WALK about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following." So sung the Psalmist, and this morning we follow his advice; so far, at least, as we are able, for the palaces have long since crumbled into dust, and though towers and bulwarks remain, they are not the towers and bulwarks which so delighted David's eye when he sang of them to the sons of Korah.
Jerusalem has been besieged and sacked more often than any other city on earth. Twenty-seven sieges 'has it stood, and, as another has remarked, “In Jerusalem we have to do not with one city, but with many. The Jerusalem of our day may be considered the eighth, for even before the time of David there was a city there. The second was the city of Solomon, from B.C. 1000 to B.C. 597, a space of four hundred years. The third that of Nehemiah, which lasted for some three hundred years. Then came the magnificent city of Herod; then the Roman city, which grew up on the ruins Titus had made; it again was followed by the Mohammedan city; and that again by a Christian city; and now, for six hundred years, the modern city has stood on the ruins of those that preceded it." Solomon, Nehemiah, Herod, Hadrian, Constantine, Omar, Godfrey, Saladin, Suleiman, each in turn had built, and the glories of each city in turn have passed away, but the time shall come when there shall arise over these ruins a city such as this world has never seen—a city of imperishable glory, and over it shall reign the true Solomon,. David's Lord and David's Son.
But let us leave the consideration of the city's past glories, and glories yet to come, for an examination of it as it exists today. We start from the Jaffa Gate, and, turning to the right, make the circuit of the city from thence. At first our way lies past the villas and modern buildings, which tended so to mar our first impressions as we entered it. But we soon leave these behind, and trending to the right, reach the Damascus Gate—the most striking of all the gates of Jerusalem. Through it passes the great northern road—if, by courtesy, road it can be termed. And, as we pointed out in a previous paper, there can be little doubt that it was through the ancient representative of this gate that the Lord passed to crucifixion. Today a number of Bedaween have pitched their black goats-hair tents beside it, and their swarthy progeny rush forth upon us clamoring, "Howadgi, backsheesh"—(" Pilgrim, alms ").
Continuing our walk, we pass, on the left, the hill which most moderns take to be Calvary, while on the right lies the hole in the rock which marks the entrance to "the quarries"—immense subterraneous excavations, whence the stones for building these same walls of Jerusalem were hewn. Rounding the northeastern corner of the wall, our way is almost due south. Here the ground slopes steeply down to the dry, rocky bed of Kedron, and the valley of Jehoshaphat opens out to our view, and beyond it the mosque-crowned summit of Olivet.
From this point we can look right into the small enclosure, which the priests who tend it say is Gethsemane. The enclosure is a highly cultivated flower-garden, in which are some half-dozen very ancient olive trees, surrounded by a stone wall. And now we have reached St. Stephen's Gate, through which passes the road which leads to Bethany—the road so often trodden by the Lord in the last week before the cross, when He would not sleep within the doomed and guilty city. Through the former counterpart of this gate for whatever else may change, the roads or tracks remain the same—He must daily have passed on His direct route to the temple. From Olivet yonder He will yet make His entry as King of kings, and Lord of lords, to exercise a power and authority that none may gainsay, and reign till He has "put down all rule, and authority and power. For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet."
A little farther, and we come to a double gate, now built up. This is the Golden Gate; it has been blocked up because the Moslems believe that when the Christians recapture Jerusalem their armies will enter through it.
Miming the south-eastern angle of the wall, we are struck by the enormous size of the stones with which it is constructed. These stones are called "the Great Course," and are some two yards high. Close by is a pit which still marks the site of the excavations carried out by Captain Warren in 1867. Here he sunk a shaft eighty-five feet in depth, which brought him to the foundation of the wall, which consists of huge blocks of stone. Some of these bore chiseled marks, and some had signs painted in vermilion. These have since been deciphered as Phoenician builders' marks.
The enormous difference between the levels of the ancient and modern cities, shows that they can have little or nothing in common. Some thirty-five feet of debris lies over the streets which our Savior trod.
We are now opposite that portion of the walls which bounded the Haram-esh-Shereef —the undoubted site of the Temple. Below our feet the valleys of Jehoshaphat and Hinnom unite. Across the former lies the village of Silwan, the ancient Siloam, the waters of whose stream in former days went softly, but which now have practically disappeared, except when a torrent is caused by some winter storm. Near the junction of the valleys, lies the pool of Siloam, a small pond, to which you descend by some ruinous steps, supplied with water by a narrow culvert from a spring some distance further up the valley, known as the Fountain of the Virgin. This latter fountain is intermittent, the flow and the stoppage being probably accounted for, by some syphon-like fissure in the limestone rock.
The gates on the southern side of Jerusalem are the Single, Double, and Triple Gates, and the Zion and Dung Gates; only the two latter are, however, now open. The Zion Gate leads out to a detached portion of the city called Neby Daid (David's Tomb). Close by the latter is shown the chamber of the Last Supper, which probably formed the crypt of some early Christian church.
Passing onwards we soon find ourselves once more at our point of departure, and, on consulting our watch, discover that we have made the circuit of the walls in three-quarters of an hour! And here we cannot refrain from remarking on the smallness of everything in Palestine. Coming from Egypt, with its limitless views, its huge water-buffaloes and great asses, and mighty city of Cairo, we find instead a narrow strip of country, nearly the whole of which may, Moses-like, be taken in at a glance, oxen no larger than a six-months' English calf, asses of a proportionately diminutive size, and Jerusalem itself a bare two-and-a-half miles in circumference. And yet this little land is the one alone of which we read that the eyes of Jehovah ever rest upon, and this dilapidated, evil-smelling town is destined yet to fulfill its King's words, and be " the joy of the whole earth," while its despise d inhabitants, the only factor in the eastern question which the keen-eyed politicians of the day overlook, shall yet give the true solution of that question, when all shall be ordered under the hand of Him who is called the Prince of Peace. J. F.