Jerusalem's captivities lamented, or, A plain description of Jerusalem (1810-1836)

JERUSALEM'S

Captivities Lamented;

or, a plain

DESCRIPTION

of

JERUSALEM.

⟨From⟩ Joshua's time to the Year 1517, both from
Scripture and ancient History.

⟨1.⟩ The antiquity of the city, and number of (illegible text) inhabitants, with the depth and breadth of ⟨the⟩ trenches, height of the walls and the ⟨number⟩ of the towers that stood thereon.

⟨2.⟩ The greatness of the people, and glory of ⟨the⟩ Sanctum Sanctorum, or the Holy of ⟨Holies⟩; with a description of the birth, life, and ⟨death⟩ of our blessed Saviour, and the ⟨miraculous⟩ wonders that happened about that time.

3. The sad and lamentable destruction and ⟨desolation⟩ of Jerusalem, by fire, sword, ⟨famine⟩, and pestilence.

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To which is added, a singular instance of
TURKISH JUSTICE.

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EDINBURGH:
⟨Printed⟩ for the Booksellers in Town and Country.
By R. Menzies, Lawnmarket.

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(Price Three pence.)

A PLAIN

DESCRIPTION

OF

JERUSALEM.

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JERUSALEM was a principal city in Joshua's time, when Adonizedek was king, ⟨who⟩ was slain by him; yet the Jebusites held it ⟨for⟩ four hundred years after, till David won it; ⟨though⟩ the inhabitants boasted that their blind ⟨and⟩ their lame would defend it, 2 Sam. v. 6. ⟨David⟩ strengthened it with a castle, and beautified ⟨it⟩ with palaces; after this Solomon enlarged it; ⟨the⟩ palace gates and walls could not be matched ⟨in⟩ all the world. It had within the walls one ⟨hundred⟩ and fifty thousand inhabitants, besides ⟨women⟩ and children.

The trenches about it were sixty feet deep, ⟨cut⟩ out of the rock, and two hundred and fifty ⟨broad⟩. Not long after Shishak king of Egypt ⟨took⟩ it, and became master of Solomon's riches, ⟨and⟩ of all king David's spoil, which he had ⟨taken⟩ from many nations, 2 Kings xiv. it was again ⟨plundered⟩, and part of the wall broken down ⟨by⟩ Joash king of Israel, in Amaziah's reign, (illegible text) Kings xvi. Not long after, Anaz the fifteenth ⟨King⟩ of Judah, impoverished the temple, to ⟨present⟩ Tiglathpilnezer with the treasures thereof, (illegible text) Manasseh lost what remained.

And Nebuchadnezzar laid this glorious city, with the temple, palace, walls, and towers even with the ground, 2 Kings xix. After eighteen months' siege, in the eleventh year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, the princes of Babylon surprised, and took this brave city; presently after Nebuzar-adan, general of the Babylonian army, commanded by Nebuchadnezzar, spoiled the temple, carrying away the vessels of gold and silver, and the great laver given by king Solomon, and burnt the temple the first day of the next month, which was twenty-one days after the surprisal, 470 years, six months and ten days after the foundation; 903 years, six months and ten days after the departure of the people out of Egypt; 1760 years, six months after the flood; 3516 years, six months and ten days after the creation. Thus, and then was the city of Jerusalem taken, and for seventy years the Jews remained in this captivity.

It was built again by Nehemiah, 2 Chron. i. ii. iii. iv. The temple and city were spoiled again by Borgoses, lieutenant to Artaxerxes, then by Ptolmeus the first, then by Antiochus Epiphanes, and again by Appollonius' deputy; after which it was taken by Pompey, and robbed by Crasius, in his Parthian expedition. Yet all the losses the temple and city sustained, were repaired by Herod the Great, who enlarged the city, new-built the temple, and left it both stately and glorious: it was compassed with three strong walls, the third wall had ⟨nineteen⟩ ⟨towers⟩, the second wall had fourteen, and the ⟨third⟩ wall had sixty. Agrippa built a fourth wall ⟨ten⟩ cubits high, but did not finish it, lest ⟨Claudius⟩ Cæsar should think that he designed to rebel; ⟨yet⟩ the Jews afterwards built it twenty cubits ⟨high⟩, and raised a battlement two cubits, and ⟨built⟩ three towers thereon; all their towers were ⟨built⟩ of white marble, each stone being twenty ⟨cubits⟩ long, ten broad, and five thick, so ⟨curiously⟩ joined, that they seened but one stone, and ⟨the⟩ compass of the city, from the north to the ⟨west⟩, was forty-three furlongs.

