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ing on. She replied, with horrible indifference, that she had carefully reserved her good friends a part of her meal. She uncovered the remains of her child! The savage men stood speechless, at which she cried out, with a shrill voice, “Eat, for I have eaten: be ye not more delicate than a woman— more tender-hearted than a mother! or, if ye are too religious to touch such food, I have eaten half already-leave me the rest." They retired, pale and trembling with horror: the story spread rapidly through the city, and reached the Roman camp, where it was first heard with incredulity-afterward with the deepest commiseration.

How dreadfully must the recollection of the words of Moses have fixed themselves upon the minds of all those Jews who were not entirely unread in their holy writings—“ The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter; and toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things, secretly, in the siege and straitness wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates."

The destruction of the outer cloisters had left the Romans masters of the great court of the Gentiles. On the eighth of August, the engines began to batter the eastern chambers of the inner court. For six previous days the largest and most powerful of the battering rams had played upon the wall; the enormous size and compactness of the stones had resisted all its efforts; other troops at the same time endeavoured to undermine the northern gate, but with no better success; nothing therefore remained but to fix the scaling ladders, and storm the cloisters. The Jews made no resistance to their mounting the walls; but as soon as they reached the top hurled them down headlong, or slew them before they could cover themselves with their shields. In some places they thrust down the ladders, loaded with armed men, who fell back and were dashed to pieces on the pavement.

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Some of the standard bearers had led the way; they also were repelled, and the Jews remained masters of the eagles. On the side of the Romans fell many distinguished soldiers; on that of the Jews, Eleazar, the nephew of Simon. Repulsed on all hands from the top of the wall, Titus commanded fire to be set to the gates.

In the mean time, Ananus of Emmaus, the bloody executioner of Simon, and Archelaus son of Magadat, deserted to the Romans. Titus at first intended to put them to death, but afterwards relented. No sooner had the blazing torches been applied to the gates, than the silver plates heated, the wood kindled, the whole flamed up and spread rapidly to the cloisters. Like wild beasts environed in a burning forest, the Jews saw the awful circle of fire hem them in on every side; their courage sank; they stood, gasping, motionless, and helpless; not a hand endeavoured to quench the flames, or stop the silent progress of the conflagration. Yet still fierce thoughts of desperate vengeance were brooding in their hearts. Through the whole night and the next day the fire went on, consuming the whole range of cloisters. of cloisters. Titus at length gave orders that it should be extinguished, and the way through the gates levelled for the advance of the legionaries. A council of war was summoned, in which the expediency of destroying the magnificent building was solemnly discussed. It consisted of six of the chief officers of the army; among the rest, of Tiberius Alexander, whose offerings had formerly enriched the splendid edifice. Three of the council insisted on the necessity of destroying for ever this citadel of a mutinous people; it was no longer a temple, but a fortress, and to be treated like a military stronghold. Titus inclined to milder counsels; the magnificence of the building had made a strong impression upon his mind, and he was reluctant to destroy what might be considered as one of the wonders of the Roman empire. Alexander, Fronto, and Cerealis concurred in this opinion, and the soldiers were ordered to do all they could to quench the flames. But higher counsels had otherwise decreed, and the Temple of Jerusa

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lem was to be for ever obliterated from the face of the earth. The whole of the first day after the fire began, the Jews, from exhaustion and consternation, remained entirely inactive. The next, they made a furious sally from the eastern gate against the guards who were posted in the outer court. The legionaries locked their shields together, and stood the brunt of the onset: but the Jews still came pouring forth in such overbearing multitudes, that Titus himself was forced to charge at the head of some cavalry, and with difficulty drove them back into the temple.

It was the 10th of August, the day already darkened in the Jewish calendar by the destruction of the former temple by the king of Babylon: it was almost passed. Titus withdrew again into the Antonia, intending the next morning to make a general assault. The quiet summer evening came on; the setting sun shone for the last time on the snowwhite walls and glistening pinnacles of the temple roof. Titus had retired to rest, when, suddenly, a wild and terrible cry was heard, and a man came rushing in, announcing that the temple was on fire. Some of the besieged, notwithstanding their repulse in the morning, had sallied out to attack the men who were busily employed in extinguishing the fires about the cloisters. The Romans not merely drove them back, but, entering the sacred space with them, forced their way to the door of the temple. A soldier, without orders, mounting on the shoulders of one of his comrades, threw a blazing brand into a gilded small door on the north side of the chambers, in the outer building or porch. The flames sprang up at once. The Jews uttered one simultaneous shriek, and grasped their swords, with a furious determination of revenging and perishing in the ruins of the temple. Titus rushed down with the utmost speed: he shouted; he made signs to his soldiers to quench the fire: his voice was drowned and his signs unnoticed in the blind confusion: the legionaries either could not or would not hear; they rushed on, trampling each other down in their furious haste, or, stumbling over the crumbling ruins, perished with the ene

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