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S'GMISCELLANEOUS.LETTER FROM REV. PRESIDENTDURBIN.ksesex)0)0ce)0id 11 rr ora»vsrftValley of Jehosaphat, March 7, 1843.Here I set in the shade of the tomb of Zachnrias, at the foot of Mount Olivet,where it descends into the Valley of Jehosaphat, directly opposite the Eastern wall of theTemple, and towering high above the brow of Mount Moriah. Mount Moriah! What a world of heavenly and transporting energy does this word awaken the bosom of the Jew, and the Moslem, but particularly the Christian ! The offering up of Isaac, the plague of David for numbering the people, when the angel of destruction stood here with a drawn sword in the threshing floor of Oman (I Chron. xxi,) the travail and industry of the exiles returned by permission of Cyrus to rebuild their temple, the won**; derful miracles of Christ and his apostles wrought on that mount before me, the obstinate defence of the Jews, when Titus pressed them from the Temple to Mount | Zion, the destruction of the sacred edifice,I the appropriation of the holy mount to the service of Moslcmism, its restitution to Christian worship by the Crusaders, and its return again to the Moslem service, which | it yet continues, crowned with the Mosques of Omar and El Aesa, whose beautiful domes sit above the sacred place with ad- ■ mirable lightness and grace. As 1 strolled by open gateways, and looked in, how earnestly did I long to enter the sacred inclo- i sure, linger in its walks, and amid its trees ; enter even the mosques, particularly that of : Omar, which covers, perhaps, the very spot where Isaac was offered, and over which the magnificent Temple of Solomon was built, which he dedicated to God hv themost eloquent and sensible of all prayers,except our Lord’s ; (1 Kings, viii, ‘23, c ;) but the fanatical Moslem forbids the feet j of the Christian dog to tread upon the sacred soil, and cross the consecrated threshold.But I must return to the vallev, from whence I promised you this letter before I j left home, and which promise you received somewhat doubtingly. I have wandered up and down it. from the tombs of the Judges, just beyond its head, to the North-West of the city, about one and a half miles to the well of Job. perhaps theEn Rogel of Scrip-p ture, a quarter of a rnile below the South-East corner of the city. It is indeed a val-lev of the dead or rather of tombs, for their•*contents are gone; and the sepulchral cham-hers, where they slept in peace many cen turies ago, are now but gaping caverns in the rock, w here reptiles nestle, if they be single, small sepulchres ; or flocks lie down, if they he large, as the tombs of the Judges, Kings and Prophets, and some in the Southern cliff of the Gihon, both under and and above the Potter's FieldI have rambled through them all, and found not a figment of their former contents. The limestone rock in which they are excavated is soft, and has yielded to the eleincnts.and ‘ broken away in front of, and sometimes a-bove the chambers. This is the case all over Palestine, (also at Petra, where the rock is soft sandstone,) and constantly reminds one of his mortality, and reduction j to dust, and dispersion to the winds of heav-| en. What a glorious assurance, that the soul is not committed to the tomb, but returns to God who gave it !I have just come up from the Pool of Si-loam, which has a connection with the Pool of the Virgin, several hundred yards higher up. The first is in the mouth of Tysopeon ! Valley, just where it enters that of Jehos-haphat, and the other is on the West side i of the latter not many hundred yards from whence I date this letter. The connectionj is by a narrow passage cut through the pointof the hill which slopes down from the South-East corner of the Temple. These j fountains are now subject to occasional violent, irregular flows of the waters, which makes one think of the Pool of Bethesda, rnentined in the fifth chapter of John, whose waters the angel troubled “at a certain season.” Our countrymen, Dr. Robinson and Rev. Mr. Smith, witnessed one of these singular movements of the waters. We were not so fortunate. No one knows whence the waters come to these cavernous pools, but there is a steady tradition, and * | general impression, that they have a con-nection with the fountains under the Tern-pie’s area ; and perhaps Milton was apprised of this when he wrote,M«Siloa’» brook that flowed,Fait by the oracles of God.I aesended into the pool to wash as all good pilgrms do. and found a coarse, ragged, strapping Arab women, washing a dirty old quilt, which lay floating upon the little shallow volume of water. She shrunk away from me as from the approach of a leper, and stood huddled up in a lit tie chasm in the rock, looking blankly upon my pilgrim devotions. The water is sweet and good.I shall not now undertnke to describe the j tombs to you, but perhaps I may allow you to peep into my omnium gatherum, where I have plans of them, notes also. But I feel oppressed with sadness, as I cast my e\e I ! up the side of Mount Olivet behind me, and r I look upon the Jewish cemetry, speading over the sacred hill side, covering it with short, thick stones, each of which lies flat on the ground, and pressed into it a little, as if they had once stood erect, and had been prostrated and pressed by some terrible storm. They are a striking emblem of that most wonderful people, prostrated and trodden down every where but in America; and yet the heart of a Jew turns toward the side of Olivet,over against tnc sacred mount, on which once stood the temple of his fathers, and there he desires, above all things, to rest him when his earthly pilgrimage is finished. They linger about the holy city, f and steal through its streets to the place of . waiting, or to the West side of the temple,- asjghosts that have been frightened away, j and returned again to the resting places oftheir mortal remains. The first Jews I saw at Jerusalem were three sitting apart in the rent trunk of an aged olive tree, in the deep reteired vale of the Gihon. I pity them from my very heart.Just above where I date from is the golden gate from which our Saviour used to issue at evening;and retire to Mount Olivet. It is now walled up in temple wall.— Above me in the valley is the reputed tomb of the Virgin, in which I attended the devotions of the crowd of pilgrims, and followed them into the little chamber, where they pressed their lips long and ardently to the cold rock; as a young mother kisses for the last time her only child before it is laid to rest in the grave. What a mystery this old world is! The glory and great works of man have perished, hut the savior of the deeds of the Almighty and the presence of this favorite primativc children, stillErfume the rocks and mountains, and all tions send their pilgrims to honor theconsecrated places; and it is painful to the Protestant to know that this external worship is considered efficacious for saving the soul. I wish I could describe to you what f saw in and around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But my letter to you at vour request belongs to the Valley of Je-hosaphat.From the valley I ascended, of course, the Mount of Olives, paused and under the gnarled and rent olive trees of Geih-semane, which seem as if they might be the same that witnessed the agony of our Savior, rambled out to Bethany, stood on the ascension spot,returned to the city along the way of our Saviour’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem ; hut I must pause ; Bethel, Shiloh, Sychcm, Samaria, Nazareth, Tyre, Sydon, Damascus, Baalbec, (Scc.if. are before me, and my sheet is full.JOHN P. DURBIN.ense•»tttitJFrom ihe Philadelphia North American.
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Middlebury Peoples Press
Middlebury, Vermont, US
Wed, Jul 05, 1843
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