Within the city was the king's palace, ⟨surpassing⟩ all in the world for largeness and ⟨workmanship⟩, environed with a wall, which was thirty ⟨cubits⟩ high, adorned with towers, and beautified with houses to an hundred of the nobility; and ⟨in⟩ every room were many vessels of gold and silver, and porches adorned with curious pillars, and many pleasant walks, with all manner of trees and fountains, which spouted out water, with cisterns and brazen statues, from which water ran continually.

The temple was built upon a rocky mountain, and the place at the top, was not at first big enough for the temple and court, the hill being very steep, but the people every day brought earth thither, and they at last made it plain, and large enough, with wonderful curiosity and labour, inclosed with three walls, which were many days labour, with the cost of all the holy treasure offered to God from all parts; the foundation of the temple was laid three hundred (illegible text)rches were double, supported by many (illegible text) twenty cubits high, all of one piece of marble; the tops of cedar so exactly wrought astonished beholders; the porches, thirty cubits broad, and the compass of the temple was six furlongs; the courts were curiously paved and wrought with all sorts of stones, and the gates were covered with weighty plates of gold; only one with Corinthian brass, which for beauty excelled the others, dazzling the eyes of the spectators.

Then the Sanctum Sanctorum, or Holy of Holies, situated in the midst, bad twelve stairs to go up to it, the fore part of it was an hundred cubits high, and as many broad, and backwards it was forty cubits on each side. It had, as it were, two shoulders twenty cubits high, and twenty-five wide, and had no doors, to shew that heaven was always open. All the fore parts were gilded within and covered with fine gold: the inner part was divided into two rooms, whereof the first only might be seen, which was in height ninety cubits, in length forty, and in breadth twenty. Round about the wall was a golden vine, whereon hung grapes in clusters, being six feet long; it had golden gates fifty-five cubits high, and sixteen broad, and curious hangings of the same length, wrought with purple, velvet, scarlet, and silk. All the fabric was so exquisite and rich, that none could imagine any workmanship to be wanted, for it was all covered with massy plates of gold, which astonished the beholders; the top also was set with rods of gold, sharp at the ends, lest birds should sit thereon, and defile the holy place.

Our Saviour was born in the year of the world 4004, and in the 43d year of Augustus Cæsar; many remarkable things were seen in the heavens, which caused the wise men to conclude, that some more than an ordinary person would appear on the earth; the learned thought it to be Augustus Cæsar, who then reigned prosperously; but others thought it to be he whom the prophet Isaiah speaks of that should have the government on his shoulders, even the Saviour of the world, whom the Evangelists mention, that the angels declared to the shepherds, and the star directed the wise men of the east to find out the place of his birth. So that,

As the new earth with a new sun was blest,
So heaven with a new glorious star was drest.

At Christ's birth, the temple at Rome, dedicated to the god Pan, fell to the earth; and when it was built, the Romans addressed the oracle of Apollo, to know how long it should endure; who answered, "Till a Virgin should bring forth a son," which they judged impossible, therefore they believed that their temple should last eternally.

The night that Christ was born, there appeared in Spain at midnight, a cloud with so great a light, that it seemed like mid-day. St Jerom writes, that when the Virgin fled with her son into Egypt, all the images of the gods tumbled from their altars to the very ground: and that the oracles, or answers which these gods, or rather devils, used to give them, ceased, and never answered afterwards.

