xiv. 3-12.) The canton of DECAPOLIS, (Matt. iv. 25. Mark v. 20, and vii. 31,) which derives its name from the ten cities it contained, was part of the region of Peræa. Concerning its limits, and the names of its ten cities, geographers are by no means agreed: among them, however, we may safely reckon Gadara, where our Saviour wrought some miracles, and perhaps Damascus, chiefly celebrated for the conversion of Saint Paul, which took place in its vicinity. Of the whole country thus described, JERUSALEM was the metropolis during the reigns of David and Solomon; after the secession of the ten tribes, it was the capital of the kingdom of Judah, but during the time of Christ, and until the subversion of the Jewish polity, it was the metropolis of Palestine.

Jerusalem is frequently styled in the Scriptures the Holy City, (Isa. xlviii. 2. Dan. ix. 24. Nehem. xi. 1. Matt. iv. 5. Rev. xi. 2,) because the Lord chose it out of all the tribes of Israel to place his name there, his temple and his worship; (Deut. xii. 5, xiv. 23, xvi. 2, xxvi. 2;) and to be the centre of union in religion and government for all the tribes of the commonwealth of Israel. It is held in the highest veneration by Christians for the miraculous and important transactions which happened there, and also by the Mahommedans, who to this day never call it by any other appellation than El-Kods, or the Holy, sometimes adding the epithet El-Sheriff, or The Noble. The original name of the city was Salem, or Peace: (Gen. xiv. 18:) the import of Jerusalem is, the vision or inheritance of peace; and to this it is not improbable that our Saviour alluded in his beautiful and pathetic lamentation over the city. (Luke xix. 41.) It was also formerly called Jebus from one of the sons of Canaan. (Josh. xviii. 28.) After its capture by Joshua, (Josh. x.) it was jointly inhabited both by Jews and Jebusites (Josh. xv. 63,) for about five hundred years, until the time of David; who, having expelled the Jebusites, made it his residence, (2 Sam. v. 6-9,) and erected a noble palace there, together with several other magnificent buildings, whence it is sometimes styled the City of David. (1 Chron. xi. 5.)

Jerusalem, after its destruction by the Chaldæans, was rebuilt by the Jews, on their return from the Babylonish

captivity. The city was built on three principal hills; viz. 1. Sion, on the southern side, which was the highest, and contained the citadel, the king's palace, and the upper city. 2. Moriah, on which was the temple, a smaller eminence on the east of the northern part of Sion, and separated from it by a valley, over which was a bridge; and 3. Acra, so called in a later age, lying north of Sion, and covered by the lower city, which was the most considerable portion of the whole metropolis.

On the south side stood the mount of Corruption, where Solomon, in his declining years, built temples to Moloch, Chemosh, and Ashtaroth. (1 Kings. xi. 7. 2 Kings xxiii. 13.)

Towards the west, and without the walls of the city, agreeably to the law of Moses, (Levit. iv,) lay mount Calvary or Golgotha, that is, the place of a skull. (Matt. xxvii. 33.)

During the time of our Saviour, Jerusalem was adorned with numerous edifices, some of which are mentioned or alluded to in the New Testament; but its chief glory. was the TEMPLE, (described in a subsequent page,) which magnificent and extensive structure occupied the northern and lower eminence of Sion, as we learn from the Psalmist, (xlviii. 2.) Beautiful for situation, the delight of the whole earth, is Mount Sion. On her north side is the city of the great king.

Next to the temple in point of splendour, was the very superb palace of Herod, which is largely described by Josephus; it afterwards became the residence of the Roman procurators, who for this purpose generally claimed the royal palaces in those provinces which were subject to kings. These dwellings of the Roman procurators in the provinces were called prætoria: Herod's palace therefore was Pilate's prætorium: (Matt. xxvii. 27. John xviii. 28:) and in some part of this edifice was the armoury or barrack of the Roman soldiers that garrisoned Jerusalem, whither Jesus was conducted and mocked by them. (Matt. xxvii. 27. Mark xv. 16.) In the front of this palace was the tribunal, where Pilate sat in a judicial capacity to hear and determine weighty causes: being a raised pavement of Mosaic work, (sparov, lithostroton,) the evangelist informs us, that in the Hebrew language it was

