IN THE WAKE OF THE RISING SUN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 23, 6 June 1901, Page 3

IN THE WAKE OF THE RISING SUN.

(By 'Viator')

THE MOSQUE OF OMAU, SITE 01' THE TIOMPLE OF JERUSALEM. How many and striking the shifting scenes of the age-<, how many the hands that toiled, how many the form* that worshipped, how irany the lips that prayed on the soil now girt with the precincts of the Mosque of Omar, whereon in the timn ro*e the tan- proportions of the Temple ? Now in proud security, immune from fear or attack, the abomination of desolation tits enthroned in the sanctuary. Yet is there barbaric splendor to greet the eye, when once you check the instinctive rise of fine pain, and indignation. It is as though you looked at the perpetuity of a sacrilege, as though all the world condoned the unholy invacion, for the alien, the unbelierer, the Moslem, swart, dense, irreclaimable, is enthroned on the site of the Temple of Sion. Sacred to the Moslem is the Mosque, with courtyards, residences, offices, appurtenances, stretching over the vast area enclosed in its limits, for a consular guard took us to the entrance and duly handed us over, with faith in international guarantees, to the Turkish soldiers told off to ensure our security from possible molestation, and in view of liberal baksheesh to point out the glories of the shrine. Not an empty form ia this protecting acgip, for dark eyes look askance on the Christian ' giaour,' and resent intrusion in places sacred to the fanatic disciples of Mahomet. At times there is an overspill of this slumbering fanaticism, an appeal to the wild passion of hate, and then woe to the weak and unbefriended. A. hostage of fate was our grim bodyguard, and in safety we trod the precincts of the Mosque, erewhile the sacred soil on which the Temple raised its memorable proportions. Of the exact site there is no room for cavil or doubt. So jealously has the tradition been guarded by Christian and Moslem during all the ages that no lurking shadow of fear disturbs the conviction that here on this identical spot David erected an altar, Solomon built his palace and the first temple, and the Jews on their return from captivity built the second temple, far inferior in magnificence to the first, but holier far in the fact that it 1 * pavement bore the imprint of divine footsteps, and its aisles echoed the accents and teaching of the Man-God. This sacred temple was added to and beautified by Herod before the coming of Our Lord. At the north end two passages led from the colonnades to the castle whence, in the year 70 after Christ, Tituß witnessed the destruction of the whole. A brand fired into the sacred building by a Roman soldier, through accident or design, wrapped the Temple in flames, and the glory of its stately proportions was no more. A deep and grinding sense of humiliation seizes us in our survey that a place rich and fragrant in memories of the highest and holiest order is in the grip of the heathen— a reproach to the Christian Powers of Europe. The pavement is marble mosaio, overstrewn with carpets and mats, and the windows rise from recesses in Gothic arches pointing heavenwards. We notice a pulpit and a niche facing towards Mecca, where pious Moslems retire for prayer. The dome, surmounted on the apex by the crescent, rises 100 feet from the pavement, and is gorgeously tricked out in blue and gold. You see the