In the first year after Christ's birth, many strange things happened in Germany, and in Rome, and a terrible eclipse of the sun. At the twelfth year of his age be disputed with the doctors, and at that time there appeared a terrible comet, so that the light of the sun apparently failed, the heavens seemed to burn, and fire beams fell from them. In the twenty second year of his age, several bloody comets were seen, and the river Tiber overflowed the city of Rome.

Publius Lentullis' Epistle to Rome concerning Christ.

"There appeared in those days a man of great virtue called Jesus Christ, who is yet living among us, and by the people is called a prophet; but his own disciples call him the Son of God. He raiseth the dead, cureth all manner of diseases; a man of stature, somewhat tall and comely, with a reverend countenance, such as the beholders may both fear and love; his hair is of the colour of a chestnut full ripe, and plain down almost to his ears, but from thence downward some-what curled, but more orient of colours, waving about his shoulders; in the midst of his head goeth a seam of hair, or parting, like that of the Nazarites: his forehead very plain and smooth; his face without spot or wrinkle, beautified with a comely red; his nose and mouth so formed, that nothing can be reprehended, his beard thick, in colour of the hair of his head; his eyes grey, clear and quick, in reproving he is severe, in counselling, conrteous and fair spoken; pleasant in speech, mixed with gravity, it cannot be remembered that any have seen him laugh, but many have seen him weep; in proportion of body well shaped and straight, his bands and arms very delectable to behold; in speaking very temperate, modest and wise; a man, for his singular beauty far exceeding the sons of men."

Within the thirty-third year of Christ's life, he was crucified by the wicked hands of the Jews, which caused many miracles, attested both by Heathens and Christians. At his death there was a mighty darkness in the day time, from six till nine, that is, from our twelve to our three in the afternoon, and yet no eclipse of the sun, it being full moon; so it was contrary to the order of nature, but the power of God deprived the sun of his light.

Dionysius the Areopagite, being that day in Athens, and seeing the darkness, cried with a loud voice, "Either the world is at an end, or the God of nature suffers." Then the men of Athens being astonished, built an altar to the Unknown God; and afterwards St. Paul declared to them, "That Christ," who suffered that day, "was the Unknown God," whereby he converted many to the Christian faith.

It is likewise acknowledged by Plutarch, though a Heathen, that after the death of Christ, not only the oracles of Egypt ceased, but through all the world, for which he can give no reason, being ignorant of Christianity; however Satan did plainly acknowledge himself overeome by the death of Christ, and could never give any answers afterwards.

The words of Plutarch to Emilias the Orator concerning the matter, are as follows,

"My father coming by sea, towards Italy, and coasting by night about an Island not inhabited, called Paraxis; when most in the ship were at rest, they heard a fearful voice which came from that Island, that called upon Alaman, who was pilot of the ship, and an Egyptian born, though this voice was heard once or twice, yet no man had the courage to answer it till the third time, when the pilot answered, who is there? Who is it that calls? What would you have? Then the voice spoke more high, and said, Alaman, I require, that when you pass the gulph of Languna, you remember to cry aloud, and make them understand that the great god Pan is dead." At these words, all in the ship were astonished, and concluded that the pilot should not take notice of the voice, nor stay in the gulph to utter such words if they could get beyond it. Now going in their voyage, and coming to the place before-mentioned, the ship stood still, and the sea was so calm, that they could go no further; whereupon they resolved, that Alaman should perform this embassage, so he ⟨placed⟩ himself upon the poop of the ship, and ⟨cried⟩ aloud, be it known unto you, that the ⟨great⟩ god Pan is dead. When he had uttered ⟨these⟩ words, they heard many mournful cries, ⟨groans⟩ and lamentations, that continued some ⟨time⟩, which surprised those in the ship; but ⟨having⟩ a prosperous gale, they followed their ⟨course⟩, arrived at Rome, and told the ⟨adventure⟩; and told Tiberius the Emperr, all the ⟨truth⟩ thereof.