on this account termed gabbatha, (John xix. 13,) i. e. an elevated place. On a steep rock, adjoining the north-west corner of the Temple, stood the Tower of Antonia, a strong citadel, in which a Roman legion was always quartered. It overlooked the two outer courts of the temple, and communicated with its cloisters by means of secret passages, through which the military could descend and quell any tumult that might arise during the great festivals. This was the guard to which Pilate alluded in Matt. xxviii. 65. The tower of Antonia was thus named by Herod, in honour of his friend Mark Antony: and this citadel is the castle into which St. Paul was conducted, (Acts xxi. 34, 35,) and of which mention is made in Acts xxii. 24. As the temple was a fortress that guarded the whole city of Jerusalem, so the tower of Antonia was a guard that entirely commanded the temple. According to the Jewish Historian, Josephus, the circumference of Jerusalem, previously to its being besieged and destroyed by the Roman army, was thirty-three furlongs, or nearly four miles and a half: and the wall of circumvallation, constructed by order of the Roman general, Titus, he states to have been thirty-nine furlongs, or four miles eight hundred and seventy-five paces.

During the reigns of David and Solomon, Jerusalem was the metropolis of the land of Israel; but, after the defection of the ten tribes under Jeroboam, it was the capital of the kings of Judah, during whose government it underwent various revolutions. It was captured four times without being demolished, viz.: by Shishak, sovereign of Egypt, (2 Chron. xii,) from whose ravages it never recovered its former splendour; by Antiochus Epiphanes, who treated the Jews with singular barbarity; by Pompey the Great, who rendered the Jews tributary to Rome; and by Herod, with the assistance of a Roman force under Sosius. It was first entirely destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, and again by the emperor Titus, the repeated insurrections of the turbulent Jews having filled up the measure of their iniquities, and drawn down upon them the implacable vengeance of the Romans. Titus ineffectually endeavoured to save the temple: it was involved in the same ruin with the rest of the city, and, after it had been reduced to ashes, the foundations of that

sacred edifice were ploughed up by the Roman soldiers. Thus literally was fulfilled the prediction of our Lord, that not one stone should be left upon another that should not be thrown down. (Matt. xxiv. 2.) On his return to Rome, Titus was honoured with a triumph; and, to commemorate his conquest of Judæa, a triumphal arch was erected, which is still in existence. Numerous medals of Judæa vanquished were struck in honour of the same event. A representation of one of these is given.

in page 23. supra.

The emperor Adrian erected a city on part of the former site of Jerusalem, which he called Elia Capitolina: it was afterwards greatly enlarged and beautified by Constantine the Great, who restored its ancient name. During that emperor's reign, the Jews made various efforts to rebuild their temple, which, however, were always frustrated; nor did better success attend the attempt made A. D. 363, by the apostate emperor Julian. An earthquake, a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, compelled the workmen to abandon their design.

From the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans to the present time, that city has remained, for the most part, in a state of ruin and desolation; "and has never been under the government of the Jews themselves, but oppressed and broken down by a succession of foreign masters-the Romans, the Saracens, the Franks, the Mamelukes, and last by the Turks, to whom it is still subject. It is not, therefore, only in the history of Josephus, and in other ancient writers, that we are to look for the accomplishment of our Lord's predictions :-we see them verified at this moment before our eyes, in the desolate state of the once celebrated city and temple of Jerusalem, and in the present condition of the Jewish people, not collected together into any one country, into one political society, and under one form of government, but dispersed over every region of the globe, and every where treated with contumely and scorn." (Bp. Porteus.)

CHAPTER II.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY LAND.

THE surface of the Holy Land being diversified with mountains and plains, its CLIMATE varies in different places; though in general it is more settled than in our more western countries. Generally speaking, however, the atmosphere is mild; the summers are commonly dry and extremely hot: intensely hot days, however, are frequently succeeded by intensely cold nights; and it is to these sudden vicissitudes, and their consequent effects on the human frame, that Jacob refers, when he says that in the day the DROUGHT consumed him, and the FROST by night. (Gen. xxxi. 40.)

Six several SEASONS of the natural year are indicated in Gen. viii. 22. viz.: seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter; and as agriculture constituted the principal employment of the Jews, we are informed by the rabbinical writers, that they adopted the same division. of seasons, with reference to their rural work. These divisions also exist among the Arabs to this day.

1. SEED-TIME comprised the latter half of the Jewish month Tisri, the whole of Marches van, and the former half of Kisleu or Chisleu, that is, from the beginning of October to the beginning of December. During this sea