CHAPTER III. JERUSALEM-HEBRON. "Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said unto me, To mea sure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof."-Zech. ii. 2. OUR camels kneeled down in the open space within the gate of Jerusalem, and we rested for a short time while Ibraim sought out the residence of Mr. Young, the British Consul, to whom we had letters of introduction. He soon returned to say that the Consul was waiting for us, and would procure a lodging in part of an unoccupied house near the Latin Convent. Our camels and servants moved slowly away to their place of destination, and we followed Ibraim down the steep and slippery street opposite the Jaffa Gate. In a few minutes we were at the house of Mr. Young, who received us with the greatest kindness. He told us the general state of matters in Jerusalem. The plague had not yet left the town, but the number of cases was decreasing; and there was no cordon drawn round the walls as had lately been the case. He strongly recommended us not to encamp on the Mount of Olives, as we had proposed, but to live in the town, and use the ordinary precautions of touching nobody in the streets, and receiving all articles of food through water. He then introduced us to two travellers just returned from Petra by the way of Hebron, Lord Claud Hamilton and Mr. Lyttleton. The former was not a little surprised to meet in Jerusalem with Dr. Black, whom he had known in former days as a laborious student and theologian, and unassuming minister in the parish of Tarvis in Aberdeenshire. Two large apartments were assigned to us on Mount Acra, floored with stone, with a pleasant open space on the roof between them. Worn out with incessant travelling, we were thankful to retire, that we might refresh our weary frames and compose our minds, which were not a little bewildered by the multitude of feelings that had passed through 128 JERUSALEM-MR. NICOLAYSON. them this day. We had not rested long when Mr. Nicolayson, Missionary of the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews, called to welcome us to the Holy City, as brethren and friends of Israel. He staid a considerable time with us, talking over our journey, the object of our visit, his own sphere of labour and hopes of success, and many matters regarding the spot where we now were. It was a desultory but pleasant conversation, a conversation about the people and land of Israel while really sitting in their ancient capital. Lord Hamilton called in the evening, and told us much of what he had seen in Petra, and the land of Egypt. When the darkness came down we heard the wailings of mourners over some dead friend, a peculiarly melancholy sound at all times, but doubly so while the plague is raging. Yet we never heard any more joyful sounds in the streets of Jerusalem-so true is the prophetic word, "I will cause all her mirth to cease."* It was with feelings that can be better imagined than described, that for the first time in our lives within the gates of Jerusalem, we committed ourselves and those dear to us, our Church, and the blessed cause in which she had sent us forth, to the care of Him who sits as a King upon the holy hill of Zion. We are not aware that any clergyman of the Church of Scotland was ever privileged to visit the Holy City before, and now that four of us had been brought thus far by the good hand of our God upon us, we trusted that it might be a token for good, and perhaps the dawn of a brighter day on our beloved Church, a day of generous self-denied exertion in behalf of scattered Israel and a perishing world. (Saturday, June 8.) We had spread our mats on the cool stone-floor, hoping for a night of calm repose, but our rest was broken and uncomfortable in the extreme, our rooms being infested with vermin, a kind of trial which travellers in the East must make up their mind frequently to undergo. All our annoyance, however, was forgot by sunrise. We rose early, and finding the road to the Jaffa Gate, went a little way out of the city and sat down under an olive-tree. We turned to Psalm xlviii, "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the * Hosea. ii. 11. great King. God is known in her palaces for a refuge.” * Reading this with the eye upon Jerusalem, the scenes of former days seemed to rise up as a flood. We could imagine holy prophets and men of God in these fields and within these walls. The vivid associations of the place, with all our Bible readings and hours of holy study, made it appear like a spot where we had once met with beloved and honoured friends, whose absence spreads a sadness over all. We read part of Lamentations, and could feel sympathy with the prophet when he cried, "How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel." "He hath swallowed up Israel; he hath swallowed up all her palaces!"t In the forenoon, Mr. Nicolayson kindly insisted on our removing from our house on Mount Acra, to one of the Mission-houses upon the northern brow of Mount Zion. Mr. Pieritz and Dr. Gertsmann, the medical missionary, being from home, we were put in possession of their comfortable rooms, with an outer one for our two Arab servants. In this house, one of our windows opened toward the east, having a fine view of the dome of the Mosque of Omar, which rises over the site of Solomon's Temple, and beyond it was the Mount of Olives. That ever-memorable hill, with its three summits, its white limestone rocks appearing here and there, and its wide bosom still sprinkled over with the olive-tree, was the object on which our eye rested every morning as we rose, an object well fitted to call to mind the words of Jesus spoken there, "Watch ye, therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning."‡ Toward the west, the object that first met our eye used to be a solitary palm-tree, growing amidst a heap of ruins, and waving its branches over them, as if pointing to the fulfilment of the prophecy, "Jerusalem shall become heaps." The site of the proposed Hebrew church was not far off. It is close to Mr. Nicolayson's own house. At that time the foundations were only digging, and builders were preparing the stones, which we saw camels carrying into town. We were told that they were brought from a quarry a few miles north of Jerusalem, near a village called Anata, the ancient Anathoth, where Jere+ Lam. ii. 1, 5. Ps. xlviii. 1, 2, 3. Mic. iii. 12. 130 JERUSALEM-PROPHECY-JEWS. miah was born. In seeking a solid foundation they had dug down about forty feet, and had not yet come to rock. They laid bare heap after heap of rubbish and ancient stones.* It is a remarkable fact, which cannot but strike the traveller, that not only on Mount Zion, but in many parts of the city, the modern town is really built on the rubbish of the old. The heaps of ancient Jerusalem are still remaining; indurated masses of stones and rubbish forty and fifty feet deep in many places. Truly the prophets spoke with a divine accuracy when they said, "Jerusalem shall become heaps." "I will make Jerusalem heaps." And if so, shall not the future restoration foretold by the same lips be equally literal and full? "The city shall be builded upon her own heap."! The fact that these heaps of ruins are of so great depth, suggested to us a literal interpretation of the words of Jeremiah, "Her gates are sunk into the ground." The ancient gates mentioned by Nehemiah are no longer to be found, and it is quite possible that several of them may be literally buried below the feet of the inquiring traveller. During the day we began inquiries after the Jews in their own land. We were told that the plague prevailed most of all in their quarter, and that we must be very cautious in visiting their houses. Meanwhile Mr. Nicolayson afforded us every information. The difficulties in the way of the conversion of the Jews are certainly greater in Palestine than elsewhere. The chief of these difficulties are, 1. That Jerusalem is the stronghold of Rabbinism; the Jews here being all strict Rabbinists, and, as might be expected, superstitious in the extreme. 2. A Missionary has fewer points of contact with the Jews here than in other countries. He cannot reach them through the press, nor address them in large assemblies; his work must be carried on entirely by personal intercourse, so that it is like wrenching out the stones of a building one by one. 3. The opposition to an inquir They have since reached the old foundations (Isa. lviii. 12), after digging fifty feet. See Mr. Nicolayson's letter in the Jewish Intelligence for April 1840. It is a striking fact, that the foundations of Jerusalem should be thus hid in the ground, when we contrast it with the case of Samaria, of which it was foretold, "I will discover the foundations thereof." (Mic. i. 6.) Here is the accurate minuteness and distinguishing definiteness of the God of truth, who can point his finger to one spot and say, "It shall be thus with thee;" and turn to another spot and say in equal sovereignty, "It shall be otherwise with thee!" † Mic. iii. 12. Jer. ix. 11. ¶ Nehem. iii. Jer. xxx. 18. |