It is evident, that Satan in all parts was ⟨banished⟩ by the death of Christ, and it is supposed ⟨that⟩ this god Pan is not to be understood only ⟨as⟩ the god of the shepherds, but rather some ⟨master⟩ devil, who lost his power and empire as they all did at the death of Jesus Christ.

About forty years after the death of Christ the Jews had many warnings shewn them from Heaven. Before Vespasian came in the feast of weeks: the priest heard a man walking in the temple, saying with a terrible voice, "Come, let us go away out of this place, let us make away from hence."

Now the sins of the Jews being come to the full height, who with cruel hands had crucified the Lord of Life, that innocent blood, which they desired might fall on them and their children, began now to be avenged upon them; for the civil wars were begun by Jehokanen and Simon, who destroyed all the corn and fruits without the city, and Jehohanan within the city ravished the citizens' wives and daughters, and shed floods of innocent blood. The citizens, being weary of this tyranny, delivered the city to Simon, thinking he would help them, but he joined the other rebel, and they reigned month about, till at last they quarelled between themselves.

Then there was nothing but slaughter and bloodshed, so that the blood of the Jews ran through the streets even to the temple of the Lord, like a flood: all that the seditious overcame, they set their houses on fire, so that they burnt fourteen hundred storehouses, that were full of corn, wine, and oil, which caused a sudden famine in Jerusalem. Thus God visited the city with four plagues at once, viz. sword, pestilence, famine, and fire: to which the fifth was added, the ruin and destruction of all the glorious buildings, so that nothing but desolation, pollution of the temple and all holy things, and uproar without any rest: no help, no succour, but every corner was full of howling, yelling, weeping, wailing, sobbing and sighing of women, children, and aged men starving for want of bread, and others roaring in their wounds; so that all manner of miseries oppressed the inhabitants, and he was thought a happy man who was dead before that day.

At this time Vespasian, with his army, was lying at Galilee, and from thence he went to Rome to receive the Imperial Crown, and left his son Titus, with the half of his army to besiege Jerusalem, the other to tarry at Alexandria till further orders. "That I shall do," said Titus, "dear father, for unto you it belongeth to command, and for me to obey."

In the first year of the reign of Vespasian Titus mustered his army, and found them sufficient for the siege of Jerusalem. He then marched to Samaria, and from thence to Atelonia, thirty furlongs from Jerusalem, where he pitched his camp, and the next day he brought his whole army to Jerusalem, a little before the feast of the unleavened bread, which was April the 14th, so that an infinite number of people, who came to celebrate were all shut up in the city, which raised a famine; oxen's dung was sold at a dear rate, so was old leather; and some women for want, boiled their children and did eat them.

Now Titus approached the walls of the city, and pitched his camp upon the river Poleponia, raised a mount, and with a battering ram broke into the city, May 7th, and afterwards he raised four other mounts, and made himself master of the second wall, and built twelve castles thereon, so that none could pass in or out, whereby the famine and pestilence raged within, and the sword without the city, so that multitudes perished; for from April the 14th to July following, there were buried by the common charge of the city, 600,000 carcases, and multitudes thrown into empty houses, and over the walls, which filled the houses with dead bodies.

Titus intended to save the temple from fire, when some of the city were in flames, by setting a guard on it, but the seditious who raised the fire, slew every man of the guard, which Titus hearing, brought his whole army thither. At that time a soldier of the seditious took a flaming fire-brand, and cast it through the golden window into the temple, and the others set fire to the doors, and after the gold grew hot, the whole fabric was in a flame, and the Holy of Holies was laid open to the view of all there present.

This happened in the second year of the reign of Vespasian, and the same month that it was burnt by Nebuchadnezzar. Titus drew his sword to save the holy place, but the flames rushed through all parts of the temple in a moment, so that none could save it. The Jews seeing all go to destruction before their eyes, they then threw themselves into the flames, "Why should we live any longer? now there is no temple." After the Holy of Holies was burnt, Titus entered it, and saw the glory of it, and said, "I well perceive that this is no other than the house of God, and the dwelling place of the king of heaven: the God of heaven who is God of this house, take vengeance on the seditious, whose heinous deeds have brought this evil upon themselves and this holy plaee."

