Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 88, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1911 — EASTER IN JERUSALEM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

EASTER IN JERUSALEM

BY EDITH NEIL BENNEY

BRU3ALEM, the sadeyed daughter of the past, the keeper of the histories of man, the mother of immortal memories, who anciently received the word Dlvinlan and brought it forth, a light to, light the world! How solemn and how pitiful she sits upon the rocky fastness of her hills, locked in the gaunt arms of her two ravines and looking

out across the riverless canons and unfruitful slopes, even to the lifeless valley of the salt sea of the Plain Forlorn and brought to desolation In her sad old age, a childless and deserted Niobe, or some old goddess shorn of deity, she yet, amid her squalid poverty, holds out to you the sacred chalice of remembered things, and sends her temple veil to let you through Into the holy of her living past. But in the spirit only may you

see that past—for outwardly she bears no sceptered majesty, as Rome or Athens do, with which to point to you tbe footprints of her memorial hours. About her, her prophetic desolation lies and misery has clothed her as a garment from the waste and barren aspect of her limestone hills, unfruitful and accursed

with only here and there a gnarled and blighted olive tree—a lonely palm—a gloomy cypress, to dot their white and windswept slopes; from bookless Kedron and arid Hlnnom, to the poverty and squalor of her streets. Viewed from afar, indeed, some reminder of past dignity still clings about her. High-perched upon her Mon-mount, surrounded by her crumbling, massive crenelated walls, enforced with bastion and many an ancient tower, there is a martial, antique grandeur in her look, not out of keeping with her early pride. But once within the walls, the splendor fades, and disillusionment falls heavy on the spirit. Close-crowded, atony, colorless, the gray walls of the houses rise on either side of narrow, filthy streets, each with Its door revealing want and wretchedness and dirt, each with fiat roof and tiny cupola—monotonously similar, monotonously mean. No pavements dignify the streets, and through their mire foot passengers, camels, mules and horses Jostle each other in close and unsavory contact, while here and there an overspanning arch shuts out the strip of radiant sky that alone makes It tolerable. Now and then, Indeed, some more pretentious building meets the eye—a convent or a church, a mosque with dome and minaret, a bit of Roman ruin, or a glimpse of picturesque and Oriental arabesque. Yet little by little Jerusalem spells out her message for you—from David’s tower, which Herod built where David’s palace stood, and in whose shadow Christ must once have rested; from Omar’s mosque that fills the ancien( temple site with barbaric splendor; from the mouldering ruins that mark the enclosure of the Knights of St. John; from Roman tower, from crescent and from cross, the city speaks to us. ■ Her fates and her vicissitudes belong to those historic moods that make the whole world kin. Since David built her .first, on Canaan’s soil, she has felt the ambitious pulse alike of Babylonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Roman, Saracen and Turk. By all alike has she been coveted, and fought for and possessed. She has seen mighty empires rise and flourish and pass into the misty limbo of forgotten things. And from her own ashes and the dust of falling nations she arises, and while they vanish she remains. Wars and destructions, and the hates of kings! What wonder that the land Is desolate, and that the city sleeps In wretchedness, with but the dreams of vanished splendor woven for a crown? Unlovely and unbeautiful. Indeed! And yet a holy city and a triple shrine. A three-fold robe of veneration shrouds her. For not alone to the Christian does she hold symbolic things. To every Jew she is still their David’* Zion, this old Jerusalem, the

city of the Pslamist and the King; the witness yet of splendid Solomon — a memory and a hope to be fulfilled. The Moslem holds her second but to Mecca In her sanctity—for here the prophet’s heavenward Journey was begun—and here the Mosque of Omar stands, most splendid monument of Islam. A wondrous thing—this Dome of the Rock, Indeed. Surrounded by great walls it stands on Mount Moriah —where once the temple stood —gardens, fountains and shady palms surround It; arcades, with minarets and multiple-pointed arches form its approach. While from a marble platform rises the mosque Itself —a glistening marvel of encaustic tiles, blue and green, purple and gold-all Interlaced In delicate arabesques—the only piece of Oriental splendor in all this dismal Oriental town! •» But now at Easter week Jerusalem’s sleep is broken and all her streets.are filled With busy life and color, for now three faiths keep festival, and pilgrims flock from near and far to pray at their most sacred shrines. From the entempted Doric hills of green (those earthly slopes of Jove’s Olympia) Greece, with her golden suns and silvery olive groves; from far Siberia; Auroran haloed daughter of the North; from Jaffa and the Sea of Galillea; from crescent-crowned Damascus, have they come —a pled and motley throng that overflows the streets, Impassably. Here you may see the native peasants in bright yellow turbans and striped robes; Armenian pilgrims with their broad red sashes; Jews in Oriental garb, or with the curls and fur cap of the Pharisee;

Russians, knee-booted, and longhaired Greek monks; Turkish soldiers, black-skinned dervishes, Nubians, Hindoos, Persians, Tartars, Arabs—a very picturesque kaleidoscope of nations —a sea of tropical florescence that ebbs and flows beneath the moon of faith, whose phases change, but whose great circling truth is one eternally. Borne On The surge and resurge of the human tide you find yourself Inevitably cast up before that central rock of Christendom, the pale Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But not to pause for long. The Romanesque and vaulted limestone vastness of the place seems earthly, tawdry, bare oi that dignity its site should have endued It with; and so, although Its glided splendors mark the homage ol barbaric ages, although the spot is drenched with martyrdom, although the knees and kisses of centuries oi worship have worn the stones away with rapt sincerity, although the candle lights burn solemnly about the rosy-hued Anointing Stone, although the very tomb itself be here, yet all the tinsel, pomp, theatric pageantry, but mar the thrill, the sanctity and the transcendent sweetness of that Life, that Death —so simple and so great. ( No, not here; but rather in some quiet olive grove without the walls, where it may he that once he sat alone; where spring"is showing now, despite the ages’ blight, the early green and silver of the leaf; where, beneath the rounded Pascal moon, Jerusalem looks fair and beautiful and clothed in mystery; where faintly comes the calling of the muezzin from the tower, the glad hosanna from the far-off church, blending in unison of praise to the one God; here may the city’s immemorial heart beats reach your ear, the ultimate spirit-whisper of her soul, the silent music of her Calvary, the message of the deathlessness of life, whereby .forlorn Jerusalem still hopes, even while she looks out over Kedron’s naked gorge and Moab’s purple and eternal hills beyond the Valley of the Salt Dead Sea.