DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 88, Issue 13423, 26 February 1917, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

Germany has earned the horrified denunciation of civilisaDesecrating tion by acts of vanthe dalism in many eounHoly Land, tries and her sacrilege in Palestine, by which those places held in the greatest veneration by Christendom have been desecrated is a fitting climax. The following extract from the Russian newspaper Sviet tells of the defilement of the holiest places on earth:—"Jerusalem is at present simply overrun by Turks and arrogant German officers. The heights of Calvary have been transformed into a battery. 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 Krupp cannon which are being used for target practice. The targets have been mounted on the slopes of Mount Olivet. On that part of Calvary where, according to tradition, the holy mother wept over her dying son, the German trader, Hans Muller, has opened a store, where in the day time he deals mainly in soap and tobacco. There at night time the German non - commissioned officers congregate to drink beer and to rouse the echoes of the holy places with their lewd songs. The place where Christ taught His disciples the Lord's Prayer lias been fenced in by a wattle and barbed-wire fence, as the Germans have there established the 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 atmospheric home of the locality which for 2000 years has been the greatest sanctuary of the Christian world. 1