THE PATRIARCH KNEW ALL ABOUT JAFFATHE PATRIARCH KNEW ALL ABOUT JAFFA
The Patriarch knew all about Jaffa. It is one of his special landmarks, being the chief seaport of the Phœnicians, the one place they never really surrendered. A large share of the vast traffic that went in and out of Palestine in the old days went by Jaffa, and a great deal goes that way still. The cedarwood from Lebanon, used in Solomon's Temple, was brought by water to this port; the treasure and rich goods that went down to Jerusalem in the day of her ancient glory all came this way; her conquerors landed here. The blade and brand prepared forJerusalem were tried experimentally on Jaffa. According to Josephus, eighty thousand of her inhabitants perished at one time. Yet Jaffa has survived. Her harbor, which is not really a harbor at all, but merely an anchorage, with a landing dangerous and uncertain, has still been sufficient to keep her the chief seaport of Judea.
There is another reason for Jaffa's survival. Beyond her hills lie the sacred cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. The fields that knew Ruth and Benjamin and a man named Jesus lie also there. From Jaffa in every direction stretch lands made memorable by stories and traditions in which the God and the prophets of at least three religions are intimately concerned. So during long centuries Jaffa has been a holy gateway, and through its portals the tide of pilgrimage has never ceased to flow.
Some of us who were to put in full time in Egypt would have only a few days in the Holy Land, and we were off the ship presently, being pulled through the turquoise water by boatmen who sang a barbaric chorus as they bent over their huge, clumsy oars. Then we were ashore and in carriages, and in another moment were "jumping through Jaffa," as one of the party expressed it, in a way that made events and landmarks flit together like the spokes of a wheel.
We visited the tomb of Dorcas, whom Peter raised from the dead, though for some reason we did not feel a positive conviction that it was the very tomb—perhaps because we did not have time to get up a conviction—and we called at the house of Simon the Tanner. It was with Simon, "whose house is by theseaside," that Peter lodged when he had his "vision of tolerance," in which it was made known to him that "God is no respecter of persons, but only of righteousness." It is truly by the seaside, and there is an ancient tanner's vat in the court-yard. But I hope the place was cleaner when Peter lodged there than it is now. One had to step carefully, and, though it did not smell of a tanyard, it did of several other things. Many travellers, including Dean Stanley, have accepted this as the veritable house where Simon dwelt and St. Peter lodged. Those people ought to get together and have it cleaned up. I could believe in it then myself.
Jaffa, as a whole, could stand the scrub-brush and the hose. It is not "the beautiful" from within. It is wretchedly unbeautiful, though just as we were getting ready to leave it we did have one genuine vision. From the enclosures of the Greek Church we looked across an interminable orange-grove, in which the trees seemed mere shrubs, but were literally massed with golden fruit—the whole blending away into tinted haze and towering palms. No blight, no vileness, no inodorous breath, but only the dreamlit mist and the laden trees—the Orient of our long ago.
One might reasonably suppose that, as often as parties like ours travel over the railway that potters along from Jaffa to Jerusalem, there would be no commotion, no controversy with the officials—that the guard would only need to come in and check up our tickets and let us go.
Nothing of the kind; every such departure as oursis a function, an occasion—an entirely new proposition, to be considered and threshed out in a separate and distinct fashion. Before we were fairly seated in the little coach provided, dark-skinned men came in one after another to look us over and get wildly excited—over our beauty, perhaps; I could discover nothing else unusual about us. They would wave their hands and carry on, first inside and then on the platform, where they would seem to settle it. When they had paid us several visits of this kind, they locked us in and went away, and we expected to start.
Not at all; they came back presently and did it all over again, only louder. Then our dragoman appeared, and bloodshed seemed imminent. When they went away again he said it was nothing—just the usual business of getting started.
By-and-by some of us discovered that our bags had not been put on the train, so we drifted out to look for them. We found them here and there, with from two to seven miscreants battling over each as to which should have the piastre or two of baksheesh collectible for handing our things from the carriage to the train. Such is the manner of graft in the Holy Land. It lacks organization and does not command respect.
The station was a hot, thirsty place. We loaded up with baskets of oranges, the great, sweet, juicy oranges of Jaffa—the finest oranges in the world, I am sure—then we forgot all our delays and troubles, for we were moving out through the groves and gardens of the suburbs, entering the Plains of Sharon—"afold for flocks, a fertile land, blossoming as the rose."
That old phrase expresses it exactly. I have never seen a place that so completely conveyed the idea of fertility as those teeming, haze-haunted plains of Sharon. Level as a floor, the soil dark, loose, and loamy; here green with young wheat, there populous with labor—men and women, boys and girls, dressed in the old, old dress, tilling the fields in the old, old manner; flocks and herds tended by such shepherds as saw the Star rise over Bethlehem; girls carrying water-jars on their heads; camel trains swinging across the horizon—a complete picture of primal husbandry, it was—a vast allegory of increase. I have seen agricultural and pastoral life on a large scale in America, where we do all of the things with machinery and many of them with steam, and would find it hard to plough with a camel and a crooked stick; but I have somehow never felt such a sense of tillage and production—of communing with mother earth and drawing life and sustenance from her bosom—as came to me there crossing the Plains of Sharon, the garden of Syria.
