A WORLD-FAMOUS CITY--JERUSALEM
The history of the world is largely the story of the rise and fall of
great cities. In these great centers one can feel the heart-throb of
civilization. Some of the great cities of today are famous for their
size, such as New York and London; some for their beauty, like Paris and
Rio Janeiro; some for their culture and learning, as Boston and Oxford;
some for their manufacturing and commercial supremacy, as Detroit and
Liverpool. But there is one city on the globe not nearly as large as Des
Moines, not at all beautiful, its people neither cultured nor learned,
has no factories and one narrow gauge railway takes care of most of its
commerce, and yet it is by far the most famous city of all time. It is
the city of Jerusalem.
The site of the city was once owned by a farmer whose name was Oman. He
had a threshing floor on the top of Mount Moriah. The city as it is
today is on top of two mountains, but the valley between has been filled
up so that it is almost like one continuous mountain top. Higher
mountains are practically on every side so that the moment one sees the
city he thinks of the scripture, "As the mountains are round about
Jerusalem, so is the Lord round about his people."
To get an idea of the city as it was when the war broke out you must
imagine a city of about sixty thousand people, without street cars,
electric lights, telephones, waterworks, sewer system or any modern
improvements whatever. However, General Allenby's entrance into the city
in December, 1917, was the beginning of a new era. In three months the
English did more for the city than the Turk did in a thousand years.
There is an old Arab legend which says: "Not until the River Nile flows
into Palestine will the Turk be driven from Palestine." Of course this
was their way of saying that such a thing would never come to pass for
the Turk actually believed that he had such a hold on that country that
there was no power on earth that could make him give it up. But when the
English started from Egypt they not only built a railroad as they went
toward Jerusalem, but not far from the Nile they prepared a great
filtering process to cleanse the water, and then laid a twelve-inch pipe
and brought the pure water along with them for both man and beast.
Wherever they stopped for a length of time in the desert, "the glowing
sands became pools," as the prophet had forecasted, and the desert began
to "blossom as the rose." Sixty-five days after General Allenby entered
the Jaffa Gate into the city of Jerusalem the water pipe or system was
brought into the city and the Canadian engineer had made the Arab legend
a reality, bringing the sweet waters of the Nile, a hundred and fifty
miles away, into the City of the Great King.
Jerusalem is to this day a walled city. The walls average some thirty
feet high and are about fifteen feet thick at the top. It is a little
less than two and one-half miles around the city wall, but the city
itself has outgrown these limitations, quite a portion of it being on
the outside of the wall. The hotel at which the writer stopped while
visiting the city some years ago, was located outside the wall, as are
many of the best buildings. The streets are narrow, the houses have
flat tops and many of them are but one or two stories high.
There was a time, however, when this city boasted of having the finest
building ever erected by the hands of man, viz: Solomon's Temple. This
was built on Mount Moriah which was a great flat mountain top of uneven
rock. Great arches were built around the sides and then the top leveled
off until the large temple area was formed. Below the sides of this area
are still seen the massive rooms that are called Solomon's stables. The
writer rambled for hours through these great underground vaults and saw
the holes in the stone pillars where the horses were tied. Here
multiplied thousands took refuge during some of the memorable sieges
that the city went through.
Not far away are the great vaults known as Solomon's Quarries. Here is
where the massive stones were "made ready" and the master builder's
plans were so perfect that, "there was neither hammer nor ax nor any
tool of iron heard in the temple while it was in building." The marks of
the mason's tools and the niches where their lamps were placed can be
seen to this day. It is a remarkable fact that in sinking shafts
alongside the temple wall, great stones have been discovered but no
stone chips are found by them. There are numerals and quarry marks and
special mason marks on some of these stones but they are all Phoenician,
thus confirming the Bible account that Hiram, the great Phoenician
master builder prepared the stones and did the building for King
Solomon.
Jerusalem has several large churches the most noted of which is the one
built over the traditional tomb of Christ. It is called the "Church of
the Holy Sepulchre." For sixteen hundred years there was no question
but what this tomb was the identical one in which the body of Christ was
laid. This church as it stands today is a magnificent building with two
great entrances. The sad thing about it is the fact that it is divided
up into various chapels, each held by sects of so-called Christians, and
a large-armed guard has to be kept in the church to keep these fanatical
people from killing each other. Before soldiers were placed there,
scenes of conflict and bloodshed were very common indeed--a sad
spectacle for Jews and Moslems and other enemies of the Christ to gaze
upon.
In the Church of Pater Noster I counted the Lord's Prayer in thirty-two
different languages inscribed on marble slabs so that almost any person
from any country can read this prayer in his own language. In this
connection it is interesting to note that at the gate entrance to the
Pool of Bethesda the scripture story of the healing of the impotent man
is written, or rather inscribed, beneath the arch, in fifty-one
different languages.
One of the large churches in the city was dedicated by the ex-kaiser
when he visited the city in 1898. It was later found out that this
German church was built for military purposes. During the war a wireless
outfit and great searchlights were found in its tower. This
self-appointed world ruler is represented on the ceiling of the chapel
of a building on Mount Olivet in a companion panel with the Deity. In
this same building the ex-kaiser is represented as a crusader by a
figure and the Psalmist is painted with the moustache of a German
general. When the ex-kaiser entered the city of Jerusalem, a breach was
made in the wall near the Jaffa Gate, so instead of entering through
the gate like an ordinary mortal, he went in through a hole in the wall.
He would no doubt be glad now to go through another "hole in the wall"
to have his liberty.
To the writer, however, perhaps the most interesting place in or about
the entire city is the Garden Tomb and Mount Calvary. This is almost
north of the Damascus gate and on the great highway from Jerusalem from
the north. Mount Calvary is only a small hill. The Jews speak of it as
the Hill of Execution, or the Skull Place, as the outline of the hill
seen from a certain direction resembles the form of a gigantic skull. It
is said that no Jew cares to pass this place after night and if he
passes it in daylight he will mutter a curse upon the memory of him who
presumed to be the King of the Jews.
Near this Skull Place is an old tomb that just fits the Bible narrative,
viz: "Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in
the garden a new sepulchre wherein never man was yet laid." This tomb
was discovered many years ago by General Gordon and is often spoken of
as Gordon's Tomb, also called the Garden Tomb. When excavating about it
a wall was found which proved to be a garden wall the end of which butts
up against Mount Calvary. One writer who has examined every nook and
corner says in regard to this tomb: "It stands in the mass of rock which
forms the northern boundary of a garden which literally runs into the
hillside to the west of Mount Calvary itself."
One of the first things noted as the writer went into this tomb was the
fact that it is a Jewish tomb. They made their tombs different from
those of any other people. That it was a "rich man's tomb" is also very
certain, as is the fact that it dates back to the Herodian period in
which Jesus lived. There is also some frescoed work upon it showing that
it was held sacred by the early Christians. Then the "rolling stone" and
the groove in which it was placed is very interesting. This was
something like a gigantic grindstone which rolled in the groove and was
large enough to cover the opening when the tomb was closed.
While in and about Jerusalem the writer visited the famous "Upper Room,"
the "Jew's Wailing Place," the "Mosque of Omar," which stands upon the
very spot where Solomon's Temple used to stand, the "Way of Sorrows,"
the "Ecco Homo Arch," the "Castle of Antonio," "Tower of David," the
"Pool of Siloam," and a great many other interesting places. The Garden
of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives as well as scores of other places
were fascinating but it would take a large volume to describe them all.