The Bertrams (12 page)

But Bertram's attention was mainly occupied with watching the devotions of a single woman. She was a female of one of those strange nations, decently clad, about thirty years of age, pleasant to the eye were she not so dirty, and had she
not that wild look, half way between the sallow sublime and the dangerously murderous, which seems common to oriental Christians, whether men or women. Heaven might know of what sins she came there to leave the burden: heaven did know, doubtless; but from the length of her manœuvres in quitting herself of their weight, one would say that they were heavy; and yet she went through her task with composed dignity, with an alacrity that was almost joyous, and certainly with no intentional self-abasement.

Entering the church with a quick step, she took up a position as though she had selected a special stone on which to stand. There, with head erect, but bowing between each ceremony, she crossed herself three times; then sinking on her knees, thrice she pressed her forehead to the floor; then rising again, again she crossed herself. Having so done somewhat to the right of the church, but near the altar-screen, she did the same on the corresponding stone towards the left, and then again the same on a stone behind the others, but in the centre. After this she retreated further back, and did three more such worshippings, always choosing her stone with an eye to architectural regularity; then again, getting to the backward, she did three more, thus completing her appointed task, having crossed herself thirty-six times, and pressed her head with twenty-seven pressures upon the floor. And so, having finished, she quickly withdrew. Did any slightest prayer, any idea of praying, any thought of a God giving grace and pardon if only asked to give, once enter that bowing bosom?

"Why do those Turks sit there?" said Bertram, as he left the building. Why, indeed? It was strange to see five or six stately Turks, strict children of the Prophet doubtless, sitting there within the door of this temple dedicated to the Nazarene God, sitting there and looking as though they of all men had the most right so to sit, and were most at home in so sitting; nay, they had a divan there, were drinking coffee there out of little double cups, as is the manner of these people; were not smoking, certainly, as is their manner also in all other places.

"Dem guard de keys," said the dragoman.

"Guard the keys!"

"Yes, yes; open de lock, and not let de Christian fight."

So it is. In such manner is proper, fitting, peaceable conduct maintained within the thrice Christian walls of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

On his return to the hotel, Bertram accepted an invitation to join Miss Todd's picnic in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and then towards evening strolled up alone on to the Mount of Olives.

CHAPTER VII

THE MOUNT OF OLIVES

I
F
there be one place told of in holy writ, the name of which gives rise to more sacred feelings than any other, it is that of the Mount of Olives; and if there be a spot in that land of wondrous memories which does bring home to
the believer in Christ some individualized remembrance of his Saviour's earthly pilgrimage, that certainly is it.

There is no doubting there, no question there whether or no the ground on which you tread was not first called "the mount" by some Byzantine Sophia; whether tradition respecting it can go back further than Constantine; whether, in real truth, that was the hill over which Jesus walked when he travelled from the house of Lazarus at Bethany to fulfil his mission in the temple. No: let me take any ordinary believing Protestant Christian to that spot, and I will as broadly defy him to doubt there as I will defy him to believe in that filthy 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; the hillside 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," where Lazarus was raised from the dead; the spot from whence he sent for the ass and the ass's colt; the path from thence to the city by which he rode when the multitude "cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David!" the same multitude which afterwards came out against him with staves: these places are there now, as they were in his day, very credible—nay, more, impossible not to be believed. These are the true holy places of Jerusalem, places for which Greeks and Latins do not fight, guarded by no sedate, coffee-drinking
Turks, open there to all men under the fair heavens, and desolate enough, too, even in these pilgrim weeks, for any one or two who will sit there alone and ponder over the wondrous history of the city that still lies over against him.

But what is the so strong evidence of the actual identity of these places? What is it that makes me so sure that this is the Mount of Olives, and that water-channel there the brook Cedron, and the hamlet on the other side the veritable Bethany? Why is one to be so sure of these, and yet feel such an infinity of doubt as to that village of Emmaus, that valley of Ajalon, that supposed Arimathea, and the rest of them? Nay, I cannot well say, at any rate not in these light novel pages. Dr. Stanley, with considerable distinctness does say. But go and see: with the ordinary Protestant Christian seeing here will be believing, as seeing over in that church of the holy places most indisputably will be disbelieving.

Hither Bertram strolled, and, seated on the brow of the hill, looked over to Jerusalem till the short twilight of the Syrian evening had left him, and he could no longer discern the wondrous spots on which his eye still rested. Wondrous, indeed! There before him were the walls of Jerusalem, standing up erect from the hill-side—for the city is still all fenced up—stretching from hill to hill in varying but ever continued line: on the left was the Hill of Sion, David's hill, a hill still inhabited, and mainly by Jews. Here is still the Jews' quarters, and the Jews' hospital too, tended by English
doctors, nurtured also by English money; and here, too, close to David's Gate, close also to that new huge Armenian convent, shall one, somewhat closely scrutinizing among heaps of rubbish, come upon a colony of lepers. In the town, but not of it, within the walls, but forbidden all ingress to the streets, there they dwell, a race of mournfullest 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 a melancholy ape. Oh! the silent sadness, the inexpressible melancholy of those wan, thoughtless, shapeless, boneless, leaden faces! To them no happy daily labour brings rest and appetite; their lot forbids them work, as it forbids all other blessings. No; on their dunghills outside their cabins there they sit in the sun, the mournfullest sight one might look on, the leper parents with their leper children, beggars by inheritance, paupers, outcasts, mutilated victims,—but still with souls, if they or any round them did but know it.

