Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1877 — The Wailtag-Place at Jerusalem. [ARTICLE]

The Wailtag-Place at Jerusalem.

Let ns get hence under the deep wall of tbetemple and witness the one solitary spectacle in all the city that is reaUy and truly affecting. It is Friday at the Jews' willing-place Marrow, crooked and filthy streets lead down under the hili of the temple. As you approach the open space against the huge blocks of stone that are imbedded in the foundations of the walls, your ear is startled by a chorus of agonizing cries. Buch a •wail might have ascended from the streets after that night of the death of the first-born. Turn, ingout of the slippery and ill-smelling passage into the place of wailing, I beheld a multitude of men, women and children apparently stricken with a common sorrow that could only find expression or relief in tears and piercing cries. There might hare been 200 mourners; a •very small company of strangers stood apart and looked on in amazement. Old men with snowy beards, okl women withcred and weather-beaten, sat against the wall opposite the sacred stenes of the temple reading their prayer-books and nodding their heads quickly and violently back and forward as if they would impress upon the very air the earnestness of their muttered prayers. Young lads stood against the temple wall and read their litanies, kissing the stones from time to time with affectionate reverence. The women were more demonstrative, and as they threw their hands above their heads, wrung their hands and wept bitterly. Their cries and soba were echoed by the chorus of mourners, and a hysterical wave of emotion passed through the entire assembly, that swayed to and fro like the corn in the wind. Some of these mourners knelt apart, and, with their foreheads pressed against the wall, worn smooth with kisses, their eyes pouring rivers of tears all the while, they talked to those huge blocks, passionately, as if they meant the very stones should hear them .and reply. Small wicks floating in oil were lit from time to time by those who jhad just come to wail. An attendant kept a supply on hand, and those who gave him a trifling fee were at once served with a light, which was, however, left burning in bis charge. A few of the mourners knelt in meditation; a few gave way to -violent grief—a grief that seemed to. upon despair. All were evidently thoroughly in earnest as they repeated .over and over this litany: . For the place that lie* desolate. We ait in solitude and mourn. For the place that is destroyed. We sit in solitude and mount. For the walls that are overthrown: For our majesty that is departed: Forour great non who lie dead: For the precious stones that are burned: For the priests who have stumbled: For the Kina* who have despised Him, We sit in solitude and mourn. On every lip I seemed to hear the name -Jerusalem said over and over. It was this antiphon, chanted by each in turn, accompanied by a nervous swaying of the body and a total disregard of the surroundings: Spray Thee have mercy on Zion! ather the children of Jerusalem. ite, haste. Redeemer of Zion! Speak to the heart of Jerusalem. May beauty and majesty surround Zion! Ah. tarn Thyself mercifully to Jerusalem. May the kirgdom soon return to Zion! Comfort those who mourn our Jerusalem. May peace and joy abide with Zion, And the branch (of Jesse) spring up at Jerusa MttL Until sunset these men and women cry ■out to the stone, beat their breasts ana weep their tears, some of them no doubt believing that the Kingdom of David is at hand. Of all the shrines that are prayed over and fought over within the city of the Grt*t King, I have found none that so touched me or filled me with so sincere emotion as that narrow court under the anciqitwailof “theholy and beautiful house,” with the sun sinking on the despair of an outcast people and the ab burdened with their unceasing lamentations—Charite Warren Stoddard' • Letter it San Franeieto Chronide.