The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-08-24
SKETCHES OF THE HOLY
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Jerusaiem.Its sights md snhabIta nts.
James Brooks, Esq, of fhe New York Ex-
press, has been travelling in Palestine, and con-
tributes to his paper very Interesting sketches
of that which is to be seen there. His long
experience as an editor of q daily paper. giving
pith and force to his SENTENCES, and the hard
practical way in which he writes, gives his
sketches especial interest. We quote from 8
long epistle dated ..Palestine, March, 1859" 8
iSLo! here is Jerusalem, the long looked
for, long-sougbt for ideal of3hy brain. l have
woven it up for years and years, into thou
sand warps of my fancy,-hat, 10, here IS the
coming moonlight, first strikes my eye,-a most
unscriptural ideas s7s hri Si8 = ssfiis q
-.-sA,,, JERUSALEM. sjaI,tf,s9 oq 81
1 rose early in the morning to have my first
real view OF Jerusalem,-for, in the absence of
all timber, houses here are built with stones
and arches, arch upon arch, or dome upon
dome land we run from one roof on to anoth-
er, as you run from gallery to gallery, or baleo-
ny to balcony Now, for the first time then, in
my life, understood the gardens of Babylon,
for, upon these roofs, there cam be good gar
dens and just before me is a large green area,
running for an acre perhaps, over arches, in
habited beneath them. Mt, Oliyet, the Mount
of Olives, is before me, and the sun is rising
upon it, among its olive trees, now just as in
the days of our Savior, when He and His apos-
ties so often walked upon 1.-THE Holy Sep
ulchre and its lofty ragged dome, through the
broken, upholstered laths of which the rain at
times patters and the wind creeps, is near by,
but loftier minaret of the Moslem, who here
reaches the highest towards heaven, overtops
it. And there is the dome of the Mosque .of
Omar! There, on Mount Moriah, where once
was the Temple of the Almighty, thatin afore-
times He filed with His Spirit or His Pres
ence. If on the Capitoline Hill of Rome, or
on the Acropohs of Athens. amid the ruins of
the Parthenon, there had been for me inspira-
ton only from the Heather 'sgenius Of the
place" fancy, if you can, what thrill runs thro'
the veins when first the eye lights ON the Holy
Sepulchre,, or upon the Mount where Abraham
built the altar and laid the wood to sacrifice
Isaac and where afterwards, were Seraphim
and Cherubim and where the fire came down
from Heaven, and the glory of the Lord filled
the Temple of Solomon. Now the s7oirifuuEty
of the Holy Sepulchre, the floating ideal of the
brain, is with me, for the first time, something
mole than abstraction,-a reality.-a material
ity,-so, reyerently to speak. The Bible be-
comes History as well as a Relieion,-A Holy
Classic as well as Faith. j localze. I en-
body L geographically trace the Hebrew and
the Christian religions out. God is not only
buf upon every noun tain and every valley
about me, and all are everlasting monuments
of His Divine Majesty and Real Presence on
earth. Moriah and the Temple proclaim the
Father and Bethlehem and Bethany and Oh
ivet, and Calvary, the Son. If infidelity ever
turks in the brain, the holy mountains, the deep
valleys OF Jehosaphat and Hinnom, and the
Brock Kedron, will drive it all out. l see
have Travelled now, just as student should
travel, to lcarn-frst from the home and the
land of the Roman, who stretched out his long
arms once away over Jerusalem to the Euphra-
tes; next to the Acropolis and the Areopagus
of Athens, whence came our Literature, our
Bellies Lettres, and our arts thence to the
house of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the faith
ers of Gods chosen race of men. L have walked
up, as it were, the ladder, from the fresh, new
green world of America, to Roman, Greek and
Hebrew. and 10, am now here, where God
himself laid the foundations for man, from earth
to Heaven. Alas-what contrasting spccta-
Gle IS all this here The Mnarct of the half
barbarous Turk overlooks Calvary, and the Ho-
ly Sepulchre. The Moslem Muezzim calls to
prayer, morn, noon and night, in lungs stento-
rian that drown all humble prayer. The Mosque
of Omar takes the place of Gods consecrated
Temple of Solomon. The Turk soldier alone
keeps Greek, Latin and Armenian Christians
(such are their animosties, from tearing to pie
ces each other-even on the spot where Christ
was crucifed and buried. Here are ruins,
wrecks, wrangles, (no safety for life or proper
ty, but for the Turk )-desolation and barren
ne SIS, in places where distant Shebas Queen
once came with spices, and precious stones, as
tribute, and where once were so abundant the
gold of Ophir, end thrones of ivory, and harp.
and psalteries for singers, &C., &c. The gates
of the city of that strong King, whose sceptre
reached to Tadmor in the wilderness, and whose
ships went to Tar~hish. ebringing gold and sill
yer, ivory and apes. and peacocks," are now
closed at dark, because of their fear from the
outside Arabs! The walls of Jerusalem alone
guard it from Arab foray and Sheik insult snd
degradation What contrast all this, in this
home our race, to the peace, order, quiet and
security, to say nothing of the commerce and
arts. of my own now distant. and but of late,
and, as it were, just discovered home! The
East has sunk, see, and feel more, and is yet
sinking; and Westward, in verify, ssthe star of
Empire takes its way. .''ana 1rt 4
-9sm1e s WANT OF FAITH. g.iz aIFi tis5l
I went into the walls of Jerusalem. with
arge, abounding faith in almost everything
The site of the Holy Sepulchre, on which the
Emperor Constantine in 326 built the first
Christian Church. l never had doubt was the
real site of Calvary and the Crucifxion. and / 4
was wholly inclined to believe the Monkish ro-
nances eff Christ's ascending steps on the
Mount Of Olives, and. of the impression of the
Apostles bodies, as they fell asleep in the gar i
len of Gethsemane when our Lord left them
% pray. But that DR.. Robertson of ours
hatterrible DR.. Robertson-now the very high
est authority of the world as to Biblical geog-
raphy, has Knocked almost all typographical
iaith out of me-! Hang his book hang his |
earningi And give. oh, give me hack the
faith, the credulity that was three days ago
with me. am a lost man now in most parts |
If Jerusalem. Oh, if I could only believe in,
md kiss the place ofunction, where Christ was /
after death. as these poor Roman,
Polish. Armenian, Colt. Greek and Latin Pill
yrims are now doing. what would I not give
md might have believed it all, but for that
DR.. Robertsoni IF could only have faith in
.he rent in the rock. the work of the earth
quake at the time of the Crucifxion. and in
The holes for the crosses of the two othieves -
Indeed, in spite of DR.. Robertson, if 1 don't