CHAPTER VII.
THE MOUNT OF OLIVES.
If there be one place told of in holy writ, the name of which givesrise to more sacred feelings than any other, it is that of the Mountof Olives; and if there be a spot in that land of wondrous memorieswhich does bring home to the believer in Christ some individualizedremembrance of his Saviour's earthly pilgrimage, that certainly isit.
There is no doubting there, no question there whether or no theground on which you tread was not first called "the mount" by someByzantine Sophia; whether tradition respecting it can go back furtherthan Constantine; whether, in real truth, that was the hill overwhich Jesus walked when he travelled from the house of Lazarus atBethany to fulfil his mission in the temple. No: let me take anyordinary believing Protestant Christian to that spot, and I will asbroadly defy him to doubt there as I will defy him to believe in thatfilthy church of the holy places.
The garden of Gethsemane near the city, "over the brook Cedron,"where he left his disciples resting while he went yonder to pray; thehill-side on which the angel appeared unto him, strengthening him,and whither Judas and the multitude came out to take him; Bethany,the town of Mary and Martha, "fifteen furlongs from Jerusalem," whereLazarus was raised from the dead; the spot from whence he sent forthe ass and the ass's colt; the path from thence to the city by whichhe rode when the multitude "cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son ofDavid!" the same multitude which afterwards came out against him withstaves: these places are there, now as they were in his day, verycredible--nay, more, impossible not to be believed. These are thetrue holy places of Jerusalem, places for which Greeks and Latins donot fight, guarded by no sedate, coffee-drinking Turks, open thereto all men under the fair heavens, and desolate enough, too, even inthese pilgrim weeks, for any one or two who will sit there alone andponder over the wondrous history of the city that still lies overagainst him.
But what is the so strong evidence of the actual identity of theseplaces? What is it that makes me so sure that this is the Mount ofOlives, and that water-channel there the brook Cedron, and the hamleton the other side the veritable Bethany? Why is one to be so sure ofthese, and yet feel such an infinity of doubt as to that village ofEmmaus, that valley of Ajalon, that supposed Arimathea, and the restof them? Nay, I cannot well say, at any rate not in these light novelpages. Dr. Stanley, with considerable distinctness does say. But goand see: with the ordinary Protestant Christian seeing here will bebelieving, as seeing over in that church of the holy places mostindisputably will be disbelieving.
Hither Bertram strolled, and, seated on the brow of the hill, lookedover to Jerusalem till the short twilight of the Syrian evening hadleft him, and he could no longer discern the wondrous spots on whichhis eye still rested. Wondrous, indeed! There before him were thewalls of Jerusalem, standing up erect from the hill-side--for thecity is still all fenced up--stretching from hill to hill in varyingbut ever continued line: on the left was the Hill of Sion, David'shill, a hill still inhabited, and mainly by Jews. Here is stillthe Jews' quarters, and the Jews' hospital too, tended by Englishdoctors, nurtured also by English money; and here, too, close toDavid's Gate, close also to that new huge Armenian convent, shallone, somewhat closely scrutinizing among heaps of rubbish, come upona colony of lepers. In the town, but not of it, within the walls, butforbidden all ingress to the streets, there they dwell, a race ofmournfullest Pariahs. From father to son, from mother to daughter,dire disease, horrid, polluting, is handed down, a certain legacy,making the body loathsome, and likening the divine face of man to amelancholy ape. Oh! the silent sadness, the inexpressible melancholyof those wan, thoughtless, shapeless, boneless, leaden faces! To themno happy daily labour brings rest and appetite; their lot forbidsthem work, as it forbids all other blessings. No; on their dunghillsoutside their cabins there they sit in the sun, the mournfullestsight one might look on, the leper parents with their leper children,beggars by inheritance, paupers, outcasts, mutilated victims,--butstill with souls, if they or any round them did but know it.
There also, directly facing him, was the Mount Moriah, also insidethe walls, where Solomon built the house of the Lord, "where the Lordappeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared,in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite." For this city,Jerusalem, had, in still more ancient days, before the thought ofthat temple had come into men's minds, been the city Jebus, a cityeven then fenced up, and here had been the threshing-floor whichOrnan tendered to David without price, but which the king bought forsix hundred shekels of gold.
