IN THE HOLY
LAND
CHAPTER 5
Modern Jerusalem.
Mount Olivet by moonlight—The wall of Jerusalem—Its
principal gates—The Dung-gate—[2 Chron. xxix. 16]—The
Golden-gate—Valleys of Jehoshaphat, Hinnom, and Gihon—Natural
strength of the ancient city—Circle of mountains, inner and outer [Ps.
cxxv. a]—Principal quarters—Rigid distinctions—Probable number
of inhabitants—The Jews in Jerusalem [Ps. cii. 14]—Jewish synagogues
[Ps. cxxxvii.)— Order of worship [Luke iv. 16-30]—Nationalities [Acts
vi. 9]—The sparrow and the swallow [Ps. Ixxxiv]—Bishop Gobat—A
Sabbath on Mount Zion—An evening in the bishop's house [Ps. Ixxii.
16]—The Prussian deaconesses—Estimate of Bishop Gobat's
labours—Evangelical agencies for Palestine—Activity of the
Jesuits— Challenge by Dr. Barclay to Monsignor Capel— Tables
d'hote—Scenes of proselytism —How the inhabitants are
supported—Impoverished look of the city—The glory departed [Jer.
xxvi. 18: Micah iii. 12]—Strange police regulation: Lanterns by night
—News of robbery outside the walls—Miserable look of the encampment
and of the victims—The Jews' Waiting-place [Luke xiii. 35]—Scene on
the Passover week [Lam. ii. i; iv. ij—Rabbi Akiba—Light from the
bosom of darkness [Isa. xxxvii. 31; Rom. xi. ij, 23}
FROM the upper room of our little inn, in which we were
accustomed to take our quiet meals, we looked directly out on Mount Olivet
dotted with its olive trees, and could easily trace the various paths across or
around the mountain to Bethany. We remember that on the evening of our arrival,
when the moon was out in the cloudless sky, we ascended by an outside stair to
the flat roof over the upper chamber, and looked down upon the silent city,
with its white domes and tall, lance-like minarets, its tall cypresses and
softened ruins, while Olivet gradually concentrated our notice with a
fascination that we could not resist. We pictured to ourselves Him who had so
often gone out to it, and continued all night in prayer to God, retiring into
one of those quiet recesses, or bending beneath one of those shady olive trees;
and we felt how willingly, had he yet been there, we could have gone out and
"ministered unto him," and kissed his blessed feet. Everything was yet subdued
and undefined to us in the witchery of the moonlight, and we knew how very much
of the charm would be broken when, on the morrow, we looked out upon the modern
city in broad daylight. But still, no harsh reality could take from us the
satisfaction of knowing that within a circle of less than one and a half miles
from the spot on which we were then standing, the most important events in the
history of our race had occurred - events whose moral influences, it was
probable, reached to the extremest point of the intelligent universe; that here
had been the most frequent meeting place between earth and heaven and therefor
we could sympathise to the full with those words of Arnold, and even go beyond
them; "Of earthly sights, Rome ranks as third, Athens and Jerusalem are the
other two: the three people of god's election - two for things temporal, and
one for things eternal."
We shall keep within the gates of the city in
our present chapter, and endeavour to convey to our readers our impressions of
the aspect and condition of the Jerusalem of our own times, as we so recently
saw it; reserving for another chapter our notices of modern excavations, and of
those many objects of antiquarian interest, some of which are to be found
within the city itself, and more of which immediately rise before us when we
pass beyond its walls.
Every one is aware that modern Jerusalem is
surrounded by a wall, varying in height at different places from twenty-five to
fifty feet, according to the natural elevation or depression of the ground, and
having towers, battlements and loopholes at regular intervals, with gates that
are constantly guarded, and regularly closed at sunset. The wall is so broad on
the top in many places that it is easy to stand or walk on it, as we have
sometimes done, without danger or giddiness. Though it is not of sufficient
strength to stand the shock of modern artillery, but would be shattered and
demolished in a few hours by a well-directed fire from the sides of Olivet or
the rising ground of Scopus, it is sufficient for guarding the city from the
Bedouin robber, the principal enemy whom the inhabitants, in common
circumstances, have cause to fear.
