The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-26
WHERE FIRE COMES -s DOWN FROM HEAVEN
By c. F. MARKELL

1 Christian dogs. To accomplish this they defied sacred history and in playing upon the credulty of their followers they did the Russians one better in the holy fire sham and claimed to have discovered the grave of Moses, about five miles from Je- rusalem. The time for the annual visit | to the lost glory of Nebo and Pisgah was assigned to Easter week and thus nearly | 100000 of the faithful would be available to resist any attempt to capture the sacred city.
 The long procession of pilgrims leaves the mosque of Omar on Tuesdays and after worshipping for four days at the grave of Moses the return to the city is made on Fridays. The occasion brings | together the most fanatical of the sect and the ceremony resolves itself into a | religious orgy. On the day of the start the hillsides | from sunrise are filled with an immense l concourse of women who in the absence | of men remove their veils and woe be | unto any member of the male sex who es-
 says to mount these sacred precincts at this period. The procession is headed by the governor of the district and the holy
 flag which latter is large green banner elaborately decorated with Arabic em- | bIems and legends. The delerium of the l throng is wild enough, but what shall I l say of the frenzy of the Dervishes, both bowling and twirling? These fanatics l moved in groups, bearing shields and l brandishing scimeters of finest temper and keenest edge. With these weapons
 they fought and slashed each other and
 finally they began gashing their own l bodies and infiicting self-wrought wounds. A bevy of admirers would pick up a lead CT and placing him upon their shoulders l would carry him backward and forward through the throng as he exhorted and tx,-- ,k,I,. | from the Koran. The twirling rDervishes
 kept up their gyrations till their eyeballs protruded from their sockets, the perspi- | ration rolled from brow and cheek and l they finally fell in sheer exhaustion into l the arms Of an attending companion. 1 The condition of these men was such that l i'll their delirium of religious intoxication l it required but a spark to incite 8 whole
 sale massacre of the Christian inhabi- tants of and Christian pilgrims at Jeru- salem. The multitude would have per l ished under the sword and the church of | the Holy Sepudchre gone down in holo- | caust.
 l The truth is that the holy sepulchre is l not the true site of the burial of Christ
 It has been ascertained that the sepulchre 1 is not hewn out Of solid rock, but has
 been constructed In pieces. The Church of l the Holy Sepulchre was erected by the l Empress Helen, whose religious zeal is l known to have exceeded her compunc- 1 tions of conscience, and when under the l hill of Calvery we are shown tomb of l Adam, with 8 hole above in the rock of | the crucifxion that the blood of the
 Savior might trickle through over the
 skull of Adam (still shown) and thus re- l deem those who had died before the ad- vent of Christ, we may well question the | authenticity of the site. We are told
 that Christ was crucifled beyond the city.
 walls; we known that the church is not
 now beyond the present walls and as Je-
 rusalem must have been much larger in l the time of the Herods than at present we are justified in saying that the old I walls were further out and greater in ex- | tent than those which now enclose the l city. Again, a majority of the stations which mark the route of the Saviour to | His place of execution are under the roof of the church, rather singular circum- stance. Some of these, stations are To- | cated on the Via Dolorosa; thus one sees | the place where the Cyrene took up the l cross and the home of Veronica, who 1 wiped the divine face with a towel, upon which was left an impress of feature ana, 1 outline, all on the Way of Sorrow, bIs | the rest are in the church. That part of l the Via Dolorosa from the Ecce Homo
 arch to Damascus street has unquestion-
 ably been properly identified, but when l the Man of Sorrow reached Damascus | street he turned to the right and passed l out the Damascus gate to what is now
 known as Gordon's tomb, where he was crucified and buried.
 l The tomb in question Is named after General Gordon, who perished at Khare | toum He was not'its discoverer, but he was so impressed with the authenticity of the spot that he spent hours there l daily reading his Bible and praying, l hence it's name. Tt is hewn from the liv- l ing rock; it is outside of the walls; 1t bears evidence of being new tomb ana l it corresponds to the description recorded l in Holy Writ as to the last resting place of the Master. Moreover the hill near which it is located bears striking resem- l blance to human skull, and Golgotha1 | where Christ was crucifed signifies the place of the skull. In fact I was struck with the close resemblance of the hill to l this part of human anatomy as I saw it | from an angle of the city wall, which wall had mounted for this express pur- pose. I believe that this was the tomb of our Lord, the stones of which an angel rolled away. fe=
 ! e.