A curious feature of the walls of Jerusalem is a stone block as big around as a flour barrel which juts out from that part above which stands the Mosque of Omar to a distance of perhaps fifteen feet. This block or pillar hangs right over the rocky Valley of Jehoshaphat. According to the belief of the Moslems, Mohammed will sit astride this pillar at the Day of Judgment, and Christ will have His seat on the Mount of Olives on the opposite side of the valley. There will be a fine wire stretched from the pillar across to the mountain, and upon this wire all mankind must walk on its way to eternity. As the people of the various religions go those who believe in Mohammedanism will be upheld by the angels and will reach safely the opposite side, whence they will ascend into Heaven. The others will drop down into the valley and perish.
There are cemeteries for both the Jews and the Mohammedans outside the walls and not far from the Mosque. The Mohammedan cemetery, which lies close to the walls, is just opposite the Garden of Gethsemane and includes the Place of the Skull where General Gordon located the site of Calvary. This site is now surrounded by a wall and fence, and Christians are not permitted to enter it. Within it is the grotto where Jeremiah is said to have written his Lamentations, and not far away, near the Damascus Gate, are Solomon’s quarries.
Our walk has brought us back once more to the Jaffa Gate, where we join a pilgrim-throng entering the Holy City.
CHAPTER VIII
“THE TRIBES OF GOD GO THITHER”
Jerusalem a city is
Compactly built together;
Unto this place the tribes go up
The tribes of God go thither.
The Holy Land is hallowed ground for three great religions of the world. Jews, Moslems, Christians—all of them worshippers of only one god—do reverence at its shrines. Jerusalem is the pilgrimage city of the world. Sacred to the Christians, the centre of Jewish religious devotion and national dreams, it is also a second Mecca to the Mohammedans. The Moslems locate the judgment seat upon the walls surrounding the Mosque of Omar, which stands on the site of Solomon’s great temple. They make their pilgrimages from all parts of the Mohammedan world to worship at this mosque, and prostrate themselves before the sacred rock within it as they do before the holy black stone of Mecca. The prophet Mohammed himself said that Jerusalem was the holiest place in the world, and that one prayer here was worth a thousand elsewhere.