IN THE WAKE OF THE RISING SUN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 11, 4 April 1901, Page 4

IN THE WAKE OF THE RISING SUN.

(By ' Viator.')

Jerusalem, December 23, 1900. In very truth are we here in the sacred city ; a city to which all hopes, aspirations, memories converge ; a city scourged, if you will, Btill a city sanctified unto all time by the love, the labors, the teachings, the tears, the sufferings, the shameful death of the ManGod. In heart and memory is this name ' Jerusalem ' embedded with the earliest seeds of faith ; in lisping accents we repeat its Bound at our mother's knpp : in prowiner years it is part of our being — part the most Bacred — in hymn and canticle, and sermon and prayer, and sigh of hope, through struggle of life, beneath the clouds of darkening days, in the free and open combat, 'mid glance and thrust of flashing blade in teaching and learning, in high hope and Litter failure, in the applause of the crowd, in the ingratitude — chill ingratitude — of mortals, in the weary campaign upwards and onwards in the straight and narrow path, no name awakes the heart-chords with effect more certain and thrilling than the name of the city we are at length privileged to stand in — Jerusalem. But Jerusalem is for another letter. I must go back and pick up the threads of my narrative at Beyrout, if there is to be consistency in my project. On Wednesday evening, December 12, we stood out from Beyrout, in the Austrian Lloyd's well-appointed steamer, and after a run down the coast of some six hours awoke with the dawn to find ourselves off Haifa, in full view of Mount Carmel, and Haifa and Acre and Mount Lebanon. We dropped anchor off the shore, and soon the bußy boatmen were Bwarming round our bulwarks looking for visitors to Palestine. IN PALESTINE. It is a short pull to the beach tho' breakers are at times long, and strong and decidedly aggressive. No danger attended our trip. We are on land and must make the most of our time. Haifa is a town with some 13,000 people, nearly half of whom are Moslems. There are many Europeans, for the Germans have planted a colony here and exploit the land for all it is worth — which is considerable. There is no fear of missing Mount Carmel and its monastery— quite a modern building perched on the spur of the hill and looking away across the mountains of Samaria — quite 500 ft above the sea level. The scene of many events recorded in the Old Testament, Mount Carmei still peeps out from its setting of green plants and opening flowers even in winter time, as fresh and radiant as in times past Here it was in the time that the false prophets of Baal were put to death by order of Elias. ' Take the prophets of Baal and let not one of them escape. . . . Elias went up to the top of Mount Carmel aDd casting himself down npon thp earth, put his faoe between his knees' (111. Kings xviii.). Hospitable the monks are to visitors, and an innocent pride they take in showing visitors the commanding view from the plateau. Away stretches the yellow plain of Jezreel, threaded by the brook of Kishon ; and behind as the hills of Nazareth and Mount Tabor. Here they point out in a little chapel on (he hill side the place where St. Simon Stock received his gift and message in the thirteenth ceutury. It is pleasant to linger here, to dwell m the sweet memories the historic Bpot is embalmed in, to drink in the free and fragrant air of sea and mountain, to draw on memory's stores and call up in fancy the great souls that lived, and prayed, and suffered and triumphed on Mount Carmel. Acre across the bay is but a long hour's sail — longer by road. It is a place to see, and is in early history noted as a port of some importance. Here the Crusaders landed for the struggle against the Crescent, here Richard Cucur de Lion set foot in 1191 and took the town, here the Knights of St. John — valiant chevaliers of the Cross — settled after the conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin and renamed the town St John d'Acre, and here, too, Napoleon I. was defeated in 1799 and driven from the East. In one of the gates, Beotions of the ramparts and part of the sea wall you see interesting relics of the intrepid Crusaders. NAZARETH. But the chief attraction at Haifa is the facility it offers for a visit to Nazareth, bo long the home of the Holy Family. Through a rich and pleasant country, but over a very wretched road of 24 miles, up, up the hills, round the crest of the mountains, and you feast the eye on Nazareth. Here it was, how blissful the memory, that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived on their return from Eerypt, and here for 30 years was the God-Man in comparative seclusion subject to them. Very quaint and primitive