There are four gates, through which
there is a constant thoroughfare, and which look, with considerable exactness,
towards the cardinal points. Two of these are - the Jaffa-gate on the west, and
the Damascus-gate on the north, which receive their names from the cities to
which the roads that start from them conduct. The other two are St.
Stephen's-gate on the east - so named from a tradition that the first Christian
martyr suffered in its neighbourhood; and the gate of Zion on the south,
because it stands on a part of that eminence. There are other gates, however,
which still continue in partial use, such as the Dung-gate, through whose
comparatively narrow entrance we recollect having found our way from outside
the wall to the Jews' Wailing-place. The offal and rubbish of the city are
still carried out by this gate, and tumbled into a vast heap, which finds its
way down into the valley of the Kidron, far beneath ; so that the old practice
remains, which we can trace back to the times of Hezekiah, when, on occasion of
his cleansing the Temple from its filth, its idolatrous symbols, and its idols,
these were brought forth by the same gate, and hurled down, it is probable,
from the same point, to mingle with " the offscourings of all things."
The wall, though old according to our Western notions of age, is not of
extraordinary antiquity, having been built by Saladin in the sixteenth century.
But when one examines it in detail and with some attention, and observes its
patched look in many parts, and the enormous stones which here and there
diversify the structure - some of them bearing the certain marks of a much
earlier masonry, and evidently not in their original places - it is impossible
to doubt that the material of Nehemiah's wall, and even of older defences,
mingles with those existing walls and towers. There is one vast marble stone
laid transversely, and protruding from that portion of the wall immediately
above the now built up " Golden-gate," in respect to which the Mohammedans have
the grotesque prediction that their prophet is to sit on it on the day of
judgment, when the world is gathered for its last great ordeal in the valley of
Jehoshaphat beneath.
There are many reasons for believing that the
present wall, in by far the larger part of its circuit, follows in the line of
older defences. In many places it stands as near to the precipitous edge of the
encircling valleys as the nature of the ground will admit; and Lieutenant Van
de Velde was able to trace, in some parts, the groove in the rock from which
the first tier of stones had been partially dislodged by the plough of
Terentius Rufus, and in which they had been replaced by later builders. But the
ruins of houses still occasionally discovered make it evident that the earlier
wall had extended considerably further towards the north-west; while it is
certain that Ophel, a part of Mount Moriah, and the southern extremity of Zion,
both of which now stand outside the wall, formed part of the city down beyond
the latest period of Biblical history.
Except in its northern
direction, where it is connected by a level tract with the rising ground beyond
it, Jerusalem is encompassed by three valleys or gorges, in some places of
extraordinary depth: that of Jehoshaphat on the east, at the bottom of which is
the bed of the Kidron, now only known as a winter torrent, carrying down the
refuse of the city into the Dead Sea; that of Hinnom on the south, intersecting
the valley of Jehoshaphat at its deepest point, beneath the shadow of the
village of Siloam which hangs like an eagle's nest on the rock above; and that
of Gihon on the west, commencing near the Jaffa-gate, and gradually merging and
deepening into that of Hinnom. There are points on the side of those dark
ravines from which it makes one giddy to look down even now: what must have
been the effect when the descent was more immediate and terribly precipitous,
and before those valleys had gathered into them the accumulated debris of two
millenniums? It is recorded that at that point, on the north of the city, where
there is no natural ravine, the defences had been made so strong by art, as,
with a brave and united people behind them, to be nearly impregnable. Even
proud Sennacherib, it is evident, was secretly reluctant to measure the
strength of his Assyrian host against such munitions. What an inspiriting sight
must it have been to a patriotic Hebrew in Jerusalem's palmy days, when
"walking about Zion, and going round about her," he considered her palaces and
marked well her bulwarks! And when we think of this city in the centre of
Judah, far up in her mountain region, away from sea-ports, guarded by lofty
walls, encircled by deep ravines, and her besiegers having no more formidable
instruments and engines of assault than the battering-ram and the catapult, we
can understand how she should so often have been able to defy and to weary out
some of the mightiest forces of the Old World; and how, when even Rome sent
forth against her all the might of her imperial strength, the experience of her
astonishing power of resistance, then increased in many places by a triple
wall, should have drawn from Titus the acknowledgment that he could never have
succeeded in conquering a city so defended, except by the supernatural help of
the gods!