Yes; here before him as he sat was the site of that temple, Solomon'stemple, "exceeding magnificent, of fame and glory throughout allcountries," of which David had been worthy only to collect thematerials. The site! nay, but there were the very stones themselves.
Seen from that hill, the city seems so close that you may lay yourhand upon it. Between you and it (you, if ever you should happilycome to sit there) lies that valley of Jehoshaphat, in which MissTodd is going to celebrate her picnic. This is the valley in whichthe Jews most love to have themselves buried; as there, accordingto them, is the chosen site of the resurrection: and thus they whopainfully journeying thither in their old age, and dying there canthere be buried, will have no frightful, moles'-work, undergroundpilgrimage to detain them when that awful trumpet shall once moresummon them to the upper world.
The air, in Syria there, is thin and clear, clouded by no fogs; andthe lines of the wall and the minarets of the mosque are distinct andbright and sharp against the sky, as in the evening light one looksacross from one hill to the other. The huge stones of the wall nowstanding, stones which made part of that ancient temple, can becounted, one above another, across the valley. Measured by a roughestimate, some of them may be two and twenty feet in length, seven indepth, and five in height, single blocks of hewn rock, cut certainlyby no Turkish enterprise, by no mediaeval empire, by no Roman labour.It is here, and here only, at the base of the temple, that these hugestones are to be found, at the base of what was the temple, formingpart of the wall that now runs along the side of Mount Moriah, butstill some forty feet above the ground.
Over them now is the Mosque of Omar--a spot to be desecrated no moreby Christian step. On the threshing-floor of Ornan, the children ofMahomet now read the Koran and sing to Allah with monotonous howl.Oh, what a history! from the treading of the Jebusite's oxen downto the first cry of the Mussulman! Yes; no Christian may now enterhere, may hardly look into the walled court round the building. Butdignified Turks, drinking coffee on their divan within the building,keep the keys of the Christian church--keep also the peace, lestLatin and Greek should too enthusiastically worship their strangegods.
There can be few spots on the world's surface more sacred to anyChristian than that on which Bertram sat. Coming up from Bethany,over a spur on the southern side of the Mount of Olives, towardsJerusalem, the traveller, as he rises on the hill, soon catches asight of the city, and soon again loses it. But going onward alonghis path, the natural road which convenience would take, he comesat length to the brow of the hill, looking downwards, and there hasMount Sion, Moriah, and the site of the temple full before him. Noone travelling such a road could do other than pause at such a spot.
'Twas here that Jesus "sat upon the mount, over against the temple."There is no possibility of mistaking the place. "And as he went, oneof the disciples saith unto him, 'Master, see what manner of stonesand what buildings are here.' And Jesus answering, said unto him,'Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stoneupon another that shall not be thrown down.'" There are the stones,the very stones, thrown down indeed from the temple, but now standingerect as a wall, supporting Omar's mosque.
"And when he was come near, he beheld the city, and wept over it."Yes, walk up from Bethany, my reader, and thou, too, shalt behold it,even yet; a matter to be wept over even now. 'Tis hard to sit thereand not weep, if a man have any heart within him, any memory of thosehistories. "If thou hadst known, even, then, at least in this thyday, th
e things which belong unto thy peace!" But thou wouldest notknow. And where art thou now, O Jew? And who is it that sittest inthy high place, howling there to Allah most unmusically?
"O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" Not silently, and in thought only, butwith outspoken words and outstretched hands, so then spake our youngEnglish friend, sitting there all alone, gazing on the city. Whatman familiar with that history could be there and not so speak? "O,Jerusalem, Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets, and stonestthem which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gatheredthy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens underher wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto youdesolate."
