People. “We sit in solitude and mourn.”
Rabbis. “Oh! for the glory that has departed; oh! for the delay of thy coming——”
People. “We sit in solitude and mourn.”
Rabbis. “Come, yea, come, O Messiah! come quickly. Enthrone thyself in Jerusalem. Reign thou over us. Be thou our God. We will be thy people, and thou shalt subdue the heathen nations of earth.”
These Jews now, as did those in olden times, cling with a death-like tenacity to the idea of a temporal ruler. They forgot that Christ said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” He once “came to His own, and His own received Him not;” and now they “sit in solitude and mourn.”
I have visited this “wailing-place” several times. It is a pitiable sight. I see men, old men, men patriarchal in appearance, barefooted, dressed in sackcloth and covered with ashes. They put their mouths in the dust, and cry aloud unto God in a most distressing manner.
It were enough to wring tears of blood from the heart of a stone, to see a nation “smitten” and “scattered” and “cursed” of God, as are the Jews. Verily, they are cursed. They said, “Let His blood be upon us and our children,” and so it is upon them. They are homeless wanderers. They have no common country, no flag they can call their own. Wherever man has gone on land, or ships on sea, the face and figure of the Jew are seen; and always and everywhere he rests under the curse of God. The blood is still upon him. Truly, “it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
Strange as it may appear, all these visitations of wrath are in direct fulfillment of prophecy. In his lamentations over the city, Jeremiah says: “The Lord hath accomplished his fury; He hath poured out His fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof. How doth the city sit solitary! How hath she become a widow! The Lord hath afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. She weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore is she removed. Her filthiness is in her skirts. Zion spreadeth forth her hands, and there is none to comfort her. All her people sigh and seek bread.”
Reader, notice carefully the above sentence, and then hold your breath as I tell you that every morning, about nine o’clock, hundreds and hundreds of Jews assemble at one place in the city, and each receives a loaf of bread gratis; and that bread, with what fruit he can get, keeps soul and body together until next day. “Yea, they sigh and seek bread.”