Jerusalem The Holy City: Its History and Hope - Pasta blanda

THE HOLY CITY ITS HISTOEY AND HOPE BY MRS. OLIPHANT AUTHOR OP MAKEBS OF FLORENCE, MAKERS OF VENICE, ETC. Mount Zion which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever WITH WOOD ENGRAVINGS FROM DRAWINGS BY HAMILTON AIDK AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY P. M. GOOD gotfc. MAOMILLAN CO. AND LONDON 1892 All rights reserved BY MAtMlLLA. N AND O, Set np and fledr Jttprinttd February, i XUJB OXIUKCXI OX-1 TIIK HOLY SEPIILCHKE. TO MY DEAR CHILDREN AND COMPANIONS J. E. 0., M. 0. W. AND THEIR ELDER BROTHER C. F. 0. WHO HAS SINCE DEPARTED FROM US TO THE JERUSALEM THAT IS ABOVE COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY MACMILLAN AND CO. Set up and electrotyped December, 1891. Reprinted February, 1892. TO MY DEAR CHILDREN AND COMPANIONS J. E. 0., M. 0. W. AND THEIR ELDER BROTHER C. F. 0. WHO HAS SINCE DEFAMED FROM US TO THE JERUSALEM THAT IS ABOVE NOTE. THE writer scarcely needs to say that this book is no record of Eastern travel her experiences in the Holy Land having no special importance, save as making more vivid to herself the scenes to which the following history is devoted. It may be well, how ever, to say that these holy places may be visited with no exertion that is beyond the powers of a person in ordinary health, though neither young nor adventurous. Nothing can exceed the care and kindness of the attendants who escort the not-robust travellers through a region where convenience and comfort are by no means the rule of life. And she has a special remembrance to make of the kindness of the Greek ecclesiastical authorities in Jerusalem, and of the constant attention of the excellent drago man, David Jamal, who was the Providence of her little party. INTRODUCTION. npHE story of Jerusalem, is one of the most wonderful - L in theworld, besides being of unparalleled impor- tance to the human race. Insignificant in power even at its greatest, it has been, through all the ages of secular history, no better than a tributary and dependent of great empires which have risen and fallen and passed away, yet left this little city on its hills, always the most interesting spot on earth, the indestructible, the source of the mightiest influence, the foundation of the greatest systems of earthly law and thought. Before the litera ture of Greece had been thought of, song and story and the noblest inspirations of philosophy and poetry had come to being upon the little crests of Zion and Moriah the Temple had been built there which has never faded, though destroyed, burned, broken down a dozen times, swept far from sight and knowledge, from the memory and imagination of men and the records of humanity had begun to be put forth in full splendour of character and impulse and feeling, in chronicles which are as fresh and living now as when they were transcripts of the life of three thousand years ago. We go no farther than the heroic age of Hebrew genius when we name this date beyond, in the mist of the ages, before even ancient Egypt had begun to engrave her rigid annals upon stone, the record goes back, not in hieroglyphics, but in his