The Brookhaven leader., 1890-10-23
JERUSALEM THE GOLDEN.
Rev. T. Dewitt Taimage Discourses
on the Holy City.
Third Of the Series of Sermons Inspired
By the Brooklyn Preachers Recent
Visit to Palestine and Its
Historic Places

W nov. Il. Dehllb 1dlunaRe AEOth bho
text:
III forget thee, o, Jerusalem, let my right
hand forget her cunning. Psalm cxxxv'
g., s.
Paralysis of his best hand, the with
ering of its muscles and nerves, is here
invoked IL the author allows to pass out
Of mind the grandeurs OF the Holy City
where once he dwelt jeremiah, seated
by the River Euphrates, wrote this
psalm and not David. Afraid / am of
any thing that approaches imprecation,
and yet can understand how any one
who has ever been at Jerusalem should
in enthusiasm of soul, cry out whether
he be sitting by the Euphrates, or the
Hudson, or the Thames: '1f / forget
thee, o Jerusalem, may my right hand
forget her cunningr' You see it is q
city unlike all others for topography,
for history, for significance, for style of
population, for water-works, for ruins,
for towers, for .domes, for literature,
for tragedies, for memorable birth
places, for sepulchres, for conflagra-
| feats.
am here at last in this very Jeru-
salem, and on housetop, just after the
| dawn Of the morning of December 3,
| with an old inhabitant to point out the
salient features of the scenery. "Now, "
| j said, ''where is Mount Zion?'
Here at your right" "Where is
Mount Olivet?" I'm front Of where
you stand.'' 'Where is the Garden of
/ AZ vo1lary ~
"Where is Mount Calvary?" Before he
answered, 1 saw it. No unpreiudiced
mind can have a moments doubt as to
where it is. Yonder see a hill in the
| shape of human skull, and the Bible
says that Calvary was the place Of a
skull" Not only is 1t skull-shaped,
but just beneath the forehead OF the
hill is a cavern that looks like eyeless
sockets. Within the grotto under it is
the shape of the inside of skull Then
the Bible says that Christ was crucified
| outside the gate, and this is outside
theegate, while the site formerly Sc
lected was inside the gate. Beside
that, this skull hill was for ages the
| place where malefactors were put to
death, and Christ was slain as a male
factor,
The Saviour's assassination took place
beside thoroughfare along which peo-
Pile went ''wagging their heads" and
there is the ancient thoroughfare. l
saw at Cairo, Egypt, a clay mold of that
skull hill, made by tho late General
Gordon, the arbiter of nations. While
Empress Helena, eighty years of age,
and imposed upon by having three
crosses exhumed before her dim eyes,
as though they were the three crosses
of Bible story, selected another site as
Calvary, all recent travellers agree that
/ the one point out to you was, without
doubt, the scene of the most terrific and
overwhelming tragedy this planet ever
witnessed
There were thousand things we
wanted to see that third day of Deem
Der, and our dragoman proposed this
| and that and the other journey, but
said: First of all show us Calvary.
Something might happen if we went
| elsewhere, and sickness or accident
might hinder our seeing the sacred
mount. If we see nothing else, we must
see that, and SEQ it this morning. -
Some of us in carriages and some on
| muleback, we were soon on the way to
the most sacred spot that the world has
ever seen or ever will see. Coming to
| the base of the hill we first went inside
| the skull of rock. 1t is called Jere-
miah's grotto, for there the prophet
| wrote his book of Lamentations. The
| grotto is thirty-fve feet high, and its
| top and side are malachite, green.
brown, black, white, red and gray.
| Coming forth from those pictured sub.
| teraneous passages, We begin to climb
the steep sides of Calvary. AS we &c
| up we see cracks and crevices in the
rocks which 1 think wero made by the
| commissions of nature when Jesus died.
On the hill lay limestone rock, white
but tinged with crimson, the white so
| suggestive of purity and the crimson OF
sacrifice, that said: THAT stone would
be beautifully appropriate for a me-
mortal wall in my church, now building
| in America, and the stone now being
brought on camel's back from Sinai
| across the desert when put I'M
der it. how significant of the
| law and the Gospel! And these
lips of stone will continue to
speak of justice and mercy long afte,
| all our living lips have uttered their
| last message" So / rolled it down the
hill and transported it. When thatday
| comes for which many of you have
| prayed-the dedication of the Brooklyn
Tabernacle, the third immense struct-
| ure we have reared in this city, and
that makes it somewhat difficult being
the third structure, work such as no
other church was ever called on to I'M
dertake-we invite you in the main en-
trance of that building to look upon a
memorial wall containing the most sug-
gestive and solemn and tremendous an
tiquities ever brought together; this,
rent with the earthquake at the giving
of the law at Sinai, the other rent with
the crucifixion on Calvary.
1t is impossible for you to realize
what our emotions were as we gathered,
group of men and women, all saved
by the blood of the Lamb, on bluff of
Calvary, just wide enough to contain
three crosses. / said to my family and
friends: II think here is where stood
the cross of the impenitent burglar. and
there the cross of the miscreant and
here between, think, stood tho cross
on which all our hopes depend" AS /
opened the nineteenth chapter of John
to read, chill blast struck the hill and
a cloud lowered, the natural solemnity
i'm pressing the spiritual solemnity,