Beyond these gorges again, but quite near, there is a circle
of hills, not rising in frowning eminences and lofty peaks, and appearing to
overtop and hem in the ancient city, but rather seeming to form a respectful
guard around a monarch. That hill on the north rising in quiet beauty is
Scopus, from which Titus obtained his first admiring view of Jerusalem. Who can
fail to recognize in the triple-topped, dark-robed eminence on the east the
Mount of Olives? Those wilder cliffs which bound the city on the south and west
are the Hill of Evil Counsel and the ridge of Wady Beit Hanina. At a further
distance the eye can trace a second and much bolder mountain circle, in which
portions of the hill country of Judah and some of the nearest summits of
Samaria come in to fill up the picture, making you see how grandly appropriate
is that comparison in the psalm : "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,
so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth even for ever."
Modern Jerusalem is divided into four principal quarters: the
Mohammedan, the Jewish, the Greek, and the Latin; the names of the quarters
indicating that the division is regulated by the creed or religion of the
different dwellers in the city. Unquestionably there is no other spot on the
earth on which antagonist faiths are so crowded upon each other and yet are
separated by so sharp a division. Go into one part of the city, and you will
hear the muezzin-cry ringing out from some minaret, calling the Moslem to
prayer. Pass into another, and you will meet with rosaries, and crucifixes,
images of the Virgin, and rude pictures of the Madonna and her Child. Wander
next to that eastern portion of Mount Zion which is inclosed within the city
walls, and which looks over upon Moriah, and you will find it crowded with
synagogues, and the white-bearded Hebrew with those indelible typical features,
cherishing an ancient worship which has lingered around the same spot for three
thousand years, and which refuses to amalgamate with any other. The consequence
is, that there are three distinct sacred days observed in the different
quarters of Jerusalem every week - the Mohammedan Sabbath on Friday, the Jewish
on Saturday, and the Christian on the first day of the week. The manner of life
of these different classes of religionists, as well as their mutual
animosities, have rendered these local separations expedient in Jerusalem, if
anywhere. We believe that the division is, on the whole, very rigidly observed;
and it has even been affirmed, though probably with a considerable touch of
satire, that the very dogs of the various quarters are jealous against the
intrusion of strange dogs from any of the other quarters, and resent it after
their pwn dog fashion.
The population of modern Jerusalem has been very
differently estimated - and no doubt it increases by some thousands at the
season of the annual religious feasts - but 18,000 appears to be the most
probable average population; and while the Mohammedans are the masters, the
Jews form the decided majority, being, it is likely, not far short of 8000.
They come in a constant stream from every part of the world, many of them on
pilgrimages, by which they hope to acquire a large fund of merit, and then
return again to their native country; the greater number that they may die in
the city of their fathers, and obtain the most cherished wish of their heart by
being buried on Mount Olivet; and it is remarkable that they cling with a
strange preference to that part of the city which is nearest the site of their
ancient Temple, as if they still "took pleasure in its stones, and its very
dust were dear to them." They are fond of inscribing touching passages from the
Old Testament upon the most conspicuous places in their synagogues, such as
that in the Hundred and Thirty-seventh Psalm: " By the rivers of Babylon, there
we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the
willows in the midst thereof......If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right
hand forget her cunning. If I do*not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the
roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy." The Jerusalem
synagogues, however, are not adorned like many of those in our European
capitals, such as we have seen at Leghorn and Frankfort, probably in order to
avoid tempting the cupidity of unscrupulous Moslem rulers. It is indeed
remarkable in how many ways the Jews keep hold of their country as with a
trembling hand, and are reluctant to let go the traces and the records of a
glorious past. At a later period we visited with a learned Jew remote mountain
villages in Palestine, far out of the common track of travellers, which
contained the tombs of old rabbins and learned men, some of them going back
even beyond the Christian era, and we found that lamps were kept burning before
those tombs night and day. What an amazing tenacity of life there is alike in
the people and their faith!