seem the people, artisans, farmers, shepherds, t oilers, and very devout and pious seem the Christians, who far outnumber the Moslems — come 7000 Catholics to 3000 Moslems. In the Latin monastery, kept by the Franciscans, are all the mementoes of the Holy Family. Every sod of earth is sanotified by their footsteps. In the early morning they trooped off to the chapel of the Annunciation to Mass — children and women, and men seared and lined with toil. When the priest began the 'Gloria' their voices rose in music in the large church, breaking with Btrange effect on unaccustomed ears, still telling, in this cradleland of the Church, so long the home of the Holy Family, sanctified by their presence, the balm and blessing given to the children in the highest devotion of all. In the crypt of the handsome Church of the Annunciation is the grotto where was completed the mystery of the Incarnation. The real house of the Holy Family, as is well known, is at Loreto near Ancona in Italy, but in the crypt is still shown, between the altar of St. Joachim and that of the Angel Gabriel, the spot where stood the angel, while one and a half feet away is a column marking the spot where the Blessed Virgin received the divine message and uttered the memorable ' Fiat ' which gave to the world itb Redeemer. Sacred spot ! At the back of the altar runs the inscription : — ' Hie

Verbum Caro facto m eßt.' Adjoining the chapel is a chamber called the chapel of St. Joseph with the inscription : ' Hio erat . subditus illis.' They slbo Bhow at Nazareth ' The Table of Christ,' A a block of hard chalk, 12ft by Oft on which our Lord is said to have ™ dined with Hie disciples before and after His Resurrection. East of the town is a spring called St. Mary's Well. Rising in the church held by the schismatic Greeks the water flows through a conduit into a hollow basin — called St. Mary's Well. Here you always see neat, picturesque forms fore-gathering with their water jars, and jauntily pois-ing them on the head n.ake their way, rail dark pjvot to thp town As thin is thf only Rpriner in the town, we are safe in believing that the Infant Jesus and His Virgin Mother oft<»n name herp to take wnter from thp spring Hpnoe the spring is sometimes called ' Jesus' Spring.' Hlgn jih. as is meet, venerate the spring, and drink life from its clear, limpid waters. MOUNT TABOR. A drive of two hours and a half from Nazareth brings ub to Mount Tabor, scene of our Lord's Transfiguration, where St. Peter would build three tabernacles, ' One for Thee, one for Moses and one for Elias,' for •it is good to be here.' The slopes are wooded, for the soil is luxuriant, and the open places afford good pasture for sheep and oattle. Within and around the Latin Monastery are extensive ruins telling of churches erected in times past on this historic and sacred spot. The view from the summit of Mount Tabor is very extensive, commanding the Sea lof Tiberias. A little to the north, a short hour's drive, rises the hill of Karn Hattin, marked by tradition as the scene of the ' Sermon on the Mount,' and the place where Our Lord fed 5000 people with five barley loaves and two fishes, and foretold in the ' words of promise ' the Institution of the Blessed Eucharist. From Karn Hattin to Kal Kenna is a long drive of over five hours, but you pass this village, which tradition says is identical with Cana in Galilee, where Jesus, at the word of his Mother, changed water into wine at the marriage feast, tho' nothing particular marks the place, in making for the Sea of Tiberias so intimately associated with the life of Oar Lord and the call of the Apostles. The lake is 13 miles long by six in width, and, it seemed to us, void of fishing boats or nearly so. The water is fresh, but from its low position, nearly 700 ft lower than the Mediterranean, and from the shelter of the hills, it is not very cool. The people use it as a potable water, but leave it some hours in porous jarß before use. All around the sea of Galilee are the sacred Bcenes of Our Lord's life and labors. Towards the north lie Gemazaith, Capharnaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin. and other places of interest mentioned in the Gospel, tho' in most of the spots ruins interspersed with thickets and brambles are mute witnesses to the ravages of time. We had thought of going south overland to Jerusalem, but were dissuaded from the project by our dragoman, who held that the discomforts of the road and the ' roughing ' inseparable from camping out in winter time were not outweighed by any possible advantages. From Haifa then we go by steamer to Jaffa — six hours' run — and anchor off the aged town. There is no harbor here and sudden storms lash the sea at times into mountains and