Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-04

Washington, which had been dug up few
tombs, houses and streets under the pres
ent city of Jerusalem quite as interesting
as those which have been uneerthed at
Pompeii in recent times. have been taken
down to the original floor and court in which
Pontius Pilate examined Christ, and have
had hundreds OF antique silver and copper
coins offered me which undoubtedly date
further back than the time of Christ.
These walls found underneath Jerusalem
are many feet thick. They are built of
great stones, and some of them are so care
fully put together that knife blade cannot
be inserted between them. One who has not
visited Palestine can have no idea of its
wonderful ruins. The tombs of the kings
on the edge of the city are large enough to
put city house inside of the pit which, cut
out OF the solid rock, forms the entrance
into them, and a recent excavation of the
pool of Bethesda shows that il is 80 feet deep
and that it covers nearly an acre. New
streets are everywhere found, and under the
IS acres which is now devoted to the Mosque
of Omar. and which the Turks will not allow
to be excavated, there are some of the most
wonderful ruins of history. Just outside of
this temple the earth has been excavated
for 125 ieet before the rock upon which the
one place alone there was found 600 feet of
gallery. The whole of the space under
these acres is honeycombed with vast tanks
and there is one here that will hold 2, 900, 900
gallons of water. 1t is supposed that there
are number of valuable old books under
this territory, and the Jerusalem which is
now covered with houses has as many tiers
OF dwellings below it as above it.
A SERIES OF STONE BOXES.
The upper city, or the town OF to-day, is
made up, as have said, of series oi stone
boxes piled one on the top OF the other.
Each great stone box is dwelling, and
these dwellings are as curious as the vault
like stores. Few of them have any windows,
and most of the rooms are of the same cave
like character. / have gone through the
houses of Jews and of Greeks, and find
that multitudes live in a single nest of
rooms, and the old story of the Psalm comes
back to me:
Jerusalem city is,
Compactiy built together.
Unto that place the tribes 60 up.
The tribes of God 60 thither.p
The town is as compact to-day as when
David thrumbed upon his harp, and the
tribes not only of Palestine, but of all the
world, come here to worship. There are
magnificent monasteries scattered through
out the city and on the very top of the
Mount of Olives, a great Russian church
lifts the bulbous domes towards heaven.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, where Christ
spent the night before ne was crucified,
there is resting place for pilgrims, and the
Roman Catholics have ], 500 brothers and
sisters in their monasteries and converts,
while the old Armenian church has big
monastery near the gate of Zion, which con-
tains $50 monks and which can accommo-
date 1000 pilgrims. There are Greek
Christians here by the thousands and there
are Syrians and Copts by the hundreds.
There are Abyssinian priests with faces as
black as your hat, and you may see every
costume and hear every language in the wor-
shippers who gather around the holy sepul-
cher. The Jerusalem of to- day is the Mecca
of millions of souls. 1t is to hundreds of
millions the boliest spot on the face of the
earth. And among the others whom I have
met in Palestine is the party of American
Roman Catholics, the first pilgrimage which
has ever been made to the Holy City by a
band from the United States 1t Is above
all q religious city, and, stranger than all, it
is again becoming city of the Jews. The
Jews are fast coming back into Palestine,
and the Jews of Jerusalem, who now make
up large part OF the city, are far different
from their brothers in any other part of the
world. Their movement toward the Holy
Land is strange, and their life here is so in
that / have made it the subject of
investigation, the results of which / will
give you next Sunday.
FRANK G. CARPENTER.