Jerusalem Delivered

“ Simple as was the surrender of Jerusalem, there were scenes in the streets during the short half-hour of General Shea's visit which reflected the feeling of half the civilised world on receiving the news. It was a world event. This deliverance of Jerusalem from Turkish misgovernment was bound to stir the emotions of Christian, Jewish, and Moslem communities in the two hemispheres. ”

“ That the destruction of Jerusalem should occupy the first place in the prophet's picture of national calamity requires no explanation. Jerusalem was the heart and brain of the nation, the centre of its life and its religion, and in the eyes of the prophets the fountain-head of its sin. ”

“ There were sombre-clad Jews of all nationalities, Armenians, Greeks, Russians, and all the peoples who make Jerusalem the most cosmopolitan of cities. To the many styles of European dress the brighter robes of the East gave vivid colour, and it was obvious from the remarkably free and spontaneous expression of joy of these people, who at the end of three years of war had such strong faith in our fight for freedom, that they recognised freedom was permanently won to all races and creeds by the victory at Jerusalem. ”

“ Jerusalem's pangs are not as dying agonies, but as travailing throes, which after a while will be forgotten, for joy that a child is born into the world. Let the literal Jerusalem comfort herself with this, that, whatever straits she may be reduced to, she shall continue until the coming of the Messiah, for there his kingdom must be first set up, and she shall not be destroyed while that blessing is in her ”

“ Jerusalem like all capitals—great sewers to which flow the refuse, the outcasts, the rubbish of the nations—is inhabited by a mob of frivolous, elegant, idle, skeptical and indifferent people, by a ceremonious patrician class who have kept only the tradition of ritual and the sterile rancor of their decadence; by an aristocracy of property owners and speculators who belong to the herd of Mammon, and by a rebellious, restless, ignorant crowd, controlled only by the superstition of the Temple and the fear of the foreigner’s sword. Jerusalem was not fit soil for the sowing of Jesus. ”

“ Jerusalem has been long trodden down of the Gentiles; the times of the Gentiles are nearly fulfilled. What is to follow? Are the Jews to be restored, as a distinct people, to the Land of Promise, and there accept Him whom their fathers rejected as their King? There is no subject on which speculation is more busy, or on which more confident judgments are pronounced. But it is the voice of man that speaks, not of God. One thing alone is sure. God has not cast away His people. ”

“ The Jew, the Greek, the Copt, the Georgian, the Armenian, the Arab, and the Turk mingle with the modern European and with the Franciscan monk from Italy in the narrow lane; and black-veiled ladies with white cloaks, seated on crimson saddles high up on the white Damascene asses, are led to the shops, or to the lower fruit-market which glows with colour, its green and gold contrasting with the violet or rich brown robes of the merchants. The whole history of Jerusalem is represented by its crowd to-day. ”

“ With its solemn doctors, its insipid canonists, its hypocritical and atrabilious devotees, Jerusalem has not conquered humanity. The North has given to the world the simple Shunammite, the humble Canaanite, the impassioned Magdalene, the good foster-father Joseph, and the Virgin Mary. The North alone has made Christianity; Jerusalem, on the contrary, is the true home of that obstinate Judaism which, founded by the Pharisees, and fixed by the Talmud, has traversed the Middle Ages, and come down to us. ”

“ The city bearing the ancient name of Jerusalem does not indeed occupy the same site, being built round the sacred spot where the garden once stood, in which a mortal sepulchre received the lifeless form of the Saviour of the world.
But happier times seem dawning on the dispersed of Judea. Our own days have seen the foundations of a Jewish Christian church laid in Jerusalem; our Queen Victoria and the King of Prussia united to commence a work of love, thereby fulfilling in part the promise made to the Jews of old, “And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and queens thy nursing mothers.” ”

“ Women threw flowers into the car and spread palm leaves on the road. Scarcely had the Turks left, probably before they had all gone and while the guns were still banging outside the entrances to Jerusalem, stray pieces of bunting which had done duty on many another day were hung out to signify the popular pleasure at the end of an old, hard, extortionate regime and the beginning of an era of happiness and freedom. ”

“ Its recurrence after she had resolved to regard it as an impossible and blasphemous tale brought a chill to her heart.
"If I can prove to you that there is no hope for Jerusalem, what then?" he asked suddenly.
She flung off the question with a gesture.
"Answer me. What then?"
"It is unimaginable what shall come to pass when God deserts His own."
"No need for imaginings. Look at Jerusalem and observe the fact. And if we be abandoned, what fealty do we owe to a God that deserts us? If you believe or not you are lost. Let us go out and live." ”

“ But he proved to be a deformed old man, mute and weary, who was distressed for fear he would be detained by them and who hobbled out into the besieged city and posted as fast as his legs could carry him toward the house of Amaryllis, the Seleucid.
But at the edge of a great open space where the Herodian palaces had stood he came upon a concourse which seemed to be all Jerusalem. It was a gaunt horde, shouting, raging, prophesying and drowning the roar of battle at the Temple fortifications with the sound of religious frenzy. ”

“ But if any one makes an unjust accusation against us, when we speak so passionately about the tyrants, or the robbers, or sorely bewail the misfortunes of our country, let him indulge my affections herein, though it be contrary to the rules for writing history; because it had so come to pass, that our city Jerusalem had arrived at a higher degree of felicity than any other city under the Roman government, and yet at last fell into the sorest of calamities again. ”

