THE HOLY LAND.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 310, 30 December 1915, Page 6

THE HOLY LAND.

The Russian newspaper "Sviet" publishes the following from a correspun- _ dent in Jerusalem:—'-Jerusalem is at present simply overrun by Turks and arrogant German officers. The heights of Calvary have been transformed into a bcttery. The marble and jade columns and statuary, which have for centuries ornamented the place where our Saviour . suffered His martyrdom, have been removed to give way to two Kxupps' can- * non, which arc being used for target practice—the targets having been • mounted on the slopes of Mount Olivet. On that part of Calvary where, according to tradition, the Holy Mother wept i over Her dying Son, the German trader Hans Muller has opened a store, where, in the day time, he traffics mainly in soap and tobacco, and where, at night time, the German non-commissioned officers congregate in order to drink beer and to rouse the echoes of the holy places to their lewd songs. The place where Christ taught His disciples the Lord's Prayer has been fenced in by a wattle and barbed-wire fence, as the Germans have here established their main artillery depot. Mount Olivet, ■ whence our Lord ascended, is the favourite centre of manoeuvres. Shouts, shots, bugle calls, abuse, hatred, and blood —that is the atmosphere now surrounding the locality which for two thousand years has been the greatest sanctuary of the Christian world."