Yet, I must frankly confess, in wandering through this city—­revered alike by Christians, Jews and Turks as one of the holiest in the world—­I have been reminded of Christ, the Man, rather, than of Christ, the God.  In the glory which overhangs Palestine afar off, we imagine emotions which never come, when we tread the soil and walk over the hallowed sites.  As I toiled up the Mount of Olives, in the very footsteps of Christ, panting with the heat and the difficult ascent, I found it utterly impossible to conceive that the Deity, in human form, had walked there before me.  And even at night, as I walk on the terraced roof, while the moon, “the balmy moon of blessed Israel,” restores the Jerusalem of olden days to my imagination, the Saviour who then haunts my thoughts is the Man Jesus, in those moments of trial when He felt the weaknesses of our common humanity; in that agony of struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, in that still more bitter cry of human doubt and human appeal from the cross:  “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me!” Yet there is no reproach for this conception of the character of Christ.  Better the divinely-inspired Man, the purest and most perfect of His race, the pattern and type of all that is good and holy in Humanity, than the Deity for whose intercession we pray, while we trample His teachings under our feet.  It would be well for many Christian sects, did they keep more constantly before their eyes the sublime humanity of Christ.  How much bitter intolerance and persecution might be spared the world, if, instead of simply adoring Him as a Divine Mediator, they would strive to walk the ways He trod on earth.  But Christianity is still undeveloped, and there is yet no sect which represents its fall and perfect spirit.

It is my misfortune if I give offence by these remarks.  I cannot assume emotions I do not feel, and must describe Jerusalem as I found it.  Since being here, I have read the accounts of several travellers, and in many cases the devotional rhapsodies—­the ecstacies of awe and reverence—­in which they indulge, strike me as forced and affected.  The pious writers have described what was expected of them, not what they found.  It was partly from reading such accounts that my anticipations were raised too high, for the view of the city from the Jaffa road and the panorama from the Mount of Olives are the only things wherein I have been pleasantly disappointed.

By far the most interesting relic left to the city is the foundation wall of Solomon’s Temple.  The Mosque of Omar, according to the accounts of the Turks, and Mr. Gather wood’s examination, rests on immense vaults, which are believed to be the substructions of the Temple itself.  Under the dome of the mosque there is a large mass of natural rock, revered by the Moslems as that from which Mahomet mounted the beast Borak when he visited the Seven Heavens, and believed by Mr. Catherwood to have served as part of the foundation of the Holy of Holies.  No Christian is allowed