“ She rose and flung back the cumbrous striped mantle on her shoulders and put out her hands to the Maccabee.
"Hast seen these pilgrims going to the Passover?" she exclaimed, with color rising as her emotion grew. "All day they have passed; army after army of Jews, not only strong, but filled with the spirit that makes men die for a cause! Hast seen Judea, which was once the land of milk and honey? Wasted! a sight to make Jews gnash their teeth and die of hate and rage! What hast thou said of Jerusalem? ”

“ Everywhere rose the shafts of monuments and memorials, old as the pride of Absalom, new as the folly of the Herods; everywhere the aggressive paganism of Rome and Greece, which would have paganized this monotheistic race out of very rancor against its uprightness, violated with insolent beauty the hieratic severity of the city's face. Rich, bold, strong, beautiful, Jerusalem was at that hour, as viewed from the hill to the north, the perfection of beauty and the joy of the whole earth. ”

“ Meeting a rush at the gate they drew swords and coolly hacked their way through screams of fear and pain and amazement. After them went a wave of curses and complaint. Citizens against the visitors; visitors against the citizens; soldiers against them all!
"And this cousin of mine meant to pacify all this!" the Ephesian exclaimed to himself.
Jerusalem, that had for fifteen hundred years adorned herself at this time with tabrets and had gone forth in the dance of them that make merry, was drunken with wormwood and covered with ashes. ”

“ Son of man, thy brethren, even thy brethren, the men of thy kindred, and all the house of Israel wholly, are they unto whom the inhabitants of Jerusalem have said, Get you far from the Lord: unto us is this land given in possession.—The Jews in captivity were despised by those remaining in the “holy” city, Jerusalem. They type the people of Christendom who honestly own themselves to be of the world and are despised by the “best people,” the educated, religious “holy” Churchianity. ”

“ And after you have deserted the city, this disobedient people will fall by the edge of the sword and will be led captive into all nations; and so shall Jerusalem be trodden down by the gentiles. In the meantime, I warn you, be not deceived. If any man comes to you, saying, 'Behold, here is the Deliverer,' or 'Behold, there is he,' believe it not, for many false teachers will arise and many will be led astray ”

“ But there was an Egyptian false prophet that did the Jews more mischief than the former; for he was a cheat, and pretended to be a prophet also, and got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was called the Mount of Olives, and was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place; and if he could but once conquer the Roman garrison and the people, he intended to domineer over them by the assistance of those guards of his that were to break into the city with him. ”

“ As he ascended the opposite slope of the ravine, he saw, descending toward the battle, the front of a rushing multitude, as irresistible and as destructive as a great sea in a storm.
He saw that the mob was turning toward Akra, and to avoid it, the Christian climbed up to the Tyropean Bridge, and from that point viewed the whole of Jerusalem sweeping down upon the heathen.
At the head of the inundation passed a melodious voice crying:
"An end, an end is come upon the four corners of the land! Draw near every man with his destroying weapon in his hands for the glory of the Lord! ”

“ What is here chiefly remarkable is this, that no foreign nation ever came thus to destroy the Jews at any of their solemn festivals from the days of Moses till this time; but came now upon their apostacy from God, and disobedience to him. Nor is it possible, in the nature of things, that in any other nation such vast numbers should be gotten together, and perish in the siege of any one city whatsoever, as now happened in Jerusalem. ”

“ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!... For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation. ”

“ Instead of going forth to convert the Gentile nations, go unto the remnants of the house of Israel that are scattered in the four quarters of the earth. Go and proclaim to them that the times of their dispersion are accomplished; that the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled; that the time has arrived for my people Israel, who have been scattered for generations in a dark and cloudy day, to gather unto their own homes again, and to build up old Jerusalem on its former heap. ”

“ Notwithstanding the many sacred memories connected with their city, and the fact that it had been the seat of a Temple in the days of the Israelitish kingdom, to which the tribes of Israel had resorted in numbers, no attempt was now made on their part to dispute the legitimate right to Jerusalem being regarded as the only place where the sacrifices and services enjoined by the precepts of the Mosaic Law could be offered. ”

“ The people of Jerusalem will be scourged by all nations for crucifying the God of Israel, and for rejecting His signs, wonders, power and glory. They will be defamed and hated among all nations. They will wander and perish for despising the Holy One of Israel, for turning their hearts from Him. ”

“ It can never be anything else. Whatever be the outcome of the regeneration of the Turkish empire, Jerusalem can never be a very great centre of trade. It will remain what it has been for so many centuries—the Holy City. To the Jew it is the city of David and Solomon, to the Christian the city where our Lord was crucified, to the Moslem also a city sanctified by many traditions, and by the memory of the proud days when it was won for Islâm by Omar and by Saladin. ”

“ What did the prophets foretell of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the rejecting of the Jews?
1. After the Messias shall have been slain, a people with their leader shall come, and destroy Jerusalem and the Temple, and the desolation shall continue even to the consummation, and to the end; 2. The Jews, blinded, rejected, dispersed among all nations, shall have no longer a sacrifice nor a temple ”

“ This means that Jerusalem can only be rebuilt when Israel yearns for it to such an extent that they embrace her stones and dust. ”

“ Further, the habit is, I know, to think and speak of Jerusalem as Israel, which may be likened to our finding an embroidered shred, and holding it up as a magisterial robe of Cæsar's. Jerusalem is but a stone of the Temple, or the heart in the body. Turn from beholding the legions, strong though they be, and count the hosts of the faithful waiting the old alarm, 'To your tents, O Israel!'—count the many in Persia, children of those who chose not to return with the returning; count the brethren who swarm the marts of Egypt and Farther Africa ”