We visited several of their synagogues, and
had brief conversations with some of their chief men; and three things
particularly struck us as shedding incidental light upon the Scriptures. Thus,
it was curious to notice the close resemblance between the order of religious
service in those Jerusalem synagogues in our own days, and that which is
described in Luke's Gospel as having been observed in the synagogue at Nazareth
on that memorable occasion when our Lord was invited to become the teacher. The
correspondence was, in fact, complete at every point, as if the thing had
remained stereotyped down through all the eighteen centuries. A roll of one of
the books of the Old Testament was carried by a servant from a recess in the
wall and put into the hands of the president or reader, who was elevated on a
platform in the centre of the synagogue. While the Scripture for the day was
being recited, both the reader himself and all the congregation stood up; but
at the close of the reading all the people took their seats, and the reader,
seated also, proceeded with his mingled exposition and exhortation.
It
was scarcely less interesting to observe that the attendance of the Jews on the
different synagogues was regulated by the countries to which they owed their
birth. Jews from the coasts of Africa and from the south of Europe usually
frequented one synagogue; German and Polish Jews were to be found in another;
and so it was with other nationalities. But when we turn to the narrative in
the Acts of the Apostles we find the same state of things existing in Jerusalem
at the beginning of Christianity. Among those who disputed with the youthful
Stephen, when "his face shown like the face of an angel," were some from the
synagogue of the Libertines - that is, freedmen from Rome and other parts of
Italy; some from the synagogue of the Cyrenians and Alexandrians - that is,
Jews from Northern Africa; and others from the synagogue of Cilicia and the
neighbouring provinces - that is, Asiatic Jews.
We confess to having
been even a good deal impressed by noticing that the sparrow and the swallow
had free ingress into the synagogues, and that they were allowed to build their
nests in convenient nooks in those sacred houses. We could hear their busy
twittering during every lull in the service. No doubt, the respect for birds
which prevails all over the East may so far account for this; but probably the
chief explanation is to be found in those words of the psalm, which have given
those creatures a kind of right of sanctuary in the synagogue: "Yea, the
sparrow hath found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may
lay her young, even thine own altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God."
But while false religions and greatly corrupted forms of the true sadly
predominate in modern Jerusalem, there is even there, in the birth-place of
Christianity, a Christian worship with much of the simplicity and life of
primitive times. To us it was indeed a privilege and a joy, on the only Sabbath
that we spent in Jerusalem, literally to ascend Mount Zion, and to worship
twice in the church of the excellent Bishop Gobat. His beautiful and spacious
place of worship stands on the very crest of the Hill of Zion, almost over
against the dark and massive ancient structure known as the Tower of David. We
confess to our having experienced emotions of special sacredness when we
entered Zion's gates and celebrated the Lord's Day, which is the memorial of
our Lord's resurrection, not very far from the spot where he had risen from the
dead. The form of worship was so simple that it could not have offended even
the most rigid Presbyterian : the preaching was admirably pronounced on the
grand cardinal truths of our religion; it abounded, in fact, in those very
truths which Peter had proclaimed in the neighbouring upper room on the first
Pentecost after the Ascension. That was a Sabbath so solemn in its experiences,
and so invigorating to faith, that we could almost wish to remember it in
heaven. And yet the enjoyment was only some degrees less when we were called to
spend a later evening of the same week in Christian exercises and intercourse
with the good bishop and his fellow labourers in Christian work for Jerusalem
and Palestine. We were taken by surprise when, with genial kindness and
liberality, the venerable man put the Bible into our hands, and invited us to
conduct the religious services. The Psalms of David were sung on David's own
chosen mountain; the Scriptures were read; earnest prayers were offered. We had
heard of a Sabbath school containing more than eighty scholars, many of them
the children of Jews, which was held under that very roof; and so we sang in
hope those words of the great missionary psalm: " There shall be an handful of
corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake
like Lebanon : and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth."
