THE

EVANGELICAL MAGAZINE

AND

MISSIONARY CHRONICLE.

APRIL, 1869.

"A Sabbath Day's Journey."

Ir was a lovely day in the month of April, when the freshness and fertility of Spring were pleasant to the soul, and helped to relieve the sense of material and moral desolation which more or less oppresses one in and around Jerusalem. In the morning we had attended Divine service in the English Church on Mount Zion, and found it good to unite with a few of the followers of the Saviour from different and distant lands in worshipping God, and in singing, "Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ," near the scene of His death, resurrection, and ascension. We proposed in the afternoon to take "a Sabbath Day's journey," with our Bibles in our hands, that we might, if possible, identify some of the sacred spots near the city, and quietly meditate amid scenes hallowed for ever by the presence and footsteps of the incarnate Son of God. Accordingly, after lunch we started. Our course lay past the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and then eastward, down the Via Dolorosa, the way by which, according to Christian tradition, our Lord ascended from the palace of Pilate to the place of His crucifixion on Calvary. Near the end of this narrow street, we passed, on the right, the deep hollow supposed to be the place of the ancient pool of Bethesda, and made our exodus from the city by St. Stephen's Gate, so called from its position near the spot where the first martyr for the faith of Christ was stoned to death. Certainly, stones abound there still. But, in truth, it would be difficult to find any spot around the Holy City where they are not abundant. From this gate, the road suddenly leads down a steep and rather rugged slope to the bottom of the Valley of the Kedron, and over the dry bed of the brook to Gethsemane. For two or three months only in winter is there any running water in the Kedron; and when we crossed it, even so early in the year, by the little stone bridge thrown

VOL. I. NEW SERIES.

across its channel, it was quite dry. On reaching Gethsemane, which is now enclosed by a high wall, the road divides: one branch, turning sharply to the left, goes straight up the face of the northern end of the Mount of Olives, and then round its crest to Bethany; while the other, turning to the right, winds southward for a short distance, parallel with the Valley of Jehoshaphat or the Kedron, and then over the southern shoulder of the hill, to the same village. The latter is the ordinary road to Bethany, and through it to Jericho and the Valley of the Jordan.

We decided on going one way, and returning by the other. Passing Gethsemane, therefore, on our right, and close under its wall, we went up the face of the little hill. Its surface is still dotted, as of old, with the trees which give it its name; and their rich silvery-green foliage formed a pleasing contrast with its otherwise somewhat bare and barren aspect. Various wild flowers were growing abundantly, but there is very little grass; nothing of that verdure with which we are so familiar in England. In commencing our ascent, we had our Bibles open at 2 Sam. xv., for this was the way by which David ascended when he was driven from his palace by the rebellion of Absalom his son. The sacred narrative informs us that "he went up by the ascent of Mount Olivet, and wept as he went up, and had his head covered, and he went barefoot." The road is not very wide, and here and there in the ascent there are steps and cuttings in the rock, which seem to prove the antiquity of the path-steps which may be as old as the time of David or Solomon.

In about a quarter of an hour, or very little more, we reached the summit, and seated ourselves on a low stone wall near the Church of the Ascension, an edifice erected, according to monkish tradition, on the spot from which our Lord ascended, in the presence of His disciples, to heaven. But we read that "He led them as far as to Bethany," and, doubtless therefore, behind the crest of the hill, out of sight of the Holy City, so that this cannot, I think, have been the spot which bore last the footsteps of the Saviour. As we sat, our faces were towards Jerusalem, which lay spread out before us. The top of Olivet is only about 180 feet above the summit of Mount Zion; but as the deep valley of Jehoshaphat or the Kedron runs between them, and the city itself is on a gentle incline upwards from east to west, every building in it seems visible to the beholder. The view is very striking. You see the whole extent of Jerusalem, with its walls and towers, domes and minarets, still, as of old, "a city that is compact together." The white appearance of its roofs and cupolas, seen in the bright sunlight and clear atmosphere of the East, gives an idea of cleanliness and even of affluence which a closer inspection by no means sustains. As we sat with our Bibles in our hands, open where the narrative of David's forced flight from Jerusalem occurs, we felt that we were somewhere near the spot where the exiled king, "when he had come to the top of the Mount," worshipped God, and where his

