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

For our majesty that Is departed
We sit in solitude and mourn;
For our great men that lie dead
We sit in solitude and mourn;
For priests who have stumbled
We sit in solitude and mourn
| think at that prayer Jerusalem VIII
come again to more than its ancient
magnifcence. 1t may not be precious
stones and architectural majesty, but
! in a moral splendor that shall eclipse
forever all that David OF Solomon saw.
MILITARY CITY.
But must get back to the house
ton where | stood early this morning,
and before the sun sets, that L may
| catch a wider vision of what the city
now is and once was. Standing here
on the housetop l see that the city
was built for military safety. Some
old warrior, | warrant, selected the
spot. 1t stands on a hill twenty-slx
! hundred feet above the level of the
sea, and deep ravines on three sides do
| the work of military trenches-com-
pact as no other city was compact.
Only three miles journey round, and
the three ancient towers, Hippicus,
| Phasaelus, Marianne, frOwning death
upon the approach of all enemies.
As | stood there on the housetop, in
the midst of the city, l said, 20 Lord,
reveal to me this metropolis of the
world, that may see it as it once APP
peared" No one was with me, for
there are some things you can see ;.
wildly with no one but Goo d.4l
self present Immediately 60s
| of Omar, which has stood fort i'm
Mount Moriah, the site of the ancient
temple, disappeared and the most hon
ored structure of all the ages lifted it
self in the light and saw 1.-THE tenn
! pie, the ancient templei Not Solo
mons temple, but something grander
! than that Not Zerubbabels temple,
| but something more gorgeous than
| that 1t was Herod's temple, built for
/ the one purpose of eclipsing all its
architectural predecessors. There it
stood. covering nineteen acres, and 49,
| 900 worknen had been forty-six years
In building it. Blaze of magnifcencei
Bewildering range of porticos and ten
rinthian capitals chiseled into lilies and
acanthus.
Masonry beveled and groved into
such delicate forms that it seemed to
tremble in the light. Cloisters with
two rows of Corinthian columns, royal
arches, marble steps pure as though
made out of frozen snow, carving that
seemed like a panel of the door of
heaven let down and set in, the facade
of the building on shoulders at each
end lifting the glory higher and higher,
and walls wherin gold put out the sill
yer, and the carbuncle put out the
gold, and the jasper put out the car
buncle, until in the changing light they
would all seem to come back again
into a chorus of harmonious color
The templel The templel DoXology
in stonel Anthems soaring in rafters
of Lebanon cedarl From side to side,
and from foundation to gilded pima
Gle, the frozen prayer of all ages!
THE KINGS PALACE.
From this housetop ON the Deem
Der afternoon we look out in another
direction, and l see the kings palace,
covering hundred and sixty thousand
square feet, three rows of windows il
lumining the inside brilliance, the hall
way wainscoted with all styles of col.
ored marbles surmounted by arabesque,
verlnilion and gold, looking down on
mosaics, music of waterfalls in the gar
| den outside answering the music of the
harps thrummed by def fingers inside.
Banisters over which princes and prin-
cesses leaned, and talked to kings and
queens ascending the stairway. o Jer-
usalem, Jerusalem! Mountain city
City of God Joy of the whole earth!
! Stronger than Gibraltar and Sebasto-
pol! Surely it never could have been
captured
But while standing there on the
housetop that December afternoon /
hear the crash of the twenty-three
mighty sieges which have come against
! Jerusalem in the ages past. Yonder is
the pool of Hezekiah and Sloan, but
again and again were those waters
Redeemed with human gore. Yonder
are the towers, but again and again
| they fell. Yonder are the high walls,
| but again and again they were leveled.
To rob the treasures from her temple
and palace and dethrone this queen
city of the earth all nations plotted.
David taking the throne at Hebron de-
cides that he must have Jerusalem for
his capital, and coming up from the
south at the head of two hundred and
eighty thousand troops he captures it.
Look, here comes another siege of Jer.
usalem!
The Assyrians under Sennacherib,
enslaved nations at his chariot wheel,
having taken two hundred thousand
captives i'll his one campaign; Phenician
cities kneeling at his feet, Egypt
trembling at the flash of his sword
comes upon Jerusalem. Look, another
siege! The armies of Babylon, under
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, come down and take
plumber from Jerusalem such as no
other city ever had to yield, and ten
thousand of her citizens trudge off into
Babylonian bondage. Look, another
siege! and Nebuchadnezzar and his
hosts by night go through 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, Jachin and Boaz.
ASsAILED BY THOUSANDS.
Another siege of Jerusalem, and
Pompey, with the battering rams which
a hundred men would roll back, and.
then at full run forward would -
against the wall of the
pults hurting the rocks upon the pao-
pie, left twelve thousand dead, and
the city in the clutch of the Roman
war eagle. Look, more desperate
siege of Jerusalem Titus, with his
tenth legion on Mount of Olives, and
ballista arranged on the principle of the
pendulum to swing great powders
against walls and towers, and miners
digging under the city making galleries
of beams underground, which, set on
fire, tumbled great masses of houses
and human beings into destruction and
death All is taken now but the tenn.
pie, and Titus, the conqueror, wants
to save that unframed, but a soldier,
contrary to orders, hurls a torch into
] Ton nd 10