On the 7th of September Titus commanded all the lower city to be set on fire, and assaulted the upper city, breaking over their fences, and destroying all before him with fire and sword, then he commanded the city and temple to be razed to the foundation, and the ground to be forthwith ploughed. And Jehohanan and Simon were sent prisoners to Rome, with 700 of the Jews: the book of the law and the purple veil of the sanctuary were taken in triumph to Rome, at that time neither sun nor moon appeared for fifteen days, as Christ foretold.

St. Jerome writes that in his time, on that day of the year wherein Jerusalem was taken by the Romans, you might have seen aged men and women, and several other wretched people, who with blubbered cheeks and dishevelled hair, went howling and lamenting for the ruin of the temple and sanctuary, wearing and bearing in their habits and bodies the sad character of divine veangeance, of whom the soldiers exacted a fee for liberty of weeping: and they who formerly sold the blood of Jesus, were now forced to buy their own tears, without being pitied.

The Roman soldiers being now quite spent with doing execution, and having a great deal more of their work yet to do. Titus ordered his men to hold their hands, saving only to those whom they found armed, or in a posture of resistance, and to give quarter to all the rest. But the soldiers went beyond their commission, and put the aged and sickly to the sword promiscuously with their companions; and for those that were strong and serviceable, they shut them up in the temple in the women's quarter. Cæsar appointed Fronto, one of his friends and freemen, to inform him of the people, and to do by them as he deserved. As for the ruffians and the seditious, that impeached one another, he had them all put to death; but for men of comely and graceful persons, and in the prime of their youth, he reserved them for the triumph; sending away all above seventeen years of age to the remainder of them in chains in Egypt, to be employed in servile offices and drudgery, besides those that were distributed up and down the provinces for the use of the theatres in the quality of swords-men or gladiators, all under seventeen he exposed to sale.

In the mean time, while the prisoners were under Fronto's charge, there were 11000 of them starved to death, betwixt the churlishness of the keepers that would give them no meat, and the squeamishness of their stomachs that would swallow none. But in truth the mouths were too many for the provisions.

The number of the prisoners in this war was 97000. The number of the dead was 110000; the greater part of them Jews by nation, though not natives of Judea, for it was only a general meeting of them at Jerusalem, gathered together from all quarters to celebrate the feast of the passover; who were then surprised into a war. There was such a prodigious multitude, and they so straitened for lodgings, that the crowd first brought the plague into the town, and then quickly made way for a famine. The city not being capable of entertaining that vast body of people, if the calculation of Cestius may at least pass for any thing, as follows.

Nero had so great a contempt for the Jews, that Cestius made it his suit to the high priests to bethink themselves of some way of numbering their people; and this he did out of a desire to give Nero to understand that the Jewish nation was not so despicable as he imagined; so that they took their time to enter upon the computation, at the celebration of their paschal feast; when offering up a sacrifice to be eaten afterwards, in the 9th hour of the day to the 11th; and the sacrifice to be eaten afterwards in their families by ten at least, and sometimes 20, to a lamb, they reckoned upon 260,500 oblations; which, at the rate of ten to a lamb, amounts to 2,665,000 persons, all pure and sound, for neither lepers, scorcubites, men troubled with gonorrhœas, women in their monthly sickness, or people labouring under any malignant distempers, were admitted to any part in this solemnity; no more were my strangers but what came thither for religion. So that this mighty concourse of people from abroad before the siege, were afterwards by the righteous providence of God, cooped up in that city as in a prison; and the number of the slain in that siege was the heaviest judgment of that kind that ever was heard of. Some were killed openly, others kept in custody by the Romans, who searched the very sepulchres and vaults for them, and put all they found alive to the sword. There were upwards of 2000 that had either laid violent hands on themselves, or killed one another by consent, besides those that perished by the famine. The putrid corruption of dead bodies sent out a vapour to poison as many as came within the reach of it. Some were not able to endure it, and so went out of the way; others had their hearts so set upon booty that they rifled the very carcases, and trampled upon the dead bodies as they lay soaking in their corruption, but avarice sticks at nothing. They brought out several prisoners also, that the two tyrants had laid in chains there; they kept up their cruelty to the last: but God's justice overtook them both in the end; for John and his brethren, in the vaults, were now driven by the distress of an insupportable bunger to beg that mercy of the Romans, which they had so often despised; and Simon, after a long struggle with an insupportable necessity, delivered up himself. The latter being reserved for the triumph, and the former made prisoner for life. The Romans after this burnt the remainder of the city, and threw down the walls.