friend Hushai, the Archite, met him. We began to write some notes, but our quiet was speedily disturbed by an increasing group of Arabs, who came around us, gazing apparently in wonder as they saw our occupation. So we had to advance, not from any fear, for the natives were evidently innocent of any purpose of annoyance, but simply for the sake of quiet reflection on the Sabbath afternoon. Passing the Church of the Ascension, we wended our way round the crest of the hill, and reached the place, "a little past the top," where Ziba, the cunning servant of Mephibosheth, with his treacherous present, met the sorrowing king. At this point, we had lost sight of the Holy City, the top of Olivet intervening between us and it; but a new scene, of an entirely different character, had opened to our view. The lower part of the Valley of the Jordan, eighteen or twenty miles off, became visible, the Dead Sea lay gleaming in the sun like a sheet of glass, and the grey mountains of Moab, rising as a mighty wall, bounded the view beyond. Eastward and southward, the prospect was singularly impressive-one of almost absolute desolation. Nearer, and between us and the Jordan, lay the Wilderness of Judea, in which scarcely any verdure was visible to the eye. It was such a scene as can scarcely be portrayed in words to those who are familiar only with the verdant landscapes of the Western world. This was the region of much of John the Baptist's preaching, and probably the scene of our Lord's temptation, when He was "led up of the Spirit into the Wilderness," then, perhaps, in some of its aspects, different from what it is now. But we could not tarry long contemplating this extensive view. Advancing still a little further down the slope in a south-easterly direction, through cultivated ground and orchards, occupied by the fig-tree and the olive, we must have passed over or near the site of the ancient Bahurim, where Shimei came forth to curse David, and cast stones at him. Presently, we entered on a path leading more directly southward to Bethany, and followed it until we came within sight of the village. There it lay, about a quarter of a mile below us, nestling amidst the foliage of orchards and olive yards—a little hamlet of twenty or thirty houses, the very picture of quietude and seclusion. Its modern name is El Azarieh. We did not descend on this occasion into the village, convinced that we should have our reflective mood disturbed by offers to show us to the tomb of Lazarus, and the irrepressible requests for Backsheesh, so we sat down on a large boulder, under the shadow of some olive trees, with the New Testament open in our hands. The history of David now disappeared from the scenes around us, and thoughts of Him who was at once "the root and offspring" of the King of Israel arose to our minds. We read the various passages in the Gospels which speak of Bethany, and our Lord's visits to it. His last entrance into the village previous to His suffering was "six days before the Passover," and it added not a little to the interest of our position at the moment to find that we

had taken this Sabbath day's journey just six days before that ceremonial, still called the "Passover," was to be celebrated by the Jews in Jerusalem. How often, after the toil and teaching of the day in the streets or temple of the wicked and captious city, did Jesus retire in the evening to Bethany, to find solace and rest in the home of Lazarus and his loving and holy sisters! What fond and sacred associations were His with that little hamlet! It was the last spot on earth on which He looked as He ascended to His Father, and was received in a cloud out of the sight of His wondering disciples.

While we were thus meditating, the sky suddenly became clouded, and some large drops of rain fell. Fearing a storm, we arose to hasten back to Jerusalem. The "latter rain" was considerably later than usual, and the country and crops were suffering in consequence, so that the storm which we feared, had it come, would have been welcomed as a blessing by the natives. The first night of our encampment at Gaza, on entering Philistia from the wilderness of El Tih, we were awakened at four o'clock in the morning by the noise of music, and a crowd in procession going past our tents. We found on inquiry that the people of the town were going to Mukam-el-Muntar, a wely, or saint's tomb, on the top of the little hill to which Samson carried the gates of Gaza, to pray to Allah for rain. This they did for three or four mornings in succession, so that our entrance into the "Promised Land" is connected in memory with a protracted prayer-meeting held by Mohammedans to ask the Creator "to visit the earth, and water it."

The storm which we dreaded did not descend, and, having emerged from a rocky cave in which we had taken momentary shelter, we pursued our walk. For a few minutes we missed the pathway, being desirous to return by a different route from that by which we had come; but after passing through some fields of growing corn and some olive yards, we came out on the ordinary and principal road from Bethany to the Holy City. Thus we entered on the scene of that memorable pageant when our Lord entered Jerusalem for the last time, riding on an ass, surrounded by multitudes with branches of palm trees in their hands, and shouting Hosannas in His praise. The point where we joined the road was about half a mile from Bethany, just where it begins to wind round the southern slope of Olivet. It is now a very rough, but still a well-defined road, with figtrees and olives on either side, growing out of the rocky soil. Soon we caught a view of the south-east corner of the city; but presently, by a little depression in the road, that partial view was withdrawn. A few yards farther on, the way rises again to a ledge of comparatively smooth rock, and in a moment, as we ascended, the whole city lay once more before us- -Moriah and Zion, Akra and Bezetha, with dome, and tower, and minaret, rising sharp and clear into the sky, as if every roof could be counted. We felt that it must have been at this point where our Lord