The Brookhaven leader., 1890-10-23

For priests who have stumbled,
We sit In solitude and mourn.
1 think at that prayer Jerusalem will
come again to more than its ancient
magnificence; 1t may not be precious
stones and architectural majesty, but
in a moral splendor that shall eclipse
forever all that David or solomon saw
But l must get back to the house-top
where stood early this morning, and
before the sun sets, that may catch q
wider vision OF what the city now is and
once was. Standing here on the house,
top.I see that the city was builtfo milf
tary safety. Some old warrior, / war
rant selected the spot 1t stands on a
hill twenty-six hundred feet above the
level of the sea, and the deep ravines
on three sides do the work of military
trenches. Compact as no other city was
compact Only three miles journey
round, and the three ancient towers.
Hippicus, Phasaelus, Marianne, frown-
ing death upon the approach of all ene-
mics.
But while standing there on tho
house-top that December afternoon,
hear the crash of the twenty-three
mighty sieges which have come against
Jerusalm in the ages past Yonder is
the pool of Hezekiah and Sloan, but
again and again were those waters re d
dened with human gore. Yonder are
the towers, but again and again they
fall. Yonder are the high walls, but
again and again they were leveled. To
rob the treasures from their temple and
palace and dethrone this queen city Of
the earth, ali nations plotted. David
taking the throne at Hebron decided
that he must have Jerusalem for his
capital, and, coming up from the
south at the head of two hun
dred and eighty thousand troops, he
captures it. Look, here comes another
siege of Jerusalem! The Assyrians
under Sennacherib, enslaved nations at
his chariot wheel, having taken two
hundred thousand captives in his one
Pbenician cities kneeling
at his feet Egypt trembling at the
flash of his sword, comes upon Jerusa,
lem. Look, another siege. The armies
OF Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar come
down and take plumber from Jerusa-
lem such as no other city ever had to
yield, and ten thousand of her citizens
trudge off into Babylonian bondage.
Look, another siege! and Nebuchad-
nezzar and his hosts by night go through
a breach of the Jerusalem wall, and the
morning finds some Of them Seated
triumphant in the temple, and what
they could not take away because too
heavy, they break up--the brazen sea,
and the two wreathed pillars, joachim
and Boaz.
But looking from this housetop the
siege that most absorbs US is that of the
Crusaders. England and France and all
wanted to capture the holy
sepulcher and Jerusalem, then in pos
session of the Mohammedans under tho
command of one of the loveliest, BRAY.
est and mightiest men that ever lived,
for justice must be done him, though he
was Observation-Disclosures Saladin.
him came the armies of Eu.
rope, under Richard, Ceur dc Lion,
King of England; Philip Augusta, King
of France; Tancrcd, Raymond, God
frey, and other valiant men, marching
on through fevers, and plaques,
and battle charges, and sutferings as in
tense as the world ever saw. Saladin
in Jerusalem, hearing of the sickness
of King Richard, his chief enemy, sends
him his own physician, and from the
walls of Jerusalem, seeing Richard
afoot, sends him a horse. With all the
world looking on, the armies of Europe
come within sight of Jerusalem. AT the
first glimpse of the city they fall on
their faces in reverence, and then
lift anthems of praise. 'Feuds and
hatred among themselves were
given up, and Raymond and
Tancred, the bitterest rivals,
embraced while the armies looked on.
Then the battering rams rolled, and the
catapults swung, and the swords thrust,
and the carnage ragged. Godfrey of
Bouillon is the first to mount the wall,
and the Crusaders, a cross on every
shoulder or breast, having taken the
city, march bare-headed and bare-footed
to what they suppose to be the holy
sepulcher, and kiss tho tomb. Jerusa,
lem the possession of Christondom. Bur
Saladin retook the city, and for the last
400 years it has been in possession OF
cruel and polluted Northumberland!
Another crusade is needed to start for
Jerusalem, crusade in this nineteenth
century greater than all those Of the
past centuries put together A crusade
In which you and will march. A cru
SADIE without weapons of death, but only
the Sword of the Spirit. A crusade that
will make not single wound, nor start
one tear of distress, nor incendiarize
one homestead. A crusade of Gospel
Peace! And the Cross again be lifted
on Calvary, not as once an instrument
of pain, but signal of invita-
ton, and the Mosque of Omar shall
give place to Church of Christ, and
Mount Zion become the dwelling place,
not of David, but of David's Lord, and
Jerusalem, purified of all its idola tries,
and taking back the Christ she once
cast out, shall be made a worthy type
of that heavenly Deity which Paul
styled "the mother of us ALL" and
which ST. John saw, ''the holy Jeru-
salem descending out of Heaven from
God" Through its gates may we all
enter when our work is donc, and in is
temple, greater than all the ca rtbly tenn
pies piled in one, may we worship Rus
sian pilgrims lined all the roads around
the Jerusalem we visited last winter.
They had walked hundreds of miles,
and their feet bled on the way to Jeru-
salem. Many of them had spent thoir
last farthing to get there, and they h ad
left some of those who started with