IF the traveler’s route can possibly be so arranged, he should by all means abstain from entering Jerusalem, as we did, from the west. Lying as the city does with an eastward slope, it is quite invisible if approached in this direction, till the travelers are at its very gates, besides which the road from Jaffa, in proximity to the city, is disfigured by the barrack-like hospices for Russian pilgrims, and other modern buildings. Accordingly, if the tourist can restrain his curiosity, it is far better to branch off towards the south, and visit Hebron first, returning thence by way of Bethlehem, the Dead Sea, Jordan and Jericho, and making the first entry into Jerusalem by the road by which our Lord made His last, by way of Bethany and the Mount of Olives.
But, since we were unfortunate enough to reverse the order of this route, we will leave the description of it for the present, and treat of it in the order of our visit, only premising that if the earth can afford, which is doubtful, any more striking scene than that which bursts upon one, as, following in the footsteps of the Son of Man, we round the shoulder of Olivet, and in an instant the whole city, gently sloping towards us, bursts upon our view, it can certainly afford none which will so impress the devout mind, and leave the beholder with a memory which it will be impossible to efface.
But before we enter the city, it might be helpful to our readers if we describe its situation; " Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion," is the description given of it by the inspired penman; and we would not dissent therefrom. It lies on a sloping plateau, the highest portion of which towards the north-west is two thousand five hundred and forty feet above the sea level, and the lowest, at the temple area on the south-east, two thousand four hundred and twenty feet. Surrounded as it is by hills, it naturally recalls the Psalmist's words: "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people." These mountains, with their intervening valleys, were, so the passage shows, a great source of strength and protection to the city in ancient days, but since they dominate the city from so many points, would render it indefensible to modern arms. Roughly speaking the city forms a square, and as, owing to the configuration of the ground caused by the two ravines of Kedron and Hinnom, the ancient Jerusalem must in shape have closely resembled the modern, it seems probable that to this fact we owe the similitude of the "holy Jerusalem," of which we read that, "the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth." (Rev. 21:10, 1610And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, (Revelation 21:10)
16And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. (Revelation 21:16).)
Of the two water-courses of Kedron and Hinnom, the first, after encircling the city from the north-west, makes a sudden turn and runs due south, thus forming the Valley of Jehoshaphat, while the latter flows to the west of the city, and, after swelling out into the upper and lower pools of Gihon, and forming the Valley of Hinnom (the Gehenna of the New Testament), trends to the south-east, where the two ravines of Jehoshaphat and Hinnom unite at En-Rogel. When we consider that the ground slopes away almost precipitously from the walls of the city, which was thus protected from the west and south and east, leaving the north the only vulnerable point, we cease to wonder at the prolonged sieges which Jerusalem has sustained.
But let us enter the city. We pass under the archway of the Jaffa gate, or Bab-el-Khalil (Gate of Hebron), as it is locally called, guarded by its couple of tatterdemalion Turkish soldiers, and find ourselves in an irregular courtyard, thronged by a motley herd. To our right, across a moat, lies the modern citadel, which embraces within its precincts perhaps the only remnant of Jerusalem as it existed in the time of our Lord, viz., the Tower of David, the Hippicus of Josephus. This, the sole remnant of ancient Jerusalem, was allowed to remain at the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, in order to-be a standing witness to posterity of the greatness of his achievement, and its huge blocks of stone present as unshaken a front as they did in the Roman general's day, over eighteen hundred years ago.