It is a goodly tract for that country—about fifty miles long and from six to fifteen wide. The tribes of Dan and Manasseh owned it in the old days, and to look out of the car-window at their descendants is to see those first families that Joshua settled there, for they have never changed.
Our dragoman began to point out sites and landmarks. Here was the Plain of Joshua, where Samson made firebrands of three hundred foxes and destroyedthe standing corn of the Philistines. The tower ahead is at Ramleh, and was built by the crusaders nearly a thousand years ago—Ramleh being the Arimathea where lived Joseph, who provided the Saviour with a sepulchre. Also, it is said to be the place where in the days when Samuel judged Israel the Jews besought him for a king, and acquired Saul and the line of David and Solomon as a result. To the eastward lies the Valley of Ajalon, where Joshua stopped the astronomical clock for the only time in a million ages, that he might slaughter some remaining Amorites before dark.
We are out of the Plains of Sharon by this time, running through a profitless-looking country, mostly rock and barren, hardly worth fighting over, it would seem. Yet there were plenty of people to be killed here in the old days, and as late as fifteen hundred years after Joshua the Roman Emperor Hadrian slaughtered so many Jews at Bittir (a place we shall pass presently) that the horses waded to their nostrils in blood, and a stone weighing several pounds was swept along by the ruby tide. The guide told us this, and said if we did not believe it he could produce the stone.
Landmarks fairly overlap one another. Here, at Hill Gezer, are the ruins of an ancient city presented to Solomon by one of his seven hundred fathers-in-law. Yonder at Ekron so much history has been made that a chapter would be required to record even a list of the events. Ekron was one of the important cities which Joshua did not capture, perhaps because he could not manage the solar system permanently.The whole route fairly bristles with Bible names, and we are variously affected. When we are shown the footprints of Joshua and Jacob and David and Solomon we are full of interest. When we recall that this is also the land of Phut and Cush and Buz and Jidlaph and Pildash we are moved almost to tears.
For those last must have been worthy men. The Bible records nothing against them, which is more than can be said of the others named. Take Jacob, for instance. I have searched carefully, and I fail to find anything to his credit beyond the fact that he procreated the Lord's chosen people. I do find that he deceived his father, defrauded his brother, outmanœuvred his rascally father-in-law, and was a craven at last before Esau, who had been rewarded for his manhood and forgiveness and wrongs by being classed with the Ishmaelites, a name that carries with it a reproach to this day.
Then there is Solomon. We need not go into the matter of his thousand wives and pretty favorites. Long ago we condoned that trifling irregularity as incident to the period—related in some occult but perfectly reasonable way to great wisdom. No, the wives are all right—also the near-wives, we have swallowed those, too; but then there comes in his heresy, his idolatry—all those temples built to heathen gods when he had become magnificent and mighty and full of years. There was that altar which he set up to Moloch on the hill outside of Jerusalem (called to this day the Hill of Offence), an altar for thesacrifice of children by fire. Even Tiberius Cæsar and Nero did not go as far as that.I'm sorry, and I shall be damned for it, no doubt, but I think, on the whole, in the language of the Diplomat, I shall have to "pass Solomon up." Never mind about the other two. Joshua's record is good enough if one cares for a slayer of women and children, and David was a poet—a supreme poet, a divine poet—which accounts for a good deal. Still, he did not need to put the captured Moabites under saws and harrows of iron and make them walk through brick-kilns, as described in II. Samuel xii: 31, to be picturesque. Neither did he need to kill Uriah the Hittite in order to take his wife away from him. Uriah would probably have parted with her on easier terms.
It is sad enough to reflect that the Bible, in its good, old, relentless way, found it necessary to record such things as these against our otherwise Sunday-school heroes and models. Nothing of the sort is set down against Buz and Cush and Phut and Pildash and Jidlaph. Very likely they were about perfect. I wish I knew where they sleep.
The nearer one approaches Jerusalem the more barren and unproductive becomes the country. There are olive-groves and there are cultivated fields, but there are more of flinty hillsides and rocky steeps. The habitations are no longer collected in villages, in the Syrian fashion, but are scattered here and there, with wide sterile places between. There would seem to be not enough good land in any one place to support a village.
I suppose this is the very home of baksheesh. I know at every station mendicants, crippled and blind—always blind—come swarming about, holding uppiteous hands and repeating endlessly the plaintive wail, "Baksheesh! bak-sheesh!" One's heart grows sick and hard by turns. There are moments when you long for the wealth of a Rockefeller to give all these people a financial standing, and there are moments when you long for a Gatling-gun to turn loose in their direction. We are only weak and human. We may pity the hungry fly ever so much, but we destroy him.
I think, by-the-way, some of these beggars only cry baksheesh from habit, and never expect to get anything. I think so, because here and there groups of them stand along the railway between stations, and hold out their hands, and voice the eternal refrain as we sweep by. It is hardly likely that any one ever flings anything out of a car-window. Pity becomes too sluggish in the East to get action as promptly as that.
