The faces of young British officers on leave, coming up for the first time to see the city for whose delivery they had prepared the way down on the dry parched plain, were keen with interest; no detail of the approach escaped them. The residents accustomed to the journeyings from the Port to the city looked at us all with mild curiosity and kind tolerance.
From the station, the horses dragged us up through gray mud that flew about us in showers, covering carriage, baggage, and robes,—there was no escape from it. From the mist the walls of the “city of cities” emerged, clear, strong, unbroken, no mark of battle upon them. As we went through the great gate, the sun, breaking through the mist, flooded with light, for a few moments, the narrow street and brightened the faces of the crowd of people of every nation that poured ceaselessly in and out. We stopped before the hotel that during the war had served as the Red Crescent Hospital. Lunch was waiting and we sat down with the Mohammedan in his red fez, the Bedouin in his long, beautiful, gay-colored coat, the French officer and the British officer on leave, Jewish business men, the Greek and the Syrian—the world, it seemed to us as we listened to the various languages. All orders for food were given in French, and in French men of different nations spoke with each other in courteous greeting.
We were in Jerusalem. Here Samuel sat; here at the gate was David’s tower; King Solomon once lived over there on the hill in his glittering palace and by his wealth and wisdom made himself famous throughout the world, and here he lost his wisdom as has many another in the courts of the women. Herod and Pilate looked out over these hills; the Crusader stormed the walls and the Turk brought terror and slavery with his sword. Twenty-three times in its history Jerusalem has been captured. It has been pillaged, plundered, burned, utterly destroyed, rebuilt only to be plundered again. Yet here it stood. Upon what unspeakable sorrow the stars of Palestine have looked down! We gazed from our balcony out over the low buildings of solid rock, out through the break in the wall made that the Kaiser, on his visit to the Holy Place, might enter in great pomp and glory with his impressive army of followers, the break redeemed by the simplicity of the entrance of the victorious General Allenby into the city that he had conquered without the destruction of a single building or a foot of wall and accepted, when surrendered, as a sacred trust placed once more in the hands of Christians. It may be that the white crosses in long rows, out on the hillside, guarding the graves of soldiers from every part of the British Empire, young, very young, will continue to remind these latest conquerors of the tremendous cost of the victory that left the city unharmed and help them govern the land with an unselfishness of purpose that will measure up to the high standard of their victory.
After lunch we found that dark clouds had gathered low over the hills, and before we could leave our room the rain came. We studied the map of the city, searched out the location of its sacred places, read over again the words of poet and prophet describing the days of its great glory, when from Mount Zion king and shepherd could look over at Mount Moriah where the smoke of the sacrifice from the temple of Jehovah ascended to heaven.
Late in the afternoon the rising wind scattered the clouds and the sun set in a blaze of glory. We stood just outside the gate on the city wall looking down across the valley over toward Bethlehem. The hills, deep purple, reached up on every side to touch the sky. Their bare rocky slopes became soft as velvet in the fading light.
A young British private, leaning against a part of the parapet, took out a khaki Testament and turned the leaves slowly. He seemed to find what he wanted and read, following the lines with his finger. Then he closed the book, put it back in his pocket and turned, half apologetically to a companion not in uniform.
“We fought out there,” he said, “the 53rd division. We fought around the very hills where the angels sang about Peace on earth.”
A moment of silence and the other spoke: “Yonder is the road He must have climbed when He came up to Jerusalem.”
“I’ll take you over it tomorrow,” was the answer. “We’ll see all the places where He used to go. It makes the story in the Book very plain.”
They moved away. Reluctantly, in the face of coming darkness, we left the great wall and joined the group of Arabs who, with camels and donkeys, were passing in and out of the gate. As we climbed the long stairs to our room, we remembered that tomorrow would be Sunday at home. In thousands of churches all over the world, trusting little children, strong, courageous youth, men and women bearing heavy burdens, the old, the sick, the missionaries would read the story of what He did and said centuries before, in and about Jerusalem—the story that, despite the limitations of those who have told it, has changed the world and that must continue to change it until it shall become what He prayed it might be—the kingdom of God upon the earth. Tomorrow we, like the young soldier in khaki, would begin our journeys to “all the places where He used to go.” And we hoped that for us, too, the sacred spots would “make the story in the Book very plain.”