troughs of tossing billows, and often make access to the shore impossible even with the aid of the broad-built biats and active, expert rowers of Jaffa. We were more fortunate, and as we dropped anchor and lowered the gangway quite a crowd of agents, dragomans, boatmen, and others in a babel of confusion and riot surged over the deck. Never have I seen such rushing and tearing and calling to so littie purpose. In time, however, we are off, under the safe conduct of our dragoman, and after a stiff and hardy row, are on dry land at JAFFA. We take up our quarters at the Hotel dv Pare, embowered in palms, orange trees, and acanthus, with access to a reach of rich, luxuriant garden, where the bougainvillea, leaping from terrace to roof, falls down in profuse richness of purple and crimson flowers. Jaffa, on the verge of the plain of Sharon, extends away east and north in endless groves of golden orange. At Jaffa it was, called in Scripture Joppe, that Jonah was swallowed by a great fish ; here, too Tabitha, called Dorcas, was raised to life by St. Peter, and here, too, the chief of the Apostles resided for a time in the house of Simon the tanner. ' Peter kneeling down prayed, and turning to the body he said : " Tabitha, arise 1 " And she opened her eyes ; and seeing Peter, she sat up And he presented her alive, for she had been dead. And it came to pass that Peter abode many days at Joppe with one Simon, a tanner.' In Simon's house it was that St. Peter had the vision forecasting his mission to the Gentiles. We were shown at Jaffa Tabitha's house and grave in the grounds of the Greek church, and the site of the house of Simon the tanner near the Latin monastery. Outside Jaffa, along a good road, bordered by orange trees laden with fruit, for it is now the thick of the orange season, lies the modern colony of Sarona, peopled, worked, and if I may so say unreservedly • run ' by Germans. Here they have mills, wine-presses, schools, and stores of all kinds, and in their industrious hands the soil gives forth, we were credibly told, as many as four crops per year. Jaffa is indeed a garden of rich alluvial soil, and boasts a warm climate. The chief place of landing for Jerusalem, the town profits much by the influx of pilgrims from all parts of the earth. It has a population of some 40,000, of whom nearly half are Moslems. Many a stiff siege has Jaffa stood in the time, and often in the past has the tide of cruel war rolled over its fields, famous from the earliest time as the plain of Sharon, still giving forth from its fertile bosom the choicest fruits of the earth. We may not tarry long in the groves of Jaffa, for the train is waiting — common-place, Jin-de-siecle means of locomotion in plaoea with a glorious past — to whirl us off to the hill of Sion, the oity of David, the cradle of Christianity — Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM. On Friday evening we steam from Jaffa to Jerusalem, a distance of 53 miles, and passing towns of biblical note, over ground where Samson smote the Philistines, we draw up at the little modern station juet over the valley of Hinnam. A few minutes more and we emerge from the many-colored crowd out on to the high road, through the Jaffa gate to the ' Grand Hotel of Jerusalem,' where we take up our quarters. Conflicting feelings surge through our being, the heart beats with faster throb, faith and memory are quickened into active being ; faster beats the pulse, as we realize that at length we tread the sacred boiI — privileged pilgrims at the shrine whence truth and law and right and justice and hope eternal have radiated in streams of golden biesamugu tv the uttermost ends of the earth. Many travellers to the Holy City confess to a feeling of disappointment, and in the light of newer culture and comfort besmirch the view presented with bitter comment on the unlovely scenes presented. Not of that ilk is your correspondent. Unlovely in all conscience are the streets, and malodorous and unolean the by-ways dignified by that term, poor and unkempt and shaggy are the forms you meet, but over and above the seamy side, from the worldling's point of vantage, rise in splendor, unmarred, majestic, triumphant, the outwards signs of that new life, rising glorious above the puny works of man, a life that renovated and spiritualised the face of the earth. Not ours was a feeling of disappointment, say rather of reverence, self-abase-ment, wonder, gratitude. ' The victory that overcometh the world ia our Faith.' Is it too much to ask your readers to come with us in the same spirit, and in reverence and awe look through our eyes at the places made holy by the footsteps of our Lord and of those ' whom He foreknew and predestined ' to be partners of His work.