It was toward evening when we ran into a rather modern little railway station, and were told that we were "there." We got out of the train then, and found ourselves in such a howling mob of humanity as I never dreamed could gather in this drowsy land. We were about the last party of the season, it seems, and the porters and beggars and cabmen and general riffraff were going to make the most of us. We were seized and dragged and torn and lifted—our dragoman could keep us together about as well as one cowboy could handle a stampeded herd. I have no distinct recollection of how we managed to reach the carriages, but the first words I heard after regaining consciousness were:
"That pool down there is where Solomon was anointed king."
I began to take notice then. We were outside a range of lofty battlemented walls, approaching a wide gate flanked by an imposing tower that might belong to the Middle Ages. We looked down on the squalid pool of Gihon, and I tried to visualize the scene of Solomon's coronation there, which I confess I found difficult. Then we turned to the tower and the entrance to the Holy City.
We were entering Jerusalem by the Jaffa gate, and the tower was the Tower of David.
Thirty-nine hundred years ago it was called merely Salem, and was ruled over by Melchisedek, who feasted Abraham when he returned from punishing the four kings who carried off his nephew, Lot. Five hundred years later, when Joshua ravaged Canaan, the place was known as Jebusi, the stronghold of the Jebusites, a citadel "enthroned on a mountain fastness" which Joshua failed to conquer, in spite of the traditional promise to Israel. Its old name had been not altogether dropped, and the transition from Jebusi-salem to Jebu-salem and Jerusalem naturally followed.
It was four hundred years after Joshua's time that David brought the head of Goliath to Jerusalem, and fifteen years later, when he had become king, he took the "stronghold of Zion," smote the difficult Jebusite even to the blind and the lame, and named the place the City of David.
"And David said on that day, whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind,that arehated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain."
"And David said on that day, whosoever getteth up to the gutter and smiteth the Jebusites, and the lame and the blind,that arehated of David's soul, he shall be chief and captain."
That is not as cruel as it sounds. Those incapables had no doubt been after David for baksheesh, and he felt just that way. I would like to appoint afew chiefs and captains of Jerusalem on the same terms.
But I digress. The Bible calls it a "fort," and it was probably not much more than that until David "built round about" and turned it into a city, the fame of which extended to Hiram, King of Tyre, who sent carpenters and masons and materials to David and built him a house. After which "David took him some more concubines and wives out of Jerusalem," brought up the Ark of the Covenant from Kirjath-jearim, and prepared to live happy ever after. The Ark was, of course, very sacred, and one Uzzah was struck dead on the way up from Kirjath for putting out his hand to save it when it was about to roll into a ditch.
It was with David that the glory of Jerusalem as a city began. Then came Solomon—David's second son by Uriah's wife—wise, masterful, and merciless, and Jerusalem became one of the magnificent cities of the world. Under Solomon the Hebrew race became more nearly a nation then ever before or since. Solomon completed the Temple begun by David on Mount Moriah; the Ark of the Covenant was duly installed. Judaism had acquired headquarters—Israel, organization, and a capital.
The fame of the great philosopher-poet-king spread to the ends of the earth. The mighty from many lands came to hear his wisdom and to gaze upon the magnificence of his court. The Queen of Sheba drifted in from her far sunlit kingdom with offerings of gold, spices, and precious stones. And "she communed with him of all that was in herheart." That was more than a thousand years before Christ. Greece had no history then. Rome had not been even considered. Culture and splendor were at high-tide in the Far East. It was the golden age of Jerusalem.
The full tide must ebb, and the waning in Jerusalem began early. Solomon's reign was a failure at the end. Degenerating into a sensualist and an idolater, his enemies prevailed against him. The Lord "stirred up an adversary" in Hadad the Edomite, who had an old grudge. Also others, and trouble followed. The nation was divided. Revolt, civil wars, and abounding iniquities dragged the people down. That which would come to Rome a thousand years later came now on a smaller scale to Israel. Egyptian and Arabian ravaged it by turns, and the Assyrian came down numerously. It became the habit of adjoining nations to go over and plunder and destroy Jerusalem.
Four hundred years after Solomon, Josiah undertook to rehabilitate the nation and restore its ancient faith. He pulled down the heathen altars which Solomon had constructed, "that no man might make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Moloch"; he drove out and destroyed the iniquitous priests; he burned the high places of pollution and stamped the powder in the dust.
It was too late. Josiah was presently slain in a battle with the Egyptians, and his son dropped back into the evil practices of his fathers. Nebuchadnezzar came then, and in one raid after another utterly destroyed Jerusalem, including the Temple and the Ark, and carried the inhabitants, to the last man,into a captivity which lasted seventy years. Then Nehemiah was allowed to return with a large following and rebuild the city. But its prosperity was never permanent. The Jews were never a governing nation. Discontented and factional, they invited conquest. Alexander came, and, later, Rome. Herod the Great renewed and beautified the city, and to court favor with the Jews rebuilt the Temple on a splendid scale. This was Jerusalem in its final glory. Seventy years later the Jews rebelled, and Titus destroyed the city so completely that it is said to have remained a barren waste without a single inhabitant for fifty years.
To-day the city is divided into "quarters"—Christian, Jewish, Mohammedan, and Armenian. All worships are permitted, and the sacred relics—most of them—of whatever faith, are accessible to all. Such in scanty outline is the story of the Holy City. It has been besieged and burned and pulled down no less than sixteen times—totally destroyed and rebuilt at least eight times, and the very topography of its site has been changed by the accumulation of rubbish. Hillsides have disappeared. Where once were hollows are now mere depressions or flats. Most of the streets that Jesus and the prophets trod lie from thirty to a hundred feet below the present surface, and bear little relation even in direction to those of the present day. Yet certain sites and landmarks have been identified, while others are interesting for later reasons.
