to seek pardon through the promised
Savior to whom its ceremonies pointed, and to learn to be holy, as the
God of that temple was holy. They hoped that the holiness of the place
would screen them in the indulgence of pride, formality, and wickedness.
The temple of the Lord, instead of the Lord of the temple, was the
object of their veneration. But the doom went forth. "_Therefore for
your sakes shall Zion be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become
as heaps, and the mountain of the house like the high places of the
forest._" History has preserved, and the Jews to this day curse the name
of the soldier, Terentius Rufus, who plowed up the foundations of the
temple. It long continued in this state. But the Emperor Julian the
Apostate conceived the idea of falsifying the prediction of Jesus,
"_Behold your house is left unto you desolate_,"[109] and sent his
friend Alypius, with a Roman army, and abundant treasure, to rebuild it.
The Jews flocked from all parts to assist in the work. Spades and
pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the
rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. But they were
obliged to desist from the attempt, for "horrible balls of fire breaking
out from the foundations with repeated attacks, rendered the place
inaccessible to the scorched workmen, and the element driving them to a
distance from time to time, the enterprise was dropped."[110] Such is
the testimony of a heathen, confirmed by Jews and Christians. The
inclosures of the mosque of Omar, forbidding them all access to the spot
on which it stood, leave it desolate to the Jews to this day. I have
seen them (in 1872) kissing a few large stones, supposed to belong to
its foundations or sub-structures, from the outside; for which miserable
privilege they were obliged to pay their oppressors. On approaching the
spot from the Zion gate, right across Mount Zion to the temple ruins,
our way lay through a plowed field of young barley, and gardens of
cauliflowers hedged with enormous rows of cactus. To this day Zion is
plowed as a field.

4. No sane ma