Jesus wept: and still in glory,
He can mark each mourner’s tear;
Living to retrace the story
Of the hearts that solaced here.
Lord, when I am called to die,
Let me think of Bethany.”

Once more in Jerusalem to spend a few days including another precious Sabbath, and to visit over and over again localities of most sacred and tender interest. Around no city in the world do such hallowed associations cluster. No other spot has been so honored of God. None has such a wonderful history. No city has been loved like this. The mountains in and round about it are unparalleled in the scenes they have witnessed. No hills or summits have such associations as Nazareth and Zion, Calvary and Olivet. Every foot of soil is sacred; every rock has its story; every fountain its memories; and every path its footprints of God. I think of the glorious past— the Temple and the throngs who come to worship in it— and I do not wonder that God’s people should sing: “His foundation is in the holy mountains. The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more that all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God.”

“And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet,
But with dust on her forehead and chains on her feet
For the crown of her pride to the maker hath gone,
And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone.”

Compared with its former greatness and glory, Jerusalem is scarcely more than a ruin now. It is however a walled city, nearly square, and contains probably, not over 15,000 inhabitants, comprising in the order of numbers, Jews, Moslems, Greeks, Latins, Armenians and