The power of God on the one hand and his goodness on the other was very remarkable on this occasion; for the tyrants ruined themselves by quitting those holds of their own accord, that could never have been taken but by famine; and this after the Jews had spent so much time to no purpose upon other places of less value. By these means the Romans became masters of three impregnable forts by fortune, that could never have been taken any other way, for the three famous towers before mentioned, were proof against all battery.

Upon Simon and John's quitting these towers, or rather upon their being driven out of them, by the impulse of judicial infatuation, they hastened away to the vale of Siloa, where they took breath a while, and after some recollection and refreshment, they gave an assault to the new wall there; but so faint and weak that the guard beat them off, for between fatigue, despondency, dread and misery, their strength failed them, and they were then scattered soveral ways in sinks and gutters.

The soldiers were now broken loose all over the town, up and down in the streets, with their swords drawn, killing all that fell in their way without distinction, and burning entire houses and whatever was in them, in one common flame. In several places where they entered to search for pillage, they found whole families dead and houses crammed with hunger-starved carcases, so that upon the horror of so hideous a spectacle they came out again empty handed: but the compassion they had for the dead, made them not one jot tenderer to the living, for they stabbed every man they met, till the narrow passages and alleys were choaked up with carcases! so that the channels of the city ran blood as if it had been to quench the fire. In the evening they gave over killing, and at night they fell a-fresh to burning.

The eighth of the month Gorpicus put an end to the conflagration of Jerusalem, (A.D. 70.) and if all the blessings it ever enjoyed from the foundation of it, had been but comparable in proportion to the calamities it suffered in this siege, that city has been undoubtedly the envy of tho world. But the greatest plague of all came out of its own bowels, in that infernal race of vapours that it brought forth to eat out the belly of the mother.

While Titus was now taking a view of the ruins of this glorious city, the works, the fortifications, and especially the turrets which the tyrants had so sottishly abandoned: while Cæsar, I say, was entertaining himself in the contemplations of these towers, the design, workmanship and curiosity of the fabric, with the wonderful contrivance of the whole, he let fall this expression, 'Well, says he, if God had not fought for us and with us, we could never have been masters of these forts. It was God, in fine, that assisted us, and that fought against the Jews, for this was not an undertaking to be compassed with hands or machines.'

This was in fine the issue of the siege; and when the soldiers had neither rapine nor bloodshed for their spleen to work upon, (as they would not have been idle, if they had matter,) Titus ordered them to lay the city and temple level with the ground and to leave nothing standing, but the three famous turrets, Pasael, Hippicos, and Mariamne, that overtopped all the rest; and a piece of wall to the westward of the town, where he designed a garrison. The towers to remain so many monuments to posterity of the Roman's power and conduct in taking them. This order was punctually executed, and all the rest laid so flat, that the place looked as if it had never been inhabited. This was the end of the Jerusalem sanction; a mad and seditious people, and also the end of the most glorious city in the universe.

What is here chiefly remarkable is this, that no foreign nation ever came thus to destroy the Jews at any of their solemn festivals from the days of Moses till this time; but came now upon their apostacy from God, and disobedience to him. Nor is it possible, in the nature of things, that in any other nation such vast numbers should be gotten together, and perish in the siege of any one city whatsoever, as now happened in Jerusalem.

Thus was Jerusalem taken and utterly destroyed, in the 2d year of Vespasian, and on the eight day of the month Gorpieus; having been five times taken before, i.e. by Azchæus king of Egypt, Antiochus Epiphanes king of Syria, Pompey, Herod, with Sosius, who did all preserve the city after it was taken. But Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, laid it waste 1365 years, 8 months and 6 days after the building of it.