Hence, both to sceptic and believer, Jerusalem is still a shrine.
We lost no time. Though it was twilight when we reached our hotel, we set out at once to visit the spot which for centuries was the most sacred in all Christendom—that holiest of holies which during two hundred years summoned to its rescue tide after tide of knightly crusaders, depleted the chivalry and changed the map of Europe—the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
This, at least, would be genuine in so far as it was the spot toward which the flower of knighthood marched—Godfrey of Bouillon, Richard of the Lion Heart, Ivanhoe, and all the rest—under the banner of the Cross, with the cry "God wills it" on their lips. We are eager to see that precious landmark.
It was only a little way—nothing is far in Jerusalem—and we walked. We left the narrow street in front of the hotel and entered some still narrower ones where there were tiny booths of the Oriental kind, and flickering lights, and curious, bent figures, and donkeys; also steps that we went up or down, generally down, which seemed strange when we were going to Calvary, because we had always thought Calvary a hill.
It was impressive, though. We were in Jerusalem,and if these were not the very streets that Jesus trod, surely they were not unlike them, for the people have not changed, nor their habits, nor their architecture—at least, not greatly—nor their needs. Whatever was their cry for baksheesh then, He must often have heard it, and their blind eyes and their withered limbs were such as He once paused to heal.
I think we continued to descend gradually to the very door of the church. It did not seem quite like the entrance to a church, and, in reality, it is not altogether that; it is more a repository, a collection of sacred relics, a museum of scriptural history.
We paused a little outside while the guide—his name was something that meant St. George—told us briefly the story. Constantine's mother, the Empress Helena, he said, through a dream had located the site of the crucifixion and burial of the Saviour, whereupon Constantine, in 335a.d., had erected some buildings to mark the place. The Persians destroyed these buildings by-and-by, but they were rebuilt. Then the Moslems set fire to the place; but again some chapels were set up, and these the conquering crusaders enclosed under one great roof. This was about the beginning of the twelfth century, and portions of the buildings still remain, though as late as 1808 there came a great fire which necessitated a general rebuilding, with several enlargements since, as the relics to be surrounded have increased.
We went inside then. The place is dimly lit—it is always lit, I believe, for it can never be very light in there—and everywhere there seemed to be flitting processions of tapers, and of chanting, dark-robedpriests. Just beyond the entrance we came to the first great relic—the Stone of Unction—the slab upon which the body of Christ was laid when it was taken down from the Cross. It is red, or looked red in that light, like a piece of Tennessee marble, and, though it is not smoothly cut, it is polished with the kisses of devout pilgrims who come far to pay this tribute, and to measure it, that their winding-sheets may be made the same size. Above it hang a number of lamps and candelabra, and with the worshippers kneeling and kissing and measuring, the spectacle was sufficiently impressive. Then, as we were about to go, our guide remembered that this was not the true Stone of Unction, but one like it, the real stone having been buried somewhere beneath it. The pilgrims did not know the difference, he said, and they used up a stone after a while, kissing and measuring it so much. Near to the stone is the Station of Mary, where she stood while the body of Jesus was being anointed, or perhaps where she stood watching the tomb—it is not certain which. At all events, it has been revealed by a vision that she stood there, and the place is marked and enclosed with a railing.
We followed our guide deeper into the twinkling darkness, where the chanting processions were flickering to and fro, and presently stood directly beneath a dome, facing an ornate marble or alabaster structure, flanked and surrounded by elaborately wrought lamps and candlesticks—the Holy Sepulchre itself.
But I had to be told. I should never have guessed this to be the shrine of shrines, the receptacle of the gentle Nazarene who taught the doctrine of humilityto mankind. And it is the same within. If a rock-hewn tomb is there, it is overlaid now with costly marbles; polished with kisses; bedewed with tears.
We did not remain in the tomb long, Laura and I. Perhaps they would not have let us; but, in any case, we did not wish to linger. At Damascus, Laura had gone so far as to criticise the house of Judas, because it had been whitewashed since St. Paul lodged there. So it was not likely that a tomb which was not a tomb, but merely a fancy marble memorial, would inspire much enthusiasm. To us it contained no suggestion of the gentle Prince of Peace.
But at the entrance of the Sepulchre, facing us as we came out, there was a genuine thing. It was a woman kneeling, a peasant woman—of Russia, I suppose, from her dress. And she was not looking at us at all, but beyond us, through us, into that little glowing interior which to her was shining with the very light of the Lamb. I have never seen another face with an expression like that. It was fairly luminous with rapt adoration. Yes, she at least was genuine—an absolute embodiment of the worship that had led her along footsore and weary miles to kneel at last at the shrine of her faith.
I am not going to weary the reader with detailed description of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It is a vast place, and contains most of the sacred relics and many of the sacred sites that have been identified since the zealous Queen Helena set the fashion of seeing visions and dreaming dreams. We made the tour of a number of the chapels of different religious denominations. They are not on good terms withone another, by-the-way, and require Mohammedan guards to keep them from fighting around the very Sepulchre itself. Then we descended some stairs to the Chapel of St. Helena, where there is an altar to the penitent thief, and another to Queen Helena, though I did not learn that she ever repented, or even reformed.