Crossing the courtyard directly from the Jaffa gate we enter David Street, a narrow, half-vaulted thoroughfare, perhaps some three yards broad, bordered on each side by a row of partitioned recesses, cross-legged in which the respective owners sit, their wares displayed in front of them. As one gazes down this tunnel, the opening in the roof gives a curious effect as the light strikes on the ever-moving crowds that throng the thoroughfare below, who emerge for a moment from the gloom, to be lost again. And what a crowd it is! Here is a burly Turkish officer, with fez, and fat phlegmatic face; then a Bedouin Sheikh from the East of Jordan, tall, black-bearded, sinewy and spare, handsome in feature, but withal with a shifty look, which does not inspire confidence, his head-gear consisting of a brown covering bound round the brows with a thick coil of camels-hair, his huge brassbound match-lock strapped upon his back. Here in loose pantaloons and brightly striped jacket, is a muleteer from Aleppo or Damascus, a handsome bronzed fellow with lithe and active tread; and here, slinking along in his shabby, snuff-colored dressing-gown and broad-brimmed hat, pale and unwholesome in countenance, and rendered the more effeminate-looking by the two long curls depending by his cheeks, is the Jew, the true proprietor of the land. Russians, too, are here, for Easter is close at hand, sweltering beneath the Syrian sun in their fur caps and sheep-skin garments, which, however suitable they are for the steppes, are scarcely comfortable with the thermometer at seventy degrees in the shade. And there are Armenians, Copts, and Nubians, and many more, men apparently out of every nation under heaven, but, alas, for the most part, without the gospel, as in Peter's day.
And now, under our dragoman's guidance, we turn aside to the left out of David Street, and find ourselves in the courtyard by which the church of the Holy Sepulcher is approached, where vendors of colored armlets of glass from Hebron, and of rosaries of pearl from Bethlehem, are plying their trade. Entering the door of the church we are confronted by the stone of Unction, on which it is pretended the Lord's body was anointed on being, taken down from the cross. It is a flat slab, much worn by the kisses of pilgrims, and while we stand by a continuous stream of them enter, prostrate themselves, and reverently kiss the stone. God has provided for them bread—yea, the bread of life—but, alas, their priestly deceivers have substituted a stone!
From the transept, in which is the "horn of unction," we enter the Rotunda, the round roof of which is a conspicuous object in most views of Jerusalem. Beneath the center of the dome is the so-called holy sepulcher. Several enormous candles, many feet high and several inches in diameter, stand in their candlesticks at the entrance. Just within the entrance, in an antechamber, where is shown the stone which was rolled away from the door of the sepulcher, is a circular hole in the wall. In this antechamber, in a few days, will be enacted that hideous blasphemy, the bringing down the holy fire from heaven. Through that hole, in answer to the priest's prayers within-or to his machinations, which you please-will burst forth the flame, at which thousands of poor pilgrims from Russia and elsewhere, will light their candles, and, having paid their roubles for the privilege, will return home deluded into the idea that their participation in this priestly fraud will be fraught with blessing to their souls.
Continuing our way we pass through a low doorway into the tomb itself. From the roof are suspended many lamps, which are equally distributed between the rival sects, the Greeks, the Latins, the Armenians, and the Copts. The tomb consists of a slab of stone. Here is a priest, who offers to pour scent upon our hands, with which favor we dispense, but the poor pilgrims seem to regard it as a much-coveted honor.
Surrounding the sepulcher are the chapels belonging to the four sects already enumerated. Here they ply their devotions under the guard of Moslem soldiers a grim irony on the saying, “See how these Christians love one another." Much blood has been shed within these walls through brawls between the rival sects; hence the Moslem Government wisely keeps the peace at the bayonet's point.
In the neighboring chapels many sights are shown; thus we are pointed out the spot where the Virgin stood at the anointing of the Lord; where, after His resurrection, He met Mary Magdalene; the holes in the rock in which the crosses were erected; the rent rocks (showing unmistakable chiseling), and the rightly-termed " Chapel of the Invention of the Cross," where the Empress Helena found the true cross; also the " stone of scourging," and the " column of derision "; and, finally, Adam's grave! Of course the seeing of these impostures all require fees, and a banker at Jerusalem, to whom I was introduced, and through whose hands the money acquired by the different sects passed, informed me, in answer to my questions, that on an average thirty thousand pounds passed through his hands on behalf of the Greek Church alone.
That the site of the so-called sepulcher offends against everything that Scripture teaches, as to its position, we shall have occasion to show when we come to consider and describe the site of Calvary without the city walls.
Personally, I retire from the church with a feeling of intense disgust, and with the words of one of old running through my mind, “They have taken away my Lord." Thank God, we have not to do with priestly cunning, or an empty sepulcher, but an occupied throne, on which sits the man Christ Jesus as the eternal evidence of the efficacy of His work below. J. F.