No city in the world has enjoyed so much veneration as well as
attention as Jerusalem, and yet no city has been subjected to more
violence. Almost held in as much reverence by the Mahometans as the
Christians, the possession of the Holy City was equally a devotional
object as a territorial one, with the followers of both creeds.
Jerusalem has been besieged more than twelve times, and, as in such
contests, religion only seems to embitter enmities and enhance
cruelties, the state of this otherwise favoured city can have been no
object of envy.