When talking over the matter with Harcourt at Oxford, and afterwardswith his uncle at Hadley, Bertram had expressed a sort of half-formedwish to go into the church; not, indeed, in such a manner as to leaveon the minds of either of his counsellors an idea that he wouldreally do so; but this profession of being a parson had been one ofthose of which he had spoken as being in some sort desirable forhimself. Now, as he sat there, looking at the once holy city, itseemed to him to be the only profession in any way desirable. Heresolved that he would be a clergyman; thanked his God in that he hadbrought him there to this spot before it was too late; acknowledgedthat, doubting as he had done, he had now at length found a Divinecounsellor--one whose leading his spirit did not disdain. There hedevoted himself to the ministry, declared that he, too, would givewhat little strength he had towards bringing the scattered chickensof the new house of Israel to that only wing which could give themthe warmth of life. He would be one of the smallest, one of the leastof those who would fight the good fight; but, though smallest andleast, he would do it with what earnestness was in him.
Reader! you may already, perhaps, surmise that George Bertram doesnot become a clergyman. It is too true. That enthusiasm, strong,true, real as it was, did not last him much longer than his last walkround Jerusalem; at least, did not bide by him till he found himselfonce more walking on the High Street of Oxford. Very contemptiblethis, you will say. Yes, contemptible enough, as humanity so oftenis. Who amongst us have not made such resolves--some resolve ofself-devotion, at the sound of the preacher's voice--and forgotten itbefore our foot was well over the threshold? It is so natural, thatwish to do a great thing; so hard, that daily task of bathing inJordan.
When the bright day had disappeared, all but suddenly, and he couldno longer see the minarets of the mosque, Bertram descended the hill.It is but a short walk thence to Jerusalem--thence even into thecentre of Jerusalem.
But what a walk! To the left is the valley-side--that valley of theResurrection--covered with tombs--flat, sturdy, short stones, eachbearing a semblance, at least, of some short Hebraic epitaph, unmovedthrough heaven knows how many centuries! apparently immovable;the place, in this respect, being very unlike our more ornamentalcemeteries. On his right was the Mount of Olives; a mount still ofolives, sprinkled over with olive-trees quite sufficiently to make itproperly so called, even to this day. Then he passed by the gardenof Gethsemane, now a walled-in garden, in which grow rue and otherherbs; in which, also, is one fine, aged olive-tree, as to whichtradition of course tells wondrous tales. This garden is now incharge of an old Latin monk--a Spaniard, if I remember well--who, atleast, has all a Spaniard's courtesy.
It was here, or near to this, just above, on the hill-side, if ourtopography be reliable, that Jesus asked them whether they could notwatch one hour. Bertram, as he passed, did not take the question tohimself; but he well might have done so.
Turning round the wall of the garden, on his pathway up to Stephen'sGate, the so-called tomb of the Virgin was on his right hand, withits singular, low, subterranean chapel. A very singular chapel,especially when filled to the very choking with pilgrims from thosestrange retreats of oriental Christendom, and when the mass is beingsaid--inaudible, indeed, and not to be seen, at the furthest end ofthat dense, underground crowd, but testified to by the lighting ofa thousand tapers, and by the strong desire for some flicker of theholy flame.
And then he ascended to the city, up the steep hill, the side ofMount Moriah, to St. Stephen's Gate; and there, on his left, wasthe entrance to Omar's mosque, guarded by fierce dervishes againstpollution from stray Christian foot. Hence to his hotel everyfootstep was over ground sacred in some sense, but now desecrated bytraditionary falsehoods. Every action of our Saviour's passion hasits spot assigned to it; of every noted word the _locale_ is given.When once you are again within the walls, all is again unbelievable,fabulous, miraculous; nay, all but blasphemous. Some will say quiteso. But, nevertheless, in passing by this way, should you, O reader!ever make such passage, forget not to mount to the top of Pilate'shouse. It is now a Turkish barrack; whether it ever were Pilate'shouse, or, rather, whether it stands on what was ever the site ofPilate's house or no. From hence you see down into the court of themosque, see whatever a Christian can see of that temple's site, andsee also across them gloriously to those hills of Jerusalem, Scopus,and the hill of the men of Galilee, and the Mount of Olives, andthe Mount of Offence--so called because there "did Solomon build anhigh place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, on the hill that isbefore Jerusalem."
On his return to his inn, Bertram at once found that there had beenan arrival of some importance during his absence. Waiters and bootswere all busy--for there are waiters and boots at Jerusalem, muchthe same as at the "Saracen's Head," or "White Lion;" there is nochambermaid, however, only a chamberman. Colonel Sir Lionel Bertramwas there.