JERUSALEM AT THE CLOSE OF THE CENTURY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11520, 3 November 1900, Page 5 (Supplement)

JERUSALEM AT THE CLOSE OF THE CENTURY.

Jerusalem, the sacred city of the three* great monotheistic religions—Christianity,! Judaism, and Mohammedanism—offers such: an abundance of interesting material in its recently marked growth that the historical parallel between the city as it was at tha beginning and as it is at the end of the century—lately printed in the Bote aus Zion* an excellent mission journal edited in the city of Jerusalem itself—makes profitable" reading. We glean from this source thefollowing particulars :— One hundred yaws; ago there was not a single dwellinghome outside the city walls of Jerusalem. A few! gardeners' hovels found there »were unsafe,., and as late as 1858 Pastor Schneller, the*' founder of the famous Syrian orphans' homer in Jerusalem, was attacked and robbed ira his own house, well within the city. On »c----count of these depredations, watch-towers' had been erected along the whole route ti> Jaffa, some of which are standing yet. The whole district surrounding the city was practically a desert. In the town itself manyhouses were empty or were used only as depositories for filth. There were even many plots in the city that were ploughed! for the. cultivation of grain. The Christians at thato time had no right to acquire property. They, were allowed to enter the Church of the* Holy Sepulchre only on the payment of art entrance fee. Pilgrims were few and far between. The religious societies in the city, were systematically plundered. In the years 1812 and 1813 the Franciscans were compelled to pay thirteen million piastres (520,UUU dollars). Even in its official utterances the Government resignated th« Christians as tfdogs." A Mohainmedlia convert to Christianity was punished wrtb death, and even since 1840 with the lose of political liberty. A change for the better was inaugurated in 1852, when Ibrahim' Pasha took Palestine, away from the . Turks 1 ; and annexed it to Egypt. Religious intoler-, ance ceased and Christian. missionaries were given freedom of action, and the dews J; were allowed to build a secQad synagogue.^ , ;