Those men around us needed much to be encouraged and sustained by prayer, for
they were working in a singularly hard and beaten soil, among a people, that
were "twice dead, plucked up by the roots."
Few Christian workers in
Jerusalem more interested us than the Prussian deaconesses from the
neighbouring hospital and school outside the gates, who were so active in
ministering to the distressed, and in training the young to habits of industry
and in the knowledge of religion. The lady superior of the institution was of
the bishop's party; and she deeply impressed us by the evidence which her
conversation gave of calm energy, shrewd practical wisdom, and lofty
devotedness. Indeed, whenever we met with these admirable women in the
sea-board cities of Northern Africa and of Western Asia, as in Alexandria and
Smyrna, the conviction deepened in our mind that they were doing a great though
comparatively noiseless work; hiding the little leaven in the meal, which was
to help much in leavening the whole lump.
Bishop Gobat's labours,
though not without good fruit in Jerusalem, extend over Palestine - at least as
far north as Nazareth, where his son-in-law, Mr. Zeller, is the centre of an
effective Christian agency; and the eighteen schools which he has planted in
its towns and villages make his influence felt and his name honoured all over
the ancient land. These Protestant schools stimulate even the most supine; in
proof of which we recollect the bishop's statement, that wherever he
established a school two others were not long in springing up, the one erected
by the Roman Catholics, and the other by the Mohammedans - a clear enough
indication that these antagonist communities dread the school as the very right
arm of Protestantism. Indeed, were we asked to specify the principal agencies
that are acting with appreciable influence on those Bible lands, and promising
to be the means of their gradual regeneration, we should name those which are
conducted by Bishop Gobat from his Jerusalem centre, and those which are
managed by the excellent staff of American missionaries in Beyrout, who have
already extended their stations as far as Tyre and Sidon, and are operating
with such persevering energy upon the various branches of the Eastern Churches
that spread themselves everywhere over the slopes of Lebanon. These, along with
those Syrian schools planted by that devoted woman, the late Mrs. Bowen
Thomson, the schools of the Saleeby brothers, and the quiet labours of a few
medical missionaries and some isolated evangelists specially sent out from
England to gather in " the dispersed of Israel," make up the sum of
evangelistic forces that are working to bring back this native land of the
gospel to its earlier and better faith.
Great additional value is to be
attached to the labours of Bishop Gobat and his assistants in Jerusalem, on
account of the good influence which they exert over European and American
visitors to the East. These are increasing in number every year; and a ministry
such as that which is maintained in the bishop's church cannot fail to be
widely effective, both in the form of attraction and of restraint. This was
never more needed than it is now in Jerusalem, not only because of the
confessedly deteriorating influence of travel upon the religious life, but also
because Jesuitism is most active there in seeking to draw away ill-informed and
unwary Protestants from the faith. A certain "Monsignor," whose portrait has
been given with an almost cruel accuracy of appreciation by Mr. Disraeli in his
"Lothair," and who was leading about his most brilliant prize and pervert
everywhere when we were in Jerusalem, was spreading his nets and using his
wiles in every direction. In a new Latin church, which had just been completed,
in the "Via Dolorosa," he was exercising his oratory in plausible addresses, in
which all the worst points of Popery were cast into the shade, and the
differences between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant communions so toned
down as to make the passage from the one to the other seem easy. And at
tables de hote there was the same ceaseless proselytism constantly
played off upon persons, many of whom, it is probable, had never given five
minutes of serious thought to the mighty questions which produced the
Reformation, and some of whom were as easily caught in the Jesuit's silken nets
as the fly in the web of the spider. As it was impossible to storm the
propagandist in his hotel, Dr. Barclay, the learned missionary, challenged him,
in a very courteous epistle, to a public debate on the chief points of
controversy with the Protestants. We promised to remain a week in Jerusalem,
and share in the discussion. But the table de hote was a much safer and
more congenial field than the open platform; and the challenge was declined. We
shall meet with this personage again.
