ground. Close by is the Golden Gate, in the Temple
wall—a gate that was an elegant piece of
sculpture in the time of the Temple, and is even so
yet. From it, in ancient times, the Jewish High
Priest turned loose the scapegoat and let him flee
to the wilderness and bear away his twelve-month load
of the sins of the people. If they were to turn
one loose now, he would not get as far as the Garden
of Gethsemane, till these miserable vagabonds here
would gobble him up,—[Favorite pilgrim
expression.]—sins and all. They wouldn’t
care. Mutton-chops and sin is good enough living
for them. The Moslems watch the Golden Gate with
a jealous eye, and an anxious one, for they have an
honored tradition that when it falls, Islamism will
fall and with it the Ottoman Empire. It did not
grieve me any to notice that the old gate was getting
a little shaky.
We are at home again. We are exhausted.
The sun has roasted us, almost. We have full
comfort in one reflection, however. Our experiences
in Europe have taught us that in time this fatigue
will be forgotten; the heat will be forgotten; the
thirst, the tiresome volubility of the guide, the
persecutions of the beggars—and then, all
that will be left will be pleasant memories of Jerusalem,
memories we shall call up with always increasing interest
as the years go by, memories which some day will become
all beautiful when the last annoyance that incumbers
them shall have faded out of our minds never again
to return. School-boy days are no happier than
the days of after life, but we look back upon them
regretfully because we have forgotten our punishments
at school, and how we grieved when our marbles were
lost and our kites destroyed—because we
have forgotten all the sorrows and privations of that
canonized epoch and remember only its orchard robberies,
its wooden sword pageants and its fishing holydays.
We are satisfied. We can wait. Our reward
will come. To us, Jerusalem and to-day’s
experiences will be an enchanted memory a year hence—memory
which money could not buy from us.
We cast up the account. It footed up pretty
fairly. There was nothing more at Jerusalem
to be seen, except the traditional houses of Dives
and Lazarus of the parable, the Tombs of the Kings,
and those of the Judges; the spot where they stoned
one of the disciples to death, and beheaded another;
the room and the table made celebrated by the Last
Supper; the fig-tree that Jesus withered; a number
of historical places about Gethsemane and the Mount
of Olives, and fifteen or twenty others in different
portions of the city itself.
