DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12665#0233
THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT, 217
and looked up at the window from which the Ro-
man judge exclaimed to the persecuting Jews,
"Behold the man I"
But if the stranger leaves the walls of the city,
his faith is not so severely tested; and for my
own part, disposed to indemnify myself for my
unwilling skepticism, the third day after my arri-
val at Jerusalem, on a bright and beautiful morn-
ing, with my Nubian club in my hand, which soon
became the terror of all the cowardly dogs in Je-
rusalem, I stood on the threshold of St. Stephen's
Gate. Paul was with me ; and stopping for a mo-
ment among the tombs in the Turkish burying-
ground, we descended towards the bridge across
the brook Kedron, and the mysterious Valley of
Jehoshaphat. Here I was indeed among the hal-
lowed places of the Bible. Here all was as na-
ture had left it, and spared by the desecrating
hand of man; and, as I gazed upon the vast sep-
ulchral monuments, the tombs of Absalom, of
Zachariah, and Jehoshaphat, and the thousands and'
tens of thousands of Hebrew tombstones covering
the declivity of the mountain, I had no doubt I
was looking upon that great gathering-place,where,,
three thousand years ago, the Jew buried his dead
under the shadow of the Temple of Solomon ; and
where, even at this day, in every country where
his race is known, it is the dearest wish of his
heart that his bones may be laid to rest among
those of his long-buried ancestors.
Near the bridge is a small table-rock, reveo-
x 2.
and looked up at the window from which the Ro-
man judge exclaimed to the persecuting Jews,
"Behold the man I"
But if the stranger leaves the walls of the city,
his faith is not so severely tested; and for my
own part, disposed to indemnify myself for my
unwilling skepticism, the third day after my arri-
val at Jerusalem, on a bright and beautiful morn-
ing, with my Nubian club in my hand, which soon
became the terror of all the cowardly dogs in Je-
rusalem, I stood on the threshold of St. Stephen's
Gate. Paul was with me ; and stopping for a mo-
ment among the tombs in the Turkish burying-
ground, we descended towards the bridge across
the brook Kedron, and the mysterious Valley of
Jehoshaphat. Here I was indeed among the hal-
lowed places of the Bible. Here all was as na-
ture had left it, and spared by the desecrating
hand of man; and, as I gazed upon the vast sep-
ulchral monuments, the tombs of Absalom, of
Zachariah, and Jehoshaphat, and the thousands and'
tens of thousands of Hebrew tombstones covering
the declivity of the mountain, I had no doubt I
was looking upon that great gathering-place,where,,
three thousand years ago, the Jew buried his dead
under the shadow of the Temple of Solomon ; and
where, even at this day, in every country where
his race is known, it is the dearest wish of his
heart that his bones may be laid to rest among
those of his long-buried ancestors.
Near the bridge is a small table-rock, reveo-
x 2.