At nightfall
the thick mist cleared, and for the last time the rich rays of sunset
shone upon the gleaming roof and burning pinnacles of the Temple and
were reflected from the dazzling whiteness of its walls. Never had it
looked more beautiful than it did in that twilight as it towered, still
perfect, above the black ruins of the desolated city. The clamour and
shouting had died away, even the mourners had ceased their pitiful
cries; except the guards, the Romans had withdrawn and were eating their
evening meal, while those who worked the terrible engines ceased from
their destroying toil. Peace, an ominous peace, brooded on the place,
and everywhere, save for the flames that crackled among the cedar-wood
beams in the roofs of the cloisters, was deep silence, such as in tropic
lands precedes the bursting of a cyclone. To Miriam who watched, it
seemed as though in the midst of this unnatural quiet Jehovah was
withdrawing Himself from the house where His Spirit dwelt and from the
people who worshipped Him with their lips, but rejected Him in their
hearts. Her tormented nerves shuddered with a fear that was not of the
body, as she stared upwards at the immense arch of the azure evening
sky, half expecting that her mortal eyes would catch some vision of
the departing wings of the Angel of the Lord.
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