DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5074#0230
212
THE BISHOP'S FEAST.
arrival of Dr. Alexander, the first Anglican Bishop in
Jerusalem, as a festival by attending morning service
together in the Hebrew and English Church : they meet
in the evening in the girls' schoolroom, the walls of
which were prettily ornamented with palm branches and
wreaths of passion-flower, with words formed of olive
leaves. The Bishop and Mrs. Grobat, who showed us
much kindness during our stay in Jerusalem, kindly
invited us to join them, and we gladly availed ourselves
of the invitation. We found the assembly were chiefly
of Europeans with the addition of converts from the
Spanish and Grerman Jews : in a smaller room upstairs
the Christian Arab congregation were feasted together—
the men on one side the women on the other,—the
Bishop made them a short address in Arabic to which
they seemed most earnestly attentive — they were of
course all in their native costumes. The medley of
tongues in the room below was curious: one of the
clergy addressed the meeting in Spanish, another in
Grerman, the Bishop having read a chapter in the Bible
in English, while the singing of psalms and hallelujahs
was in Hebrew,—the wild melody of the old chant was
one of the sweetest I have ever heard —- and Grerman
hymns were added at the end. For once the petty
jealousies and narrow-minded bigotry of the small
cliques that poison the Holy City and seem to set its
very stones at enmity and evil speaking one with
another, appeared to have died away, and peace and
Christian feeling reigned over all: there were other
strangers besides ourselves, and some travellers from
the New World of America, as well as the still newer of
Australia—and one could almost believe the legend of
the Greeks, in looking round, that Jerusalem is the
" centre of the world."
THE BISHOP'S FEAST.
arrival of Dr. Alexander, the first Anglican Bishop in
Jerusalem, as a festival by attending morning service
together in the Hebrew and English Church : they meet
in the evening in the girls' schoolroom, the walls of
which were prettily ornamented with palm branches and
wreaths of passion-flower, with words formed of olive
leaves. The Bishop and Mrs. Grobat, who showed us
much kindness during our stay in Jerusalem, kindly
invited us to join them, and we gladly availed ourselves
of the invitation. We found the assembly were chiefly
of Europeans with the addition of converts from the
Spanish and Grerman Jews : in a smaller room upstairs
the Christian Arab congregation were feasted together—
the men on one side the women on the other,—the
Bishop made them a short address in Arabic to which
they seemed most earnestly attentive — they were of
course all in their native costumes. The medley of
tongues in the room below was curious: one of the
clergy addressed the meeting in Spanish, another in
Grerman, the Bishop having read a chapter in the Bible
in English, while the singing of psalms and hallelujahs
was in Hebrew,—the wild melody of the old chant was
one of the sweetest I have ever heard —- and Grerman
hymns were added at the end. For once the petty
jealousies and narrow-minded bigotry of the small
cliques that poison the Holy City and seem to set its
very stones at enmity and evil speaking one with
another, appeared to have died away, and peace and
Christian feeling reigned over all: there were other
strangers besides ourselves, and some travellers from
the New World of America, as well as the still newer of
Australia—and one could almost believe the legend of
the Greeks, in looking round, that Jerusalem is the
" centre of the world."