The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1882-03-19
JERUSALEM.
BY EDWARD z. HALE.

Sunday school teachers, and artistic
friends have brought pictures of il
Tor those OF us who live in these
most remote corners; Jerusalem
itself, be it remembered, being in
the middle of the world" Indeed,
such ip the ease of travel now, that it
Is ssie to take for granted, in any
considerable assembly. that some one
ls present who has walked in the
streets OF Jerusalem, has seen the
Jews weeping by it's walls. and can
| describe from personal remembrance
the Mosque of Omar.
This general aspect helps us in
forming an idea of what 1t looked
like 1850 years ago,-of which by
misfortune. there is no description.
Of the temple and its elories, as
all readers Know, there il very full
description; but the indifference OF
the Snclents to the picturesque, and
evea to topography, leaves us to
construct for ourselves the Jerusalem
OF the gospel time. Still, the slopes
of the hills are there; the olive
trees and the anemones and the
cyclamens, with the rest of the
spring vegetation, are there. The
wood has been destroyed from the
country generally by the ravages of
Islam and Islam's wars. But the
neighborhoed of a city as large as
Jerusalem was then is never heavily
wooded. The population Of the
city itself was then ak or eight
times what it is now. Such
population requires diIigent farming
and market gardening in the
nsighborhood. So that it is proba-
BILE that the country around had
more iarm-houses and hanllets and
other aspects of hsbitation than it
has now. But. making such allow
auces for changes, the traveller to-
day has 8 right to feel that he looks
on much such landscape ga the
traveller coming down to Jerusalem
from Jericho saw in the days of
Jesus Christ. A New Highlander
sometimes catches bit OF landscape
in his own region which reminds
him. If the conditions OF sky and
climate are right, OF these rounded
hills and rounded olive-trees and
closer olive-orchsrds. / have pho
tograph Of piece of "biIl country"
near Jerusalem. which may easily
be mistaken for q home scene in
Northern Middlesex or Southern
New Hampshire. You have only to
select q bit OF rolling country, we'll
covered with orchsrds, without
New England houses, forests, ever
greens, or pines, but with a fair
share of stone walls, photograph it,
and place the picture in your port
folio. between view OF Jaffa and
one Of the Dead Sea, and even an
experienced pilgrim would take it
up and say, "And this IL some
where near Jerusalem.
The city was built so lon: ago
that nobody knows when. II is on
the crest line between the waters OF
the Dead Sea valley and those
which HoW into the Mediterranean.
The hills on which it stands we're
abrupt enough to make an admira-
bic fortress; what has been said of
rounded slopes does not apply to
them. Fortress it was in the days
OF the Jebusites, when David took |
1t After his time it assumed the
state end Importance of a capital.
Add this was no little state and i'm
portance when il meant a capital to
which the tribes come up three
times a year" Josephus says-in
what is probably an unintentional
exaggeration-thst q. the time of the
Passover a million and a quarter
people assembled in it, or in tents
around it. Even if this is not true.
1t gives an idea of what an intelligent
man thought true in times immedi-
stely after Christ's visits to the
city.
Ii lie not 90 much a matter of
'e2ret that We have not the physi-
'al picture of Jerusalem OF that day,
's we have from the Gospels and
rom many other writings of these
INES good glimpses OF social order
here, and of mems habits of life.
Al! this recent 6elving into the
ralmud and kindred writingp, which
lss taught something even to super
ical geaders, gives local color for
my picture OF gospel times. And all
ne photography in the world would
,ever halp us to any knowledge OF
erusalem "a it was then,-though
We bad perspectives of Herod's tenn
lie, aud elevations by Herod srcni-
cots. -unless we could make real
he moral perspective and moral
ievations OF the city. In an admirable
'aper by NJ. Francis tiffany. he
ompares this city, the head of
machinery, with such a
manufacturing place rs Lowell or
1olyoke: imagine all the mills in
DWELL one vast corporation temple;
he bulk of the opel atives in It
,riests and temple servants: the
abrics turned out creeds, treatises,
r disputatlons; the tenement owners
ependent On pilgrims for their
odgers; the neighboring farmers
hiding the market for their wood.
attic, and Gil in selling them for the
acrlnces, or for the maintenance CT
hose performing the sacr'fces,-do
IL this. ana you have a rough but