The many-coloured population of
modern Jerusalem, with its many antagonist faiths, is far from sufficient to
occupy the space which is inclosed within its walls. The impression which our
every survey of it left upon our mind was that of a shrivelled old man, who had
long ago seen better days, but who had somehow shrunken grievously within his
dress. Its streets are in many places arcaded and gloomy, so narrow that it is
with some difficulty that two loaded camels can pass each other, and rough
almost as a mountain-path; and its houses with so few windows fronting to the
street, that they unpleasantly remind you of a prison. There are no
manufactures in Jerusalem, unless we dignify with this name the carving of
beads, crosses, and shells, and the making of staves, paper-cutters,
pin-cushions, and boxes from the wood of the olive or the terebinth brought
from Olivet or the Jordan, or from some old gnarled vine-stock found in some of
the gardens at Bethany, and which are bought in great numbers by visitors and
pilgrims. These were all made in public view; and it was curious to notice how
much in the primitive artizanship of the East the naked feet, and especially
the toes, helped the hands, and in their own slow way did the work of more than
one of our Western instruments.
We often found difficulty in
understanding how it was possible for even those 18,000 inhabitants to find
sustenance. But the greater number of the Jews are subsidized by their richer
brethren in other lands. The various convents, though often plundered, are rich
still, and circulate money; and the pilgrim weeks are Jerusalem's harvest for
the year. You look in vain for streets crowded with a busy population. Often
you will meet with only one passenger, but probably that one man will be a
picture. Perhaps he is an Armenian with lofty bearing, in garments of fine
cloth or rich silk; or a common Arab in his simple shirt of blue cotton; or a
wild Bedouin with dark, shaggy locks and sheep-skin coat. Give him a wide berth
to move in, for in that coat and woolly burnouse he " feeda a colony." There
are other eyes upon him than yours. He has been seeking to exchange English
gold or "napoleons" in one of those shops, and suspicion is up that he has been
concerned in the last robbery down towards the Jordan.
The same
impression is produced by a general glance at the modern city from the flat
roof of the bishop's house, which stands on one of the most elevated positions
in Jerusalem. We cannot remember to have seen a single new house in course of
erection. There were heaps of ruins in many places. It was not unusual for the
Arab to pitch his tent on bare places within the walls, just as gipsies do on
one of our own commons. Several wide spaces were overgrown with rank weeds, or
made impassable by tangled thickets of the enormous cactus. We saw a ploughed
field with brairded corn sprouting on it, on Mount Zion. The words of Micah,
which received their first fulfilment in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, lay spread
out accomplished before our eyes: "Therefore shall Zion for your sake be
ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the
house as the high places of the forest." How different from the times when, at
a Passover or a Pentecost, the very roofs of the houses accommodated myriads of
strangers, and many, unable to find a dwelling in the crowded city, pitched
their tents on the neighbouring Olivet, and echoed back to Jerusalem the
nightly praise; and when, in the words of that striking hyperbole, "King
Solomon made silver and gold at Jerusalem as plenteous as stones." It is
impossible, indeed, to write of the modern city, with the background of Old
Testament pictures rising in the memory, and not to fall into the strain of
Heber's plaintive ode: -
"Reft of thy sons, amidst thy foes forlorn,
Mourn, widowed Queen! forgotten Zion, mourn.
Is this thy place, sad
city, this thy throne,
Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone?"