They showed us where the Queen sat when, pursuing one of her visions, they were digging for the true Cross and found all three of them; and they told us how they identified the holy one by sending all three to the bedside of a noble lady who lay at the point of death. The first shown her made her a maniac; the second threw her into spasms; the third cured her instantly. The commemoration of this event is called in the calendar "The Invention of the Cross," which seems to convey the idea. I think it was in the Chapel of the Finding of the Cross that I bought a wax candle, and a prayer went with it, though whether it was for my soul or Queen Helena's I am not certain. It does not matter. I am willing Helena should have it, if she needs it, and I think she does.
We went on wandering around, and by-and-by we came to a chapel where the Crown of Thorns was made, and presently to a short column marking the Centre of the Earth, the spot from which the dust was taken that was used in making Adam. You see, it is necessary to double up on some of the landmarks or enlarge the church again.
You can climb a flight of stairs in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and be told that you are onCalvary, and you are allowed to put your hand through the floor into the sockets where the crosses stood. We did not do it, however. We climbed the stairs, but a collection of priests were holding some kind of ceremony with candles and chanting, and we were not sufficiently impressed to wait.
We did pause, as we came away, to note in the vestibule of the Holy Sepulchre the two holes through which on Easter Eve the Holy Fire is distributed to Christian pilgrims who assemble from all parts of the world. On this occasion the Fire Bishop enters the Sepulchre, and fire from heaven lights the candles on the altar. Then the Bishop, who is all alone in the Sepulchre, passes the Holy Fire out through these holes, in the form of a bundle of burning tapers, to priests. The pilgrims with unlighted tapers then rush and jam and scramble toward these dispensers of the sacred flame and pay any price demanded to have their candles speedily lighted. Usually a riot takes place, and the Mohammedan guards are required to prevent bloodshed.
In 1834 there occurred a riot over the Holy Fire which piled the dead five feet deep around the Sepulchre. Four or five hundred were killed, and corpses lay thick even on the Stone of Unction. It seems a useless sacrifice, when one thinks of it, but then the blood of five hundred is only a drop as compared with what the centuries have contributed to this revered shrine.
I want to be quite serious for a moment about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—here in Jerusalem—now, while I am in the spirit of the thing.
It is the biggest humbug in all Christendom. Of the scores of sites and relics enclosed within its walls, it is unlikely that a single one is genuine. With all respect to Queen Helena's talent for dreams, her knowledge of Scripture must have been sparing, or she would have located Calvary outside the walls of Jerusalem. This place is in the heart of the city—was always in the heart of the city, in spite of all gerrymandering to prove it otherwise; and it was more of a flat or a hollow in the time of Christ than it is now.
As for the other traditions and trumpery gathered in this ecclesiastical side-show, they are unworthy of critical attention. Probably not one in a million of the readers ofInnocents Abroadbut thought the finding of the Grave of Adam one of Mark Twain's jokes. Not at all; it is located here under Calvary, and the place from which came Adam's dust (the Centre of the World) is close by. Then there is that Stone of Unction, which every one of intelligence knows to be a fraud, and there is the stone which the angel rolled away, and Adam's skull—they have that, too.
It would seem that the human animal had exhausted his simian inheritance then. But no, he can never exhaust that—it is his one limitless gift. He has gone right on adding to his heap of bones and crockery, enlarging the museum from time to time to make room. And he will add more. The future is long, and it is only a question of time and faith when he will bring over the tombs of the patriarchs from Hebron, the Grotto of the Nativity from Bethlehem,the House of Judas from Damascus, and the Street that was called Straight. Oh, he can do it! A creature who can locate the Holy Sepulchre, the Grave of Adam, the Centre of the World, Mount Calvary, and fifty other historical sites all within the radius of a few feet, and find enough of his own kind to accept them, can do anything. As an insult to human intelligence and genuine Christian faith, I suppose this institution stands alone.
Do the priests themselves, the beneficiaries, believe it? Perhaps—at least some of them do. There is nothing so dense, so sodden, so impenetrable as priestly superstition. Not a ray of reason can enter a mind darkened for a lifetime by ceremonials in which candles, chantings, swinging censers, and prostrations are regarded as worship. Could you produce any evidence that would appeal to the minds of those figures that march and countermarch, and carry tapers and chant among these frauds and fripperies of their faith? Hardly—they would not care for evidence. What they want is more superstition; more for themselves—more, always more, for their followers; the more superstition, the more power, the more baksheesh. They have no use for facts and testimony. They can create both to fit the need. Let any corner of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre become vacant, and immediately some prelate will dream that it is the true place where Balaam's Ass saw the angel with the flaming sword, and they will promptly consecrate the spot; then they will excavate and find the sword and a footprint of the angel, also a piece of the Ass, and they will make a saint ofBalaam, and very likely of the Ass, and they will set up an altar and get a sign-painter to make a picture of the vision, and the people will contribute prayers and piastres, and yell baksheesh at every traveller to keep the high priests of Balaam in food and funds.
