Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1852-08-11
FIRST VIEW OF JERUSALEM.

FIRST VIEW OF JERUSALEM.
Bayard Taylor in his last letter published in
the New York Tribune gives the following ac
count of his first impression of the Holy city:
But when climbed the last ridge, and looked
ahead with a sort of painful suspense. Jerusalem,
did not appear. We were 1000 feet above the
Mediterranean, whose blue waters we could
dimly see far to the West, through notches in
the chain ofhils. To the North, the mountains
were gray, desolate and awful. Not shrub or
a tree relieved their frightful barrenness. An
upland tract, covered with white volcanic rock,
lay before us. We met peasants with asses,
who looked Ito my eyes) as if they had just left
Jerusalem. Still forward we urged our horses,
and reached ruined garden, surrounded with
hedges OF cactus, over which saw domes and
walls in the distance. drew long breath and
looked at Francois. He was jogging along with
out turning his head; he could not have been
so indifferent if that was really the city, Pres
emily we reached another slight rise in the rocky
plain. He began to urge his painting horse, and
at the same instant we both lashed the spirit in
to ours, dashed on at a break-neck gallop, round
the corner of an old wall on the top of the hill,
and 10! the Holy City! Our Greek jerked both
pistols from his holsters, and fired them into the
air, as we reined up on the steep
From the description of travellers, had ex-
pected to see in Jerusalem an ordinary modern
Turkish town; but that before me, with its
wallis fortresses and domes, was it not still the
City of David? | saw the Jerusalem of the
New Testament, as | had imagined it. Long
lines of walls crowned with notched parapet,
and strengthened by towers; a few domes and
spires above them; clusters of cypress here and
there this was all that was visible of the CITY.
On the easi, the Mount of Olives, crowned with
chapel and mosque, rose high and steep, but
directly over the city, the sight fell far away up
on the lofty mountains Of Moab, beyond the
Dead Sea. The scene was grand in its simplic-
lty. The prominent cOlOrs were the purple of
those distant mountains, and the hoary gray of
the nearer hills. The walls were of the dull
yellow of weather-stained marble, and the only
trees the dark cypress and moonlit olive. Since
we arrived, have looked down upon the CITY
from the Mount of Olives, and up to it from
the valley of Jehosaphat but cannot restore
the illusions of that first vew
We allowed our horses to walk slowly down
the remaining half mile to the Jaffa gate. An
Englishman with red silk shawl over his head
was sketching the city, while an Arab held an
umbrella over him. Inside the gate we stum-
bled upon an Italian shop with an Italian sign,
and after threading number of intricate passa-
from one hotel which was full of travellers,
reached another, kept by converted German
Jew, where we found DR.. Robinson and DIR. Ely
Smith, who both arrived yesterday. 1t sounds
strange to talk of hotel in Jerusalem, but the
world is progressing, and there are already
three.
A WORD TO MOTHERS" Dear mother"
said delicate little girl, Z" | have broken your
china vase"
"Well, you arc a naughty, careless, trouble
some little thing-always in some mischief; 90
up stairs and stay in the closet till | send for
you"
And this was the Christian mothers answer
to the tearfully little cuprit who had struggled
with and conquered the temptation to tell a
fasehood, to screen fault With a disap-
pointed, disheartened look, the child obeyed, =.
and at that moment was crushed in her little
heart, the sweet flower of truth, perhaps never
again in after years to be revived in life. o,
what were the loss of thousad vases in
comparison!
"Tis true, an angel might shrink from the
responsibilities of the mother. The watch must
never for an instant be let up; the scales of
justice must always be nicely balanced tho
hasty word that the overtasked spirit sends to
the lip, must die there, ere it is uttered. The
timid and sensitive child must have words of
in season, the forward and pre-
suming checked with gentle frmness; there
must be no deception, no evasion, no trickery;
for the keen eye of childhood to mark and all
this when the exhausted frame sinks with
ceaseless vigils, perhaps, and the thousand pet
ty Interruptions and looked for annoyances of
every hour, almost set at defiance any attempt
at system. Still must that mother wear an un-
ruffled brow, least the smiling cherub on her
knee catch the angry frown; still must she
" rule her own spirit" least the boy so appa-
rently engrossed with his toys, repeat the i'm
patient words his ear has caught For all
these duties, faithfully and conscientiously per-
formed, mothers reward is in secret and in
silence. Even him on whose earthly breast
she leans is too often unmindful of the noisess
too late, alas! he learns to value
the delicate hand that has kept the untiring mo-
ton, the thousand springs of his domestic hap
piness.
But what, if in the task that falls upon the
mother, she utterly fail? What if she be a
mother but in name? What if she considers
ler duty performed when her child is fed and
clothed and warmed What if the priceless