And from this standpoint the holy city was a happy city; it had no suburbs.  That is to say, there are all sorts of buildings outside the wall; but they are outside the wall.  Everybody is conscious of being inside or outside a boundary; but it is the whole character of the true suburbs which grow round our great industrial towns that they grow, as it were, unconsciously and blindly, like grass that covers up a boundary line traced on the earth.  This indefinite expansion is controlled neither by the soul of the city from within, nor by the resistance of the lands round about.  It destroys at once the dignity of a town and the freedom of a countryside.  The citizens are too new and numerous for citizenship; yet they never learn what there is to be learned of the ancient traditions of agriculture.  The first sight of the sharp outline of Jerusalem is like a memory of the older types of limitation and liberty.  Happy is the city that has a wall; and happier still if it is a precipice.

Again, Jerusalem might be called a city of staircases.  Many streets are steep and most actually cut into steps.  It is, I believe, an element in the controversy about the cave at Bethlehem traditionally connected with the Nativity that the sceptics doubt whether any beasts of burden could have entered a stable that has to be reached by such steps.  And indeed to any one in a modern city like London or Liverpool it may well appear odd, like a cab-horse climbing a ladder.  But as a matter of fact, if the asses and goats of Jerusalem could not go up and downstairs, they could not go anywhere.  However this may be, I mention the matter here merely as adding another touch to that angular profile which is the impression involved here.  Strangely enough, there is something that leads up to this impression even in the labyrinth of mountains through which the road winds its way to the city.  The hills round Jerusalem are themselves often hewn out in terraces, like a huge stairway.  This is mostly for the practical and indeed profitable purpose of vineyards; and serves for a reminder that this ancient seat of civilisation has not lost the tradition of the mercy and the glory of the vine.  But in outline such a mountain looks much like the mountain of Purgatory that Dante saw in his vision, lifted in terraces, like titanic steps up to God.  And indeed this shape also is symbolic; as symbolic as the pointed profile of the Holy City.  For a creed is like a ladder, while an evolution is only like a slope.  A spiritual and social evolution is generally a pretty slippery slope; a miry slope where it is very easy to slide down again.