THE MOSQUE OF OMAR.

THE land of Moriah witnessed the most wonderful act of faith which human nature has ever been enabled to exhibit. There Abraham, at the command of God, showed himself willing to offer up a son whom he not only loved with fondest affection, but whose preservation he had learned to regard as essential to the welfare of the world. Such was his confidence in the faithfulness and power of the Most High that, rather than allow the promise to be falsified, "In Isaac shall all nations be blessed," he believed that God would restore his son from the ashes of the altar.

Abraham was the Father of the Faithful, and this was the crowning act of Abraham's faith. But solemn as was the spot where that altar was built, and where that unprecedented victim was bound, and sacred as were the recollections of the Angel-Jehovah's appearance," By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heavens, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed,"-ages appear to have elapsed before any special sanctity was attached to the locality. When at last the stronghold of Zion became the capital of the Holy Land, it would seem that the hill of Moriah was a farm still occupied by a Canaanite family, and as the best place for catching any passing breeze, they used as a threshing-floor the summit, or one of the rocky projections, of th mountain, which became well known as "the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite." On that mournful occasion when David had committed a trespass in numbering the people, and when seventy thousand of the inhabitants perished as a rebuke to the ambitious projects of

their ruler, it was at the threshing-floor of Araunah that the destroying angel staid his hand and the pestilence ceased. Consequently, and in obedience to a divine command, on this spot David erected an altar, and on it presented burnt-offerings and peace-offerings. There is every reason to suppose that the altar stood throughout the remaining days of King David, and it is not wonderful that with its twofold association, as the scene of Isaac's virtual sacrifice and the spot where the pestilence was so mercifully arrested, David should have selected the locality as the site of his projected Temple. That Temple David was not permitted to rear; but at the outset of the reign of his successor we read, "Then Solomon began to build the House of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Ornan (or Araunah) the Jebusite." *

As the rocky surface of Moriah slopes rapidly towards the south, much labour must have been expended in leveling it, so as to secure an area extensive enough for the magnificent house builded by Solomon. Nor only this; but there is every reason to believe that even as early as this first Temple were those substructions commenced which encroached on the valley of Kedron, and which not only extended the consecrated limits, but added exceedingly to the grandeur and impressiveness of the entire elevation as viewed from without.

Solomon's Temple, after standing four centuries, was burned down by Nebuchadnezzar, and seventy years afterwards a second but less sumptuous shrine was erected in the same locality by Nehemiah. This second structure stood for five hundred years and upwards, when, by a process of gradual reconstruction, it was replaced by Herod the Great;

* 2 Chron. iii. 1, compared with 2 Samuel, xxiv. 15-25.

JEW, MOSLEM, AND CHRISTIAN.

363

whose third and splendid temple was hardly completed when the torch of the frantic Jews and the crowbars of the conquering Romans laid it in ruins.

In the year 636, the Caliph Omar, the third in succession from Mahomet, took Jerusalem. On the site of the Temple he built a small but elegant mosque,an octagon, each side of which measures sixty-seven feet, and which is still known by his name. He also enclosed the area which, we may assume, constituted the precincts of the original Temple, probably adding a dome to a Christian church which he already found there, and which is now known as the little mosque of El Aksa.

At the end of the eleventh century the Crusaders took Jerusalem. Great numbers of the Moslems sought refuge in the hallowed precincts, but found there no asylum. Ten thousand were put to the sword, and the same slopes which had once been heaped with slaughtered Jews now flowed down with the blood of Saracens.

The turn of the Christians came next. Godfrey, the first Christian king of Jerusalem, converted into a church the Mosque of Omar, and for nearly a hundred years a golden cross glittered on the summit of the handsome dome. But, under the irresistible Saladin, the Moslem once more recovered possession. The golden cross was hurled from its elevation, and contemptuously dragged through the streets; and, when floods of rose-water had washed out the taint of Nazarene footsteps, the floor swarmed, as of old, with the followers of the false Prophet.

Ages on ages have elapsed, during which no Frank has been allowed to penetrate the awful shrine. The attempt would have been certain destruction; and it is said that more than one life has paid the forfeit of its hardihood.

However, in the year 1818, Dr. Robert Richardson, in consequence of professional services rendered to the Governor of Jerusalem, was allowed to pay no fewer than four visits