There also, directly facing him, was the Mount Moriah, also inside the walls, where Solomon built the house of the Lord, "where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared, in the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite." For this city, Jerusalem, had, in still more ancient days, before the thought of that temple had come into men's minds, been the city Jebus, a city even then fenced up, and here had been the threshing-floor which Oman tendered to David
without price, but which the king bought for six hundred shekels of gold.

Yes; here before him as he sat was the site of that temple, Solomon's temple, "exceeding magnificent, of fame and glory throughout all countries," of which David had been worthy only to collect the materials. The site! nay, but there were the very stones themselves.

Seen from that hill, the city seems so close that you may lay your hand upon it. Between you and it (you, if ever you should happily come to sit there) lies that valley of Jehoshaphat, in which Miss Todd is going to celebrate her picnic. This is the valley in which the Jews most love to have themselves buried; as there, according to them, is the chosen site of the resurrection: and thus they, who painfully journeying thither in their old age, and, dying there, can there be buried, will have no frightful, moles'-work, underground pilgrimage to detain them when that awful trumpet shall once more summon them to the upper world.

The air, in Syria there, is thin and clear, clouded by no fogs; and the lines of the wall and the minarets of the mosque are distinct and bright and sharp against the sky, as in the evening light one looks across from one hill to the other. The huge stones of the wall now standing, stones which made part of that ancient temple, can be counted, one above another, across the valley. Measured by a rough estimate, some of them may be two and twenty feet in length, seven in depth, and five in height, single blocks of hewn rock, cut certainly by no Turkish enterprise, by no mediæval empire, by
no Roman labour. It is here, and here only, at the base of the temple, that these huge stones are to be found, at the base of what was the temple, forming part of the wall that now runs along the side of Mount Moriah, but still some forty feet above the ground.

Over them now is the Mosque of Omar—a spot to be desecrated no more by Christian step. On the threshing-floor of Ornan, the children of Mahomet now read the Koran and sing to Allah with monotonous howl. Oh, what a history! from the treading of the Jebusite's oxen down to the first cry of the Mussulman! Yes; no Christian may now enter here, may hardly look into the walled court round the building. But dignified Turks, drinking coffee on their divan within the building, keep the keys of the Christian church—keep also the peace, lest Latin and Greek should too enthusiastically worship their strange gods.

There can be few spots on the world's surface more sacred to any Christian than that on which Bertram sat. Coming up from Bethany, over a spur on the southern side of the Mount of Olives, towards Jerusalem, the traveller, as he rises on the hill, soon catches a sight of the city, and soon again loses it. But going onward along his path, the natural road which convenience would take, he comes at length to the brow of the hill, looking downwards, and there has Mount Sion, Moriah, and the site of the temple full before him. No one 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, one of the disciples saith unto him, 'Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here.' And Jesus answering, said unto him, 'Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.'" There are the stones, the very stones, thrown down indeed from the temple, but now standing erect 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 there and not weep, if a man have any heart within him, any memory of those histories. "If thou hadst known, even then, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace!" But thou wouldest not know. And where art thou now, O Jew? And who is it that sittest in thy high place, howling there to Allah most unmusically?

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" Not silently, and in thought only, but with outspoken words and outstretched hands, so then spake our young English friend, sitting there all alone, gazing on the city. What man familiar with that history could be there and not so speak? "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! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate."

When talking over the matter with Harcourt at Oxford, and afterwards with his uncle at Hadley, Bertram had expressed a sort of half-formed wish to go into the church; not, indeed, in such a manner as to leave on the minds of either of his counsellors an idea that he would really do so; but this profession of being a parson had been one of those of which he had spoken as being in some sort desirable for himself. Now, as he sat there, looking at the once holy city, it seemed to him to be the only profession in any way desirable. He resolved that he would be a clergyman; thanked his God in that he had brought him there to this spot before it was too late; acknowledged that, doubting as he had done, he had now at length found a Divine counsellor—one whose leading his spirit did not disdain. There he devoted himself to the ministry, declared that he, too, would give what little strength he had towards bringing the scattered chickens of the new house of Israel to that only wing which could give them the warmth of life. He would be one of the smallest, one of the least of those who would fight the good fight; but, though smallest and least, he would do it with what earnestness was to him.

Reader! you may already, perhaps, surmise that George Bertram does not become a clergyman. It is too true. That enthusiasm, strong, true, real as it was, did not last him much longer than his last walk round Jerusalem; at least, did not bide by him till he found himself once more walking on the High Street of Oxford. Very contemptible this, you will say.
Yes, contemptible enough, as humanity so often is. Who amongst us have not made such resolves—some resolve of self-devotion, at the sound of the preacher's voice—and forgotten it before our foot was well over the threshold? It is so natural, that wish to do a great thing; so hard, that daily task of bathing in Jordan.

When the bright day had disappeared, all but suddenly, and he could no longer see the minarets of the mosque, Bertram descended the hill. It is but a short walk thence to Jerusalem—thence even into the centre of Jerusalem. But what a walk! To the left is the valley-side—that valley of the Resurrection—covered with tombs—flat, sturdy, short stones, each bearing a semblance, at least, of some short Hebraic epitaph, unmoved through heaven knows how many centuries! apparently immovable; the place, in this respect, being very unlike our more ornamental cemeteries. On his right was the Mount of Olives; a mount still of olives, sprinkled over with olive-trees quite sufficiently to make it properly so called, even to this day. Then he passed by the garden of Gethsemane, now a walled-in garden, in which grow rue and other herbs; in which, also, is one fine, aged olive-tree, as to which tradition of course tells wondrous tales. This garden is now in charge of an old Latin monk—a Spaniard, if I remember well—who, at least, has all a Spaniard's courtesy.