Strange that we who regard the Mohammedan pilgrim with disdain or compassion, on his journey to Mecca and Medina, excuse or condone the existence of a shrine like this. The Prophet's birthplace and tomb are at least authentic, and it was his desire that his followers should visit them. They are acknowledging a fact. These people are supporting a fraud.
And then the pity of it! The remembering that it was for this trumpery thing those mighty crusades swept like a flame across Europe, robbed her of her chivalry, and desolated a million homes; for this that gallant knights put on their armor and rode away under the banner of the Cross, shouting, "God wills it!" For this that men have drenched more than one nation with blood and changed the map and history of the world!
True, one may not altogether regret the crusades. They made romance and the high achievement to be celebrated in picture and in song. It was fine, indeed, to ride away in shining mail in a vast army in which all were officers—splendid knights battling for glory in a cause. Aching hearts and forsaken homes were plentiful behind, yet even they reflected the glamour of romance, the fervor of a faith.
But there was one crusade in which there was neither romance nor glory—nothing except heartbreak and anguish, and the long torture of the years.
That was the Children's Crusade—the crusade in which fanaticism spelled its last word—when a countless number of children of all ages, as young as seven some of them, flocked to the standard of a boy of seventeen and wandered off down through Europe, to faint and fall and die by hundreds and by thousands from hunger and heat and thirst—moaning and grieving unheeded among the stones and bushes—to reach the Mediterranean at last, a scattered remnant, there to be taken on board some vessels and sold into slavery in Algiers!
There was no glory, no triumph however imaginary, in that crusade; no romance, no glamour after the first day's march. It was only weariness and torture after that—only wretchedness and the fevered cry for the comfort of a mother's arm. And all for the sake of this dime-museum of faith, this huge ecclesiastical joke. The pity of it, indeed! Here to-night, a stone's-throw away, my heart bleeds for those little weary feet struggling on and on, for those little fainting souls, moaning, grieving, trying to keep up, lying down at last to coax the blessed release of death, and I would like to stand here on the housetops of Jerusalem and cry out against this insult to the memory of One who, when He said, "Suffer little children to come unto me," could hardly have foreseen that His words would bear such bitter fruit.
I do not do it, however. I want to live to get home and print this thing, and have it graven on my tomb.
We set out early next morning for Mount Moriah, the site of Solomon's temple and those that followed it.
It was really David's temple in the beginning, undertaken to avert a pestilence which he had selected from three punishments offered by the Lord because he, David, had presumed to number his people. A Hebrew census was a sin in those days, it would seem, and seventy thousand of the enrolled had already died when David saw an angel with a drawn sword—the usual armament of an angel—standing by the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite. Through Gad, his Soothsayer, David was commanded to set up an altar on that spot, to avert further calamity. Negotiations with Oman were at once begun, to the end that Oman parted with the site for "six hundred shekels of gold, by weight"; the threshing-floor was quickly replaced by an altar, and here, on the top of Mount Moriah—on the great bowlder reputed to have been the sacrificial stone of Melchizedek—and of Abraham, who was said to have proffered Isaac here—King David made offering to the Lord, and was answered by fire from heaven on the newly erected altar. And the angel "put up his sword again into the sheath thereof."
From that day the bowlder on the top of Mount Moriah became the place of sacrifice—the great central shrine of the Jewish faith. David decided to build a temple there, and prepared for it abundantly, as became his high purpose. But because David had shed much blood, the Lord interfered and commanded him to turn the enterprise over to Solomon, "a man of rest." "He shall build an house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel forever."
In the light of thoughtful Bible reading, it is not easy to see that Solomon was much of an improvement over David, in the long-run, and one cannot but notice the fact that the promise to establish his throne over Israel forever was not long maintained. But perhaps the Lord did not foresee how Solomon was going to turn out; besides, forever is a long time, and the Kingdom of Solomon may still prevail.
Solomon completed the temple in a manner that made it celebrated, even to this day. The "oracle, or holy room, which held the Ark of the Covenant, was overlaid within with pure gold," and the rest of the temple was in keeping with this dazzling chamber.
The temple was often pillaged during the troublous times that followed Solomon's reign, but it managed to stand till Nebuchadnezzar's conquest, four centuries later. It was twice rebuilt, the last time by Herod, on a scale of surpassing splendor. It was Herod's temple that Christ knew, and the work of beautifying and adding to it was going on during his entire lifetime. It was finished in 65a.d., and fiveyears later it went down in the general destruction, though Titus himself tried to preserve it.
Most of what exists to-day are the remains of Herod's temple. The vast court, or temple area, occupies about one-sixth of all Jerusalem, and of the genuineness of this site there is no question. In the centre of it, where once the house of David and Solomon stood, stands the Dome of the Rock—also called the Mosque of Omar, though it is not really a mosque, and was not built by Omar. It is, in fact, a marvellous jewelled casket—the most beautiful piece of architecture in the world, it has been called—built for no other purpose than to hold the old sacrificial stone of Melchizedek and Abraham—a landmark revered alike by Moslem, Christian, and Jew.
