The Opelousas courier., 1891-01-31
upon the world He had come to redeem and
at the heavens through which He would soon

had lifted. Stop here and see a startling
proof of the truth of the prophecy. In
Jeremiah, thirty-frst chaper and fortieth
verse, it is said that Jerusalem shall be built
through the ashes. What ashes, people have
been asking. Were those ashes put into the
prophecy to Eli upP MOI The meaning has
been recently discovered. Jerusalem is now
being built out in q certain direction where
the ground has been submitted to chemical
analysis, and it has been found to be the ashes
cast out from the sacrifices of the ancient
temple-ashes of wood and ashes of bones OF
animals. There are great mounds of ashes
accumulation Of centuries of sacrifices. Id
has taken all these thousands of years to dis
cover 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 to the gate of the cor
ner, and the whole valley OF the dead bodies
and Of the ashes" TIL people Of Jerusalem
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! Pass by the place where the
corner stone of the ancient temple was laid
three thousand years ago by Solomon.
Explorers have been digging, and they
found that corner stone seventy-hve feet be-
meath the surface. It is fourteen feet long,
and three feet eight inches high, and beauti-
1A111 IA alo oAuPOhs III AVCA ~ ""o SS
earthen jar that was supposed to have con-
tanned the oil Of conservation used at the
ceremony Of laying the corner stone. Yon-
der, from a depth of forty feet, a signetring
has been brought up inscribed with the
words "Haggai, the Son Of Shebnaiah,"
showing it belonged to the Prophet Haggai,
and to that seal ring he refers in his prop,
phecy, saying, ~ will make thee as q gignet.n
] walk further on far under ground, and l
1Qs.J ~~,x-r1IR l.. Go1avn orge rAo1 laa a,n1 aaa %lao
places worn in the stone pillars by the hall
tiers 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 pill.
lars, and / saw eight OF those pillars, each
one strong enough to hold q mountain.
Here we enter the mosque of Omar, q
throne of Mohammedauism, where we are
met at the door by officials who bring slip
pers that we must put on before we take g
step further, lest our feet pollute the sacred
places. A man attempting to go in without
these slippers would be struck dead on the
spot. These awkward sandals adjusted as
well as we could, we are ledto 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 exc
pense the mosque has been built, but so SON.
Der is the place / am glad to get through it
and take Off the cumbrous slippers and step
into the clean air.
yonder is a curve of stone which is part of
a bridge which once reached from Mount
Moriah to Mount Zion, and over it David
walked or rode to prayers In the temple.
Here is the waiting place of the Jews, where
for centuries, almost perpetually, during the
daytime whole generations Of the Jews have
stood putting their head or lips against the
wall Of what was once Solonon's temple.
t. runz ono re tho coT1ncf ond roOSf colorun
and impressive scenes | ever witnessed to see
scores of these descendants of Abraham, with
tears rolling down their cheeks and lips trem-
bling with emotion, a book of psalms open
before them, bewailing the ruin of the an
Gent temple ard the captivity of their race,
and crying to God for the restoration Of the
temple in all its original %spfendor. Most
affecting scenel And such a prayer as that,
century after century, | am sure God viii
answer and in some way the departed gram
deur will return, or something better. I
looked over the shoulders of some OF them
and saw that they were reading from the
mournful psalms of David, while l have been
told that this is the litany which some chants
For the temple that lies desolate,
We sit in solitude and mourn;
For the palace tnat is destroyed
We sir IN solitude and mourn;
For the walls that are overthfoWns
We sit In solitude and mourn;
For our majesty that is departed,
Vest in solitude and mourn;
For our great men that lie dead
We sit in solitude and mourn;
For priests who have stumbled,
We cit In solitude and mourn.
thina at that prayer Jerusalem will come
again to more than its ancient maguificence;
it may not be precious stones and architec-
tural majesty, but In a moral splendor that
shall eclipse forever all that David or Solo
nor saw.
Butt must get back to the housetop where
I stood early this morning, and before the
sun sets, that / may catch a wider vision OF
what the city % is and once was. Stand
ing here on the housetop | see that the city
was built for military safety. Some old
warrior, I warrant, selected the spot. 1t
stands on a hill $500 feet above the level Of
the sea, and 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,
Hip.icus, Phasaelus. Marianne, frowning
deatn upon the approach OF all enemies.
Is { stood there on the housetop in the
mist of the city / said, 20 Lord, reveal to
me this metropolis of the world that ! ma
see it as it once appeared" No one was with
me. for there are some things o can see
more wildly with no one but God n your
self present. Immediately the mosque OF
Omar, which has stood for ages on Mount
Moriah, the site OF the ancient temple, disap-
REd4 NA& EltA pAtC LAS5 AAChAOA ia " @@SeAS ~
all the ages lifted itself in the light, and l
saw 1.-THE temple, the ancient templel Not
SolomoH's temple, but something grander
than that. Not ZerubbabeFs tenpia- but
something more gorgeous than that. IL was
Herod's temple, built for the one purpose Oh
eclipsing all its architectural predecessors.
There it stood, covering nineteen acres,
end fen Thousand workmen had been forty
s;Y wears in building it. Blaze of magnttl-
cencet Bewildering range OF pertlcos ana
ten gaSeWays and double arches CoTan-
THAN capitals chiseled into lilies and acan-
thus. Masonry beveled and grooved INTO
such delicate forms that it seemed TO tremDie
in the light. Cloisters with W roEs OF Cor
infhian columns. royal arches, marble steps
pure as though made out OF frozen snow,
carving that seemed like panel of the door
of heayen let down and set in, the facade OF
the building on shoulders at each end
lifting the glory higher and higher,
and walls wherein gold put out
the silver, and the carbuncle put out the
gold, and the jasper put out the carbuncle,
until in the changing light they would all
seem to come back again into a chorus OF
harmonious color. The tennplei The templel
DoxoIogy in stonel Anthems soaring IN raft
ers of Lebanon cedari From side to side
and from foundation to gilded pinnacle the
frozen prayer of all agesi
From this housetop on the December AFTER
noon we LOOK OUT dHoInr.
see the kings palace, covering a hundred and
sixty thousand square feet. three rows Of
windows illunining the inside b~rilliance,
the hallway wainscoted with styles OF coloreo
marbles s~nrnaounted by arabesque, vermilion
and gold, looking down on mosaicS, music O
waterfalls in the garden outside answering
| the music Of the harps thr1mmed by def
| fingers inside; banisters over which princes
and princesses leaned, and talked to king
tE
and queens ascending the stairway. Q Jeru
salem, Jerusalemi Mountain cityi City o
Godi JOY Of the whole earthi stronge
x - r.I..1A..Znna Gohnrknnnl s1lrnIV /