The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1902-07-04

part Of the community, which makes
its living off pilgrims and tourists, and
will find holy places and arguments
and evidence to support them as long
as trustful and confiding people are
willing to pay for the privilege of see
ing them. Those who are competent to
speak on such subjects say that the
longer you stay and the oftener you
come to Jerusalem the more rapidly
these objections diminish in impor-
lance and the greater will be the inter
est which the ruins and traditions in
spire, but everybody will always be
obliged to confess the degraded aspect
Of the people, the material and moral
decline Of the city, the filth and wretch
edness Of the homes, the cheap and
tawdry decorations of the churches,
and the appropriateness Of the monu-
ments. These things make people mel
ancho1y if not Disguised. A combina-
ton of superstition and fanaticism.
with Journalism and avarice, is the
chief characteristic Of the modern city,
once the fountain head from which
the knowledge of the true God was
Giffused to all mankind, and after a
few days experience you feel like but
toning up your pockets when you kneel
to pray before a sacred shrine.
Jerusalem is not town for amuse-
ment or recreation; for everything in
it is tinged with religious sentiment
and relates to scriptural history. There
is nothing to attract. a traveller but
shrines and memories, and the air is
full Of controversy, jealousy and doubt.
There is nothing beautiful in or about
the city except the Mosque of Omar,
which is one of the sublimest concep-
tons of Saracenic architecture in exist
ence. Although we sing Of the glory,
the purity and happiness Of Jerusalem,
it is one of the most repulsive places
in all the world. The old city is mass
of stone masonry, separated by narrow
streets and courts and surrounded by
wall thirty-eight feet high and alto
gether two and half miles in length.
There are few open spaces, the streets
are crooked; many Of them are blind
alleys, and those in the business dis
tricts are vaulted over. There are no
sewers and none but surface drainage.
All the filth and offal of uncomfortable
sorts is dumped upon the pavement for
The dogs to scatter and the rain to wash
away. In wet weather the streets are
sinking cesspools, and when they dry
up the mixture is ground to powder be-
meath the hoofs Of camels and donkeys
and the sandals of men, blown into
the air and absorbed into the Threats
and nostrils, the eyes and ears of man
and beast, with myriads of microbes of
all varieties. You actually have to hold
your nose as you walk down the Via
Doloroso, the most holy and interest
ing street in the world, sanctitied Ivy
the feet Of the Savior who followed it
as He bore the cross to Calvary.
The streets Of Jerusalem inside the
walls are repulsive by day and unsafe
at. night. Strangers, particularly for
eigners or Christians, should never
wander out by themselves after dark.
They are strictly warned against such
folly, because it is a Mos1em town, in
which business is suspended from sun
set to sunrise and becomes like city
of the dead after ,dark. In the older
portions there are no street lights, no
gas, no electricity, not even petroleum
lamps. When darkness falls the ba-
zaars are closed, the shutters are put
up, the camels and donkeys are turned
into, the; corrals at the khans; and the
people retire, behind the high blank
walls that inclose their ). habitntions.
Those who are compelled To- 80 ont on
honest business have lanterns carried