One is bound to feel impressed in the presence of that old bowlder, seamed and scarred by ages of sun and tempest; hacked for this purpose and that; gray with antiquity—the very corner-stone of three religions, upholding the traditions and the faith of four thousand years. There is nothing sham or tawdry about that. The building is splendid enough, but it is artistically beautiful, and the old rock itself—the genuine rock of ages—is as bare and rugged as when Isaac lay upon it bound, and the "chosen people" narrowly missed non-existence.
There is a railing around it; but you can look over or through as long as you like, and if one is of a reflective temperament he can look a long time. Among other things he will notice a number of small square holes, cut long ago to receive the ends of slender supports that upheld a royal canopy or screen, and hewill see the conduits cut to carry off the blood of the sacrifice. To his mental vision these things will conjure pictures—a panorama of rites and ceremonials—of altar and incense, with all the splendid costume and blazonry of the Judean king. And, after these, sacrifices of another sort—the cry of battle and the clash of arms across this hoary relic, its conduits filled with a crimson tide that flowed without regard to ritual or priest.
Other pictures follow: the feast of the Passover, when Jerusalem was crowded with strangers, when the great outer court of the temple was filled with booths and pens of the sellers who offered sheep, goats, cattle, and even doves for the sacrifice; when the temple itself was crowded with throngs of eager worshippers who brought their sacrifices, with tithes to the priests, and were made clean.
Amid one such throng there is a boy of twelve years, who with His parents has come up to Jerusalem "after the custom of the feast." We think of them as quiet, simple people, those three from Nazareth, jostled by the crowds a good deal, and looking rather wonderingly on the curious sights of that great yearly event. They would work their way into the temple, by-and-by, and they would come here to the Rock, and perhaps the sad, deep-seeing eyes of that boy of twelve would look down the years to a day when in this same city it would be His blood that would flow at the hands of men.
I hope He did not see that far. But we know that light for Him lay somewhat on the path ahead, for when the feast was over, and His parents had set outfor Nazareth, He lingered to mingle with the learned men, and He said to His parents when they came for Him, "Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business?" Among all those who thronged about this stone for a thousand years, somehow the gentle presence of that boy of twelve alone remains, unvanishing and clear.
And what a mass of legends have heaped themselves upon this old landmark!—a groundwork of Jewish tradition—a layer of Christian imagery—an ever-thickening crust of Moslem whim and fantasy. A few of them are perhaps worth repeating. The Talmud, for instance, is authority for the belief that the Rock covers the mouth of an abyss wherein the waters of the Flood may be heard roaring. Another belief of the Jews held it as the centre and one of the foundations of the world. Of Jesus it is said that He discovered upon the Rock the great and unspeakable name of God (Shem), and was thereby enabled to work his miracles.
But the Moslem soars into fairyland when he comes in the neighborhood of this ancient relic. To him the Rock hangs suspended in mid-air, and would have followed Mohammed to heaven if the Angel Gabriel had not held fast to it. We saw the prints of Gabriel's fingers, which were about the size and formation of a two-inch auger. Another Moslem fancy is that the rock rests on a palm watered by a river of Paradise.
In the hollow beneath the Rock (probably an artificial grotto) there is believed to be a well, the Well of Souls, where spirits of the deceased assemble twicea week to pray. They regard it as also the mouth of hell, which I don't think can be true, or the souls would not come there—not if they could help it—not as often as twice a week, I mean.
A print of Mohammed's head is also shown in the roof of the grotto, and I believe in that, because, being a tall man, when I raised up suddenly I made another just like it. But I am descending into trivialities, and the Rock is not trivial by any means. It has been there since the beginning, and it is likely to remain there until all religions are forgotten, and the world is dead, and all the stars are dark.
JERUSALEM—ITS BUBBLE-ROOFED HOUSES AND DOMES, ITS CYPRESS AND OLIVE TREESJERUSALEM—ITS BUBBLE-ROOFED HOUSES AND DOMES, ITS CYPRESS AND OLIVE TREES
In front of the Dome of the Rock the sun was bright, and looking across the approach one gets a characteristic view of Jerusalem—its bubble-roofed houses and domes, its cypress and olive trees. I made a photograph of Laura, age fourteen, and a friend of hers, against that background, but they would have looked more "in the picture" in Syrian dress. I am not sure, however; some of our party have had themselves photographed in Syrian dress, which seemed to belong to most of them about as much as a baseball uniform might belong to a Bedouin—or a camel.
We crossed over to the ancient mosque El-Aksa, also within the temple area, but it was only mildly interesting after the Dome of the Rock. Still, there were things worth noting. There were the two pillars, for instance, which stand so close together that only slender people could squeeze between them. Yet in an earlier time every pilgrim had to try, and those who succeeded were certain of Paradise. Thismade it humiliating for the others, and the impulse to train down for the test became so prevalent that stanchions were placed between the pillars a few years ago. We could only estimate our chances and give ourselves the benefit of the doubt.
Then there is the Well of the Leaf, which has a pretty story. It is a cistern under the mosque, and the water is very clear. Once, during the caliphate of Omar, a sheik came to this well for water, and his bucket slipped from his hands. He went down after it, and came to a mysterious door which, when he opened it, led into a beautiful garden. Enchanted, he lingered there and finally plucked a leaf to bring back as a token of what he had seen. The leaf never withered, and so a prophecy of Mohammed's that one of his followers should enter Paradise alive had been fulfilled.