' Sacred Rock,' korans of venerable age, cisterns or troughs for ablution*, and caskets containing venerated relics of the Prophet. Here and there on the tesnelated floor, with a keen and wily eye fixed on the intruders, are lithe and swarthy forms, all clad in the sparse, ' naplesß vesture of humility,' making their prostrations and telling their prayers with an energy suggestive of undoubting and dense convi"tion. Here is a problem of disbelief in the nursery of Christiani'y. With a tenacity as of death they bold to their fasts and prayi r* and observance", yet give free rein to the lowest pasbions of their kind, and repudiate the pure teaching of the Master. " CorrpoiiTvi for fnnHa tlmy'rp moqt inclined to By damning those they have no mind to.' Nothing of man is foreign to our sympathy. We pity, and refleot. and pond >r and pass out. Clustering round the Grand Mosque but within the wall of ciroumvallation are many buildings lhat serve as minor mobques, barracks, prison, school, and living houses, wheie ofFuialu mostly dwell, all in the hands of Moslems. bOLOMON'ft bTABLES. Depending from the ' Haram ' by a series of solid stone stepp, we reach the remarkable substructions known as 'Solomon's Stables,' running in various arteries under the temple above. The stone mangers, and holes in the pillars for tethering the horses remove any doubt as to the purposes they served. ' Now, tell me,' I asked our omniscient dragoman, Demetrius Domian, 'tell me, how many horses approximately would tiusj stablts accommodate / ' And quick as the flash of a scudding star came the summarised and accurate total — it was not the first time he answered the question—' 40.000, sir. 1 Forty thousand horses, I mused in the stables of Solomon. It is a shipping order, but Solomon's horses, however innumerable, do not practically affect our pilgrimage. So the incident is duly noted without prejudice. There was do facility to correct the theory by limits of rule and quadrant, and any questioning of cubical space, for the mere itemn of- a few horseß in the abstract, would detract from the proud composure of our dragoman and the magnificence of the estimate. ' Cuique in sua arte credendum.' THE WAILING PLACE OF THE JEWS. Some five minutes' walk from the Grand Mosque you pass two handsome buildings with stalactite portals erected for schools by the Crusaders, and then you come in front of the wall where the Jews foregather to bewail the downfall of the Holy City. A high wall it is and long, pome 60ft by 55ft or more, and here on a Friday evening after 4 o'clock we witnessed the distressing scene of national woe. Native Jews and foreign are here, Borne well clad, others in squalid vesture, bare as to feet and head, all showing in every lineament the grief that went up in dismal plaints and flow* ing tears : ' For the palace that lies desolate, we sit in solitude and mourn.' So went up the dreary dirge, as they shook their heads and tossed their w< alth of shaggy mane, and beat their hands and kisKpd the wall, or anon thumbed their books as they wailed forth th ir litany of diurnal lamentation. It was an interesting eight, telling of hope and promis-e, but not of the cheery order. In the synagogut s. too, that we visited, in the Ghetto of the City, there were many types of the Jew local and foreign reading and praying aloud — all suggestive of appeal for better and brighter days — for a condition of things that, to judge from the surroundings, seems not near of accomplishment — • Videaffllctionem meam, quonvam erectua est inimicus.' We journeyed back through the narrow streets, greasy and squalid, where vendors pressed their trade and long strings of camels boie down with measured, stealthy steps, the while bright shafts of evening sunshine shot across our path from over the western sea, bathing in beams of deep, ensanguined hue the steep heights of Olivet, resting in golden calm on these scenes so long eloquent of all the great, mysterious past. Every grain of dust on our pathway is a relic solidifying and enshrining the story of man's ransom, embalming the lingering souvenirs now tragic, fearsome, awe-inspiring, now sweet, consoling, joyous, hope-renewing ; and every ray of lessening light, dancing in the still evening, is a mirror wherein we see the sweet, sad story of Him Who loved and wept over the Holy City, Who wonld fain lead to light and truth and love the favored mortals amongst whom He chose to oast His earthly lot, ' and they would not.' Even now, while we day-dream, other generations on the same ground flee the light, spite the portents of other days and the clarion blast of the good tidings, and sit in the darkness and shadow of death Yet the Master loved and still loves His own even to the end, for the Divine Heart is not swayed by black ingratitude. Men record but human feeling when they write with the cold cynicism of their order, albeit the cynicism rests — as at times it does— on a basis of empiric truth. 'On cc guerit de la bienfaisance par la connaissance de ceux qu' on oblige.' So the thoughts jostled, aud we Btrove with human problems, ' Till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length, Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.'

By the San Francisco Mail just to hand, Messrs. Mason, Struthers and Co., Christchurch, the New Zealand agents for the Alpha Laval Cream Separators, have had notice that at the Great Trials of Hand Cream Separators, organised by the Hungarian Goverment at BudaI'eHth in March, the Alpha Laval was easily first. The object of the Trials watt to ascertain which of the competing machines stood highest in the following points, i.e., 1. Perfection of skimming ; 2. Least power required for driving ; 3. Construction ; 4. Price according to quantity skimmed ; 5. Time required for cleaning ; <5. Inclination — or its absence — to formation oi froth, both in cream and skimmed milk....