We may mention as a remarkable feature in the police regulations of
modern Jerusalem, that as it is not lighted at night, every person going out
into the streets after sunset is required to have a lamp or lantern carried
before him, as we remember having been obliged to do when going to an evening
meeting in the house of the Protestant bishop. If you are found without a
lantern, you are carried off without compunction to prison for the night - a
kind of gratis accommodation intensely to be deprecated; but should you carry a
lantern and be robbed, you have then recourse against the public authorities
for compensation. There is advantage in the arrangement entirely apart from
this latter condition, as the lantern saves you from stumbling over the many
homeless dogs, and sometimes even poor homeless men, that seek a bed in the
dark, arched streets. The security for person and property is in this way very
considerable within the walls of the city; but should you remain outside the
gates after nightfall, all security is gone. We have seen flocks of goats and
sheep regularly brought in at sunset from browsing on the neighbouring mountain
slopes, and carefully folded within the city. One morning, while we were
sitting at breakfast, our new dragoman entered and announced to us, with an
unmistakable twinkle of satisfaction in his eye, that a party of more than
thirty persons, who had encamped outside the walls, but within fifty yards of
St. Stephen's-gate, had been robbed at midnight. They were all English, and
imagining themselves to be safe so near the city, had rashly dispensed with
Arab protection. Our dragoman evidently thought, though he did not venture to
say so to us, that they had been rightly served for disregarding old
prescriptive privileges. We hastened down to the encampment with the intention
of offering sympathy and help. We found the places all around the tents
littered with trunks and portmanteaus that had been ripped open with enormous
knives and swords, by dexterous thieves who had done it all without awakening
one of their victims; and money, jewels, and ornaments amissing to the value of
five hundred pounds. Our mortified fellow-countrymen did not show the amiable
side of their character on the occasion, but were in the worst possible humour.
We have restricted our notices in this chapter to modern Jerusalem, and
there is one scene which comes under this description, though it carries our
thoughts far back into the past - the Wailing-place of the Jews. We were
without a guide, but following in the steps of an aged Israelite, with a
well-worn Hebrew Bible in his hand, we were not long in reaching the spot.
Passing by a narrow path, through the midst of a dense thicket of prickly
pears, we came to a very ancient wall with an open space before it, and with a
few wild flowers growing here and there between the joints of its enormous
stones, which the Jews believe to be a preserved fragment of their old
Temple-wall. It happened to be the Friday of their Passover week, and the
number of Jews assembled was unusually great, probably between eighty and one
hundred - of every age, from the old white-bearded patriarch with shrivelled
features and piping voice, to the beautiful melancholy boy of twelve. It was a
touching sight After the lapse of eighteen dreary centuries, Israel,
represented there from almost every country in the world, was weeping over her
ruined Temple, her ruined city, her ruined Church, her people scattered and
peeled. On that neighbouring Olivet, long ago, One had wept and prophetically
said, "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" and the words had come
ringing down as a funeral knell through all those intervening ages. Some of
their number were reading aloud out of the Book of Deuteronomy or the
Lamentations of Jeremiah. Often there were low murmurs and sobs; some would
approach the wall as if to embrace it; others would actually kiss its ancient
stones. And then at intervals, when some touching passage from Jeremiah was
read, such as, "How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in
his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel;" or,
"How is the gold become dim! How is the most fine gold changed," the sorrow
rose in a loud and prolonged wail to the skies. We knew that those poor
mourners were mistaken, and that there was the one blessed fact of a crucified
and risen Saviour, which, if they would only believe, would in a moment give
them the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of
heaviness. But their sorrow was real, and their cries at times as one that
mourneth for an only son; and therefore let us think of them gently, or, if we
blame them, as we must, let us remember how much the unchristian treatment they
have so often received from Christians, and the idolatry they have seen mingled
with all the Christianity that many of them ever witnessed, have done to
thicken the veil that is over their mental eyes. We acknowledge that we had
never been so impressed with the deep humiliation of the Jews, as when we thus
saw them weeping as downtrodden strangers in their own Jerusalem, and beholding
in that Mosque of Omar, not far off, "mockery sitting on their own Salem's
towers."
And yet it was possible to gather comfort respecting Israel
even from that spectacle. If the dark side of the prophecy has been thus
terribly fulfilled, shall not the bright side be as gloriously accomplished?
The Talmud relates how one Rabbi Akiba smiled when others wept, at seeing a fox
come out of the Holy of Holies. This verified prophecy, and it made him look
with the more certainty for the fulfilment of prophecies of good things to
come. And so at that very Wailing-place we could take out our Scriptures and
read in hope: "The remnant that is escaped of the House of Judah shall yet
again take root downward, and bear fruit upward" "If the casting away of them
be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life
from the dead?..... And they also, if they abide not in unbelief, shall be
graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again." Our heart's desire and
prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
Go To Chapter
Six.
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