I said I would go down and hunt for the door. But they said, "No"—that a good many had tried it without success. The cistern used to collect every year the pilgrims who went down to find that door; no one was permitted to try, now.
In one of the windows of the old mosque we saw a curious sight: a very aged and very black, withered man—Bedouin, I should say—reclining face down in the wide sill, poring over an ancient parchment book, patiently transcribing from it cabalistic passages on a black, charred board with a sharpened stick. The guide said he was a magician from somewhere in the dim interior; certainly he looked it.
From somewhere—it was probably from an opening in the wall near the Golden Gate—we looked eastwardacross the valley of Kedron toward the fair hillsides, which presently we were to visit.
Immediately we set out for the Mount of Olives. We drove, and perhaps no party ever ascended that sacred hill on a fairer morning. The air was still, and there was a quiet Sunday feeling in the sunshine. In the distance there was a filmy, dreamy haze that gave just the touch of ideality to the picture.
The road that leads up Olivet is bordered by traditional landmarks, but we could not stop for them. It was enough to be on the road itself, following the dusty way the Son of Man and His disciples once knew so well. For this hill of fair olive-groves, overlooking Jerusalem, was their favorite resort, and it was their habit to come here to look down in contemplation on the holy city. It was here that the Master felt the shadow of coming events: the destruction of the city; the persecution and triumph of His followers; His own approaching tragedy. It was here that He gave them the parable of the Virgins, and of the Talents, and it was here that He came often at evening for rest and prayer, after the buffet and labor of the day. This is the road His feet so often trod—a well-kept road, with the olive-groves, now as then, sloping away on either side.
Here and there we turned to look down on Jerusalem, lying there bathed in the sunlit haze—a toy city, it seemed, with its little round-topped houses, its domes and minarets, its battlemented walls. How very small it was, indeed! Why, one could run its entire circuit without losing breath. It is, in fact, little more than half a mile across in any direction,and from a distance it becomes an exquisite jewel set amid barren hills.
I am afraid I did not properly enjoy the summit of the Mount of Olives—its landmarks, I mean. The Russian and Greek and Latin churches have spoiled it with offensive architecture, and they have located and labelled exact sites in a way that destroys the reality of the events. They have framed in the precise spot where Jesus stood at the time of His ascension. It is a mistake to leave it there. It should be transferred to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
But the view eastward, looking down on the Jordan and the Dead Sea, with the mountains of Moab lying beyond, they cannot spoil or change. Down there on that spot, thirty-five hundred years ago, the chosen people camped and prepared for the ravage and conquest of this valley, this mountain, and the fair lands beyond, even to Mount Hermon and the westward sea. Over there, on "Nebo's lonely mountain," Moses looked down upon this land of vine and olive which he was never to enter, and being weary with the harassings of his stiff-necked people, lay down by the wayside and left them to work out their own turbulent future.
"And the angels of God upturned the sodAnd laid the dead man there."
I have always loved those lines, and it was worth the voyage to remember them here, looking down from the Mount of Olives toward the spot where lies that unknown grave.
It was afternoon when we drove to Bethlehem—a pleasant drive, though dusty withal. The road lies between grain-fields—fields where Ruth may have gleaned, and where the Son of Man may have stopped to gather corn. It gives one a curious feeling to remember that these fields are the same, and that for them through all the centuries seed-time and harvest have never failed. Nor have they changed—the walls, the laborers, the methods, the crops belong to any period that this country has known.
The convent of Elijah was pointed out to us, but it did not matter. Elijah never saw it—never heard of it. It is different, however, with a stone across the way from the entrance. Elijah went to sleep on that stone, and slept so heavily that he left his imprint there, which remains to this day. We viewed that stone with interest; then we took most of it and went on.
In a little while we came to the tomb of Rachel. The small, mosque-like building that covers it is not very old, but the site is probably as well authenticated as any of that period. Jacob was on his way from Padan when she died, and he buried her by the roadside "when there was but a little way to come into Ephrath" (which is Bethlehem). He marked thegrave with a pillar which the generations would not fail to point out, one to another, as the last resting-place of this mother in Israel who died that Benjamin might have life.
Poor Rachel! Supplanted in her husband's love; denied long the natural heritage of woman; paying the supreme price at last, only to be left here by the wayside alone, outside the family tomb. All the others are gathered at Hebron in the Field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought from the children of Heth for Sarah's burial-place. Jacob, at the very last, made his sons swear that they would bury him at Hebron with the others. He remembered Rachel in her lonely grave, and spoke of her there, but did not ask that he be taken to lie by her side, or that she be laid with the others. He died as he had lived—self-seeking, unsympathetic—a commonplace old man.
Just outside of Bethlehem we were welcomed by a crowd of little baksheesh girls, of a better look and distinctly of a better way than the Jerusalem type. They ran along with the carriage and began a chant which, behold, was German, at least Germanesque:
"Oh, du Fröliche!Oh, du Heilege!Baksheesh! Baksheesh!"
I suppose "Oh, thou happy one; Oh, thou holy one," would be about the translation, with the wailing refrain at the end. I think we gave them something. I hope so; they are after us always, and we either give them or we don't, without much discrimination.You can't discriminate. They are all wretched and miserably needy. You give to get rid of them, or when pity clutches a little fiercer than usual at your heart.