DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11789#0099
TIIE JEWS' PLACE OF WAILING.
89
The next day we visited the only existing re-
mains of the Temple of Solomon. A few stones,
not of the temple itself, but of the outer wall,
are supposed never to have been separated from
each other, but still to occupy their original
position. They now form a part of the wall of the
Mosque of Omar, built on the site of the Jewish
temple. It chanced that our visit was on Satur-
day, the Hebrew Sabbath. To me it was a most
affecting sight to see two or three hundred Jews,
men and women, assembled in an open space near
these, the only relics of their ancient, venerated
sanctuary, reciting or chanting from their sacred
books in a low and plaintive tone, and with looks of
abject sorrow. Their whole appearance and manner
seemed to say, that even the crumbling "stones and
dust"* of their beloved temple were, in their eyes,
a thousand times more beautiful than the profane
and vulgar magnificence of the most splendid modern
him [Godfrey] first Latin King of Jerusalem, but his piety
and modest forbearance rejected the title ; and even when
in the end he consented to assume the inferior style of
' Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre,' he persisted
in refusing to wear any diadem in that city in which his
Redeemer had been crowned with thorns."
* See Psalm cii. verse 14.
8*
89
The next day we visited the only existing re-
mains of the Temple of Solomon. A few stones,
not of the temple itself, but of the outer wall,
are supposed never to have been separated from
each other, but still to occupy their original
position. They now form a part of the wall of the
Mosque of Omar, built on the site of the Jewish
temple. It chanced that our visit was on Satur-
day, the Hebrew Sabbath. To me it was a most
affecting sight to see two or three hundred Jews,
men and women, assembled in an open space near
these, the only relics of their ancient, venerated
sanctuary, reciting or chanting from their sacred
books in a low and plaintive tone, and with looks of
abject sorrow. Their whole appearance and manner
seemed to say, that even the crumbling "stones and
dust"* of their beloved temple were, in their eyes,
a thousand times more beautiful than the profane
and vulgar magnificence of the most splendid modern
him [Godfrey] first Latin King of Jerusalem, but his piety
and modest forbearance rejected the title ; and even when
in the end he consented to assume the inferior style of
' Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre,' he persisted
in refusing to wear any diadem in that city in which his
Redeemer had been crowned with thorns."
* See Psalm cii. verse 14.
8*