The first founder of it was a Canaanitish prince called Melchizedec, which in the Hebrew language signifies a just king, for such was he in an eminent mariner. He first dedicated the city to God, erected a temple in it and officiated in the quality of priest, giving it the name of Jeursalem, which before was called Solyma.

When David, the king of the Jews, came afterwards to drive out the Canaanites, he planted his own people there; and in 477 ears, and 3 months after this, it was laid waste by the Babylonians.

From the reign of David there, to the destruction of the city by Titus, it was 1179 years, and 2179 from the foundation of it. And those who afterwards saw it, could not believe that ever there had been such a city there; yet the despised Jews begged leave to build part of the city; but after 65 years, when they began to revolt, then Elius Adrianns the Emperor, slew many thousands of them; and when his fury was over, he took one part of the city without the wall, Mount Calvary, and Christ's sepulchre, and made a spacious city, which he called after his own name, Selia Capitolia, which was inhabited by all nations, but most by Christians, for 500 years. And in 639 it was taken by the Egyptians and Saracens, who held it 400 years, and in 1039, it was regained by Godfrey Bollogn, who being elected king, refused to be crowned with a crown of gold, where Christ was crowned with a crown of thorns.—It continued to him and his successors eighty-eight years, tiil in 1127, it was taken by Saladine, king of Egypt; and in 1517, the Turks took it, who are still masters of it, and called it, in their own language, Gunembare, or the Holy of Holies.

 

finis.

AN

INSTANCE OF

TURKISH JUSTICE.

A Grocer of the city of Smyrna had a son, who, with the help of the little learning the country could afford, rose to the post of naib, or deputy to the Cady, or mayor of the city, and as such, visited the markets, and inspected the weights and measures of all retail dealers. One day, as this officer was going his rounds, the neighbours, who knew enough of his father's character to suspect that he might stand in need of the caution, advised him to remove his weights for fear of the worst: but the old cheat depending on his relation to the inspector, and sure, as he thought that his son would not expose him to a public affront, laughed at their advice, and stood very calmy at his shop door, waiting for his coming. The naib, however, was well assured of the dishonesty and unfair dealing of the father, and resolved to detect his villany and make an example of him; accordingly, he stopt at the door, and said, coolly to him, "Good man, fetch out your weights, that we may examine them." Instead of obeying, the grocer would have fain put it off with a laugh, but was soon convinced his son was serious, by hearing him order the officers to search his shop, and seeing them produce the instruments of his fraud, which, after an impartial examination, were openly condemned and broken to pieces. His shame and confusion, however, he hoped would plead with a son to excuse him all further punishment of his crime, but even this, though entirely arbitary, the naib made as severe as for the most indifferent offender, for he sentenced him to a fine of fifty piasters, and to receive a bastinado of as many blows on the soles of his feet. All this was executed on the spot, after which, the naib leaping from his horse, threw himself at his feet, and watering them with his tears, addresses him thus: "Father, I have discharged my duty to my God, my sovereign, my country, and my station; permit me now, by my respect and submission, to acquit the debt I owe a parent. Justice is blind, it is the power of God on earth, it has no regard to father or son, God and our neighbour's right, are above the ties of nature, you had offended against the laws of justice, you deserved this punishment, you would in the end have received it from some other. I am sorry was your fate to receive it from me; but my conscience would not suffer me to act otherwise: behave better for the futuer and instead of blaming me, pity my being reduced to so cruel a necessity." This done, he mounted his horse again, and then continued his journey, amidst the exclamations and praises of the whole city, for so extraordinary a piece of justice; report of which being made to the Sublime Porte, the Sultan raised him to the post of Cady; from whence by degrees, he rose to the dignity of Mufti, who is the head of both religion and law among the Turks. Were our dealers in small weights to be dealt with according to the Turkish law, the poor might not be so much imposed upon as they are now.