The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1917-12-06
DAILY ARDMOREiTE
From Other
Editorial Pages
THE HOLY CITY.

Kansas City. Mo) Journal: SO far as
predictions can be made with the
slightest measure Of safety. the fall OF
Jerusalem seems inevitable and thus
the greatest blow in history will have
been struck at the Turkish sultan.
Cairo. and with II Egypt. was wrested
| from the Moslem decades ago. through
the religious consequences of its sever
ance have been negligible. Only a few
months ago the sacred city OF Mecca
| fell, not to the British but TO the Arabs,
who threw off the Turkish yoke and are
now under the protection of the British
and the other Allies, without any ap-
parent possibility OF Turkey ever re-
gaining possession OF IL.
| If-or rather wnen-Jerusalem falls
not only will very sacred Moslem
stronghold pass once more under Christ
ian dominion, after half a thousand
years OF possession by the "infidel" but
the sultan will sustain a very grave
material reduction of territory and
power. IL Is one of the anomalies of
history that a single city should occupy
so large "a place in the hearts of three
such diverse and incongruous nationali-
ties or religions as the Christian, the
Jew and the Mohammedan.
To the Christian Jerusalem is mex
pressibly holy. II Is bound to the
very heart of Christendom by tremend-
ously holy ties Its streets were trodden
by the Nazarene many times, from the
first pious pilgrimage of His parents
until He bore His cross up the brow of
Golgotha. Bloody crusades have been
fought in vain endeavor to rescue the
Holy Sepulchre from the desecrating
and defiling hand of the Panim. For
fi,ta bppIral yaars the vary pIace wbera
tradition declares the Savior Of men
was laid has been i'm the hands of the
scoffing and prosecuting Turk. nor is
il any balancing of the score that the
sects of Christendom have wrangled
over the guardianship of the Sacred
Place permitted by the Moslem con-
queror. The dreams and prayers of
Christendom for centuries have focused
Jerusalem as the goal Of realization
which is to come in Gods own good
time. In the ultimate triumph of the
Christian over the Turk. all the
Christian nations. as well as the Jews,
will share-even Germany as people,
though not as government. For the
restoration of the Holy City to Christian
hands will mean that in the years to
come, perhaps many years in the
future, the hands of all Christendom
Sepulchre, and the dream of ages will
be sealed and brought to pass.
To the Jew Jerusalem is as the very
breath of his nostrils, the citadel or his
Zionism, the place made sacred by tradi-
tions that were old when the Messiah
came Ages before Christ, Jerusalem
was the capital Of Palestine. A thousand
years before the Carpenter of Nazareth
disputed with the doctors in the Temple,
"Solomon's purple show made Jerusa-
lem resplendent, and the first stones or
the Temple were laid and the mighty
edifice remained the wonder of the
world for more than 400 years before
IL was destroyed, and the last king OF
Judah was cast into dungeon in
Babylon. Ever since the dispersion OF
the children of Israel it has been the
passionate hope of all Zion that the land
of Judah might once more be the home
of the Jewry of. the world-a dream
that bids fair to be realized, in one way
or another, with British occupancy.
To the Mohammedan Jerusalem is
the city which witnessed the tradi-
tional ascension of the prophet into
heaven and the Mosque of Omar is one
of the most sacred shrines of the Mos
lem world 1t is impossible for the
tolerant peoples of the enlightened
Christian nations to appreciate the
frantic generations with which such a
spot must be regarded by the Moham-
medans, proverbially the most bigoted
and fanatic people in the world.
The fall of Jerusalem would there
fore reverberate throughout Moham-
mechanism as the crack of doom, and
in this connection it must be recalled
that there are many millions of Mos
lens under British sovereignty. They
would be struck a heavy blow from
a religious point of view, but there
is not the slightest probability that
the religious sensibilities of the Mo-
hammedans as whole will be need
lessly affronted. 1t is Turkey, the
ally of Germany, and it is Germany,