92 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



of that verse, " and there thou shalt serve other 

 gods, wood and stone," was also precisely ful- 

 filled, as the people were compelled by their cruel 

 conqueror to worship his idols. 



The circumstantial prophecy contained in the 

 last twenty verses of that chapter, was ful- 

 filled most literally by the invasion of the 

 Romans, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the 

 complete dispersion of the Jews. The Romans 

 were described in it with characteristic precision 

 eight hundred years before they existed as a na- 

 tion. It is said that they were to come " from 

 far, from the end of the earth :" now the western 

 parts of Europe were at that time the limits of 

 the known world ; and it is remarkable that the 

 armies of Titus and Adrian were principally 

 composed of Gauls and Spaniards. The rapidity 

 of the Roman marches is compared by the pro- 

 phet to the flight of the " eagle," and it is not 

 too much to suppose, that in that expression he 

 alludes also to the eagles which were the Roman 

 ensigns. Their language was not to be under- 

 stood by the Jews ; and the (e fierce counte- 

 nance," for which the Romans were distin- 

 guished from the earliest periods of the republic, 

 is noticed, as well as the merciless ferocity of 

 their conduct. 



The horrors of the siege of Jerusalem are next 

 foretold with dreadful exactness; as well as the 

 miseries the people were to endure in their sub- 



