He who may enter this lofty door-way, will find himself in a vestibule at right angles with his path; it is 36 feet wide, 92 in length, and 164 feet in height. The wall in front of him is all covered with plates of gold, which, like that on the exterior front, is in various forms, smooth and highly burnished, or in patterns of embossed work, or in figures of various kinds. From the lofty ceiling, which the eye is pained in attempting to reach, hangs down a golden vine, with leaves and fruit of the same metal, and so colossal are its dimensions, that the clusters of grapes are six feet in length.[68] Our foot may not be placed within this vestibule; but through the large open door-way we can discover much of the splendor by which it is distinguished. In the golden wall that bounds our vision at its further side, is a door-way twenty-nine feet wide by 100 in height, covered by a Babylonian curtain, of blue and scarlet and purple, richly embroidered, and of wonderful workmanship. Its ample folds conceal a door, which, like the wall, is covered with plates of gold, plain or in various patterns, and of exceeding richness.
He who enters this door will find himself in The Sanctuary. This is a chamber thirty-six feet wide and seventy-two in length, and 109 in height; its height, however, cannot be reached by the eye; for this chamber is in darkness, except the obscure light shed upon it by several lamps. Daylight cannot penetrate it, unless occasionally a feeble glimmering through the door-way; a mysterious obscurity is left to pervade it, and the vision, turning upward, combats for a while the deepening shadows, and is then repelled by utter darkness. The furniture of this room is simple, for it contains only the Table of Shew-bread, and the Golden Candlestick, and the Altar of Incense. While the incense ascends silently, and keeps the chamber filled with perpetual odours, the softened light of the Seven Golden Lamps of the Candlestick falls upon a table with twelve loaves of bread, one for each tribe; as if, by this simple emblem, the staff of his life kept here in memorial, man would gratefully acknowledge by whom his existence is prolonged, and whence are derived its blessings. There is something in this quiet and simple scene, a subdued and humble, yet grateful character in its speech, that is very impressive.
At the further end of this chamber is again a door-way covered by a thick veil of many folds. It opens into a square chamber thirty-six feet on each side, and 109 in height. In this chamber there is nothing at all. It is quite dark; and its deep obscurity and its vacancy are fit emblems of HIM who is invisible to mortal eye, and whom mortal thought can never reach. This is the Holy of Holies. It is entered only by the High Priest, and by him but once a year. Unadorned, and deeply shut up within the Temple, it is left to darkness, and silence, and impressive solitude.
When Pompey, after a toilsome siege, at length took this mountain by assault, he hastened to the Temple, incited both by curiosity, and by a desire to feed his eye on the wealth that had at length become his own; but when, having examined the Sanctuary in its dim mysterious light, and then, raising this veil, he stood in the Holy of Holies, and found no object, nought but an obscurity that his eye, as he gazed upward, sought in vain to pierce, a feeling of awe and dread seems to have come upon him; he left the Temple, having touched neither its furniture nor its treasure, and, calling off his troops, he gave orders to repair the injuries that had been occasioned by his assault.
The walls of this building are fourteen and a half feet in thickness, and are composed of stones forty-six feet long by twenty-one in width, and fourteen in thickness, interspersed with some that have the astonishing length of eighty-two feet.[69] The main body of the edifice, containing the Sanctuary and the Holy of Holies, is so narrow in proportion to its elevation, that it would be in danger from earthquakes if that were not guarded against by an outer wall nine feet from this, with which it is connected so as to form between them three tiers of cells, thirty in each tier; the upper part of the building is used as store-rooms for the furniture and utensils of the Temple. The vestibule, being at right angles with the body of the edifice, projects thirty-six feet on either side. The stone employed here appears to be a pure white marble, for those portions of the building which are not covered with plates of gold are of dazzling whiteness, so as to appear at a distance like a mountain covered with snow.
The whole mass, the foundation walls, the porticoes, the Temple, are indeed a wonderful structure; and with the sacred and solemn associations connected with them, form an object of surpassing interest and grandeur.
And now look down again upon the city and upon the fair region stretching all around. The ground on which Jerusalem is built, assists greatly, as you perceive, in giving it architectural effect. Babylon, Nineveh, Thebes, Memphis, those cities of ancient renown, were built on level plains, and with all their riches and greatness were in most parts tame and monotonous; but here the picturesque is added to greatness and splendor; the walls and towers overhang deep precipices; the lofty palaces are brought into stronger relief by their situations; each portion of the city, by harmony or by contrast, adds a charm to every other; and the Temple, like another sun chained to the dizzy heights of Moriah, sheds an effulgence over all.
Gaze now around. What a frame-work is there for the city of Jerusalem! See the villages, embosomed in gardens of deep verdure, sprinkled thickly over all the plains, which, ascending as they retire from the city, expose every object to our view. Here the houses stand in thick clusters, there they straggle along amid the overhanging trees; and the whole immense extent of country seems only a continuation of the city in a more cheerful form. And this Mount of Olives, what a beautiful object it must be when viewed from the city. Its graceful slopes, its gardens, its deep shade, its white cottages, its villas, where the wealthy love to retire, half exposed, half concealed, by the dense verdure; its groves and public walks; what an admirable picture they form; and alongside of the stupendous and glittering pyramid of Mount Moriah, each by contrast gives new beauties and new charms to the other. Where in all the world shall we find a scene equal to this?
And now glance your eye along these roads that come winding over the hills by which Jerusalem is encircled. See! The whole country seems awakened into an intensity of life and animation. It is the Passover. Far off as the eye can reach, the great highways and the narrow paths are covered with masses of living beings, thousands upon thousands pouring onwards, and still succeeded by other thousands, till it seems as if the whole habitable globe was sending its inhabitants and its tribute to this sacred city. And it does. Here are “Parthians and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the parts of Lybia about Greece, and strangers of Rome, and Cretes, and Arabians,” in their various costumes, and speaking their various tongues. The number that assembles here on this occasion is about three millions. They come, some purely from religious feeling, some also for commerce; for the occasion is seized by dwellers in far distant countries for the interchange of commodities. As they approach the city, however, a common feeling takes possession of all of them, delight, reverence, awe, wonder, admiration. As they gain the summits of the distant hills, and catch a view of the Temple, they burst into shouts of joy, they prostrate themselves upon the ground, they break out into hymns of praise. The air seems burdened by the noises that unceasingly ascend; one while they are like the roar of the ocean; at another, they rise, and sink, and swell upward again into lofty strains of wonder and thanksgiving; the earth trembles under the moving to and fro of these countless multitudes. See—still they come, thousands and yet still countless thousands pressing onward towards the city. The eye is wearied with beholding them; the senses are pained and overwhelmed.
And now the sounds abate and sink into a deep but continuous murmur. They are preparing for the Paschal sacrifice. The multitudes are divided into companies of from ten to twenty, and each company, by a deputy appointed for that purpose, is to offer in the courts of the temple a lamb without blemish or spot; the blood is to be sprinkled at the foot of the great altar, and the fat is to be cast upon it for a burnt offering. There will be 250,000 of these sacrifices.