News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-10-16


utteranceSl
While we sat there the whole scene
came before u.s. All around the top
and the sides and the foot of the hill
a mob ragged. They gnash their teeth
and shake their clinched fists at him.
Here the cavalry horses champ their
bits and paw the earth and snort at the
smell of the carnage. Yonder a group
of gamblers are pitching up as to who
shall have the coat of the dying Saviour.
There are women almost dead with
grief among the crowd, his mother and
his aunt, and some whose sorrows he had
comforted and whose guilt he had par
doned Here man dips sponge into
sour wine, and by stick lifts it to the
hot and cracked lips. The hemorrhage
of the five wounds has done its work.
THE HEAVENS BEREAvED.
The atmospheric conditions are such
as the world saw never before or since.
1t was not solar eclipse, such as as
tronomers record or we ourselves have
seen; it was a bereavement of the
heavensl Darker until the towers of
the temple were no longer visible.
Darkerl until the surrounding hills
disappeared. Darkerl until the in
scription above the middle cross be
comes illegible Darkerl until the
chin of the dying Lord falls upon the
breast, and he sighed with this last
sigh the words, 1T is finished!"
As we sat there a silence took pos
session of US, and we thought, this is
the centre from which continents have
been touched, and all the world shall
prophets pointed forward. Toward this
hill the apostles and martyrs pointed
backward. To this all heaven pointed
downward. To this, with foaming ex-
.ecrations, perdition pointed upward.
Round it circles all history, all time,
all eternity, and with this scene paint
ers have covered the mightiest canvas,
and sculptors cut the richest marble,
and orchestras roll their grandest ora
torios. and churches lifted their great
| est doxologies, and heaven built its
| highest thrones.
Unable longer to endure the pressure
of this scene we moved on and into a
garden of olives, a garden which in the
right season is full of flowers, and here
is the reputed tomb of Christ. You
know the book says, I'm the midst of
the garden was sepulcher." l think
this was the garden and this the sep IL
cher. Ii is shattered of course. About
four steps down we went into this,
which seemed a family tomb. There
is room in it for about five bodies. We
measured it and found it about eight
feet high. and nine feet wide and four
teen feet long. The crypt where think
our Lord slept was seven feet long. !
think that there once lay the king
wrapped in his last slumber. On some
of these rocks the Roman government
set its seal At the gate of this mauso-
leum on the first Easter morning the
angels rolled the stone laundering down
the hill Up these steps walked the
Iacerated feet of the conqueror, and
from these heights he looked off upon
the city that had cast him out, and
upon the world he had come TO redeem
and at the heavens through which he
would soon ascend.
THE PROPHECY FULFILLED.
But we must hasten back TO the city.
There are stones in the wall which
Solomon had lifted Stop here and
see startling proof of the truth OF
prophecy In Jeremiah, thirty-first
chapter and fortieth verse, it is
said that Jerusalem shall be built
through the ashes. What ashes,
| people have been asking. Were
those ashes just put into the prophecy
to fill up? mol the meaning has been
! recently discovered. Jerusalem is now
! being built out in a certain direction
where the ground has been submitted
to a chemical analysis, and it has been
found to be the ashes cast out from the
sacrifices of the ancient temple, ashes
of the wood and ashes of bones of ami
mails. There are great mounds of ashes,
accumulation Of centuries of sacrifices.
1t has taken all these thousands of
years to discover what Jeremiah meant
when he said, Behold the days shall
come, saith the Lord, that the city shall
be built to the Lord from the tower of
Hananeel unto the gate of the corner,
and the whole valley of the dead bodies
and of the ashes" The people of Jeru-
salem are at this very time fulfilling that
prophecy. One handful of that ashes
on which they are building is enough
| to prove the divinity of the Scriptures!
| T. Ia Ill hn nF
stone of the ancient temple was laid
three thousand years ago by Solomon.
Explorers have been digging, and
they found that corner stone seventy
! five feet beneath the surface. 1t is
fourteen feet long, and three feet
eight inches high, and beautifully cut
and shaped, and near it was an earth
ern jar that was supposed to have con-
tanned the oil of conservation used at
the ceremony of laying the corner
stone. Yonder, from a depth of forty
feet, a signet ring has been brought up
inscribed with the words ''Haggai, the
Son of Shebnaiah," showing it be-
longed to the Prophet Haggai, and to
that seal ring he refers in his prophecy,
saying, 81 will make thee as a signet. u
walk further on far under ground,
and find myself in Solomon's stables,
and see the places worn in the stone
pillars by the halters of some of his
twelve thousand horses. Further on,
look at the pillars on which Mount
Moriah was built. You know that the
mountain was too small for the temple,
and so they built the mountain out on
pillars, and / saw eight of those pillars,
each one strong enough to hold a
mountain.
THE MOSQUE OF OMAR.
Here we enter the mosque of Omar,
throne of Mohammedanism, where
we are met at the door by officials who
bring slippers that we must put on be-
fore we take a step further, lest our
feet pollute the sacred places. A man
attempting to go in without these slip
pers would be struck dead on the spot.
These awkward sandals adjusted as
well as we could we are led to where
we see a rock with an opening in it
through which, no doubt, the blood of
sacrifice in the ancient temple rolled
down and away. At vast expense the