thsemane and the tomb of Absalom, the waters
of Kedron and the dark abyss of Jehoshaphat. Full falls its splendour,
however, on the opposite city, vivid and defined in its silver blaze. A
lofty wall, with turrets and towers and frequent gates, undulates with
the unequal ground which it covers, as it encircles the lost capital of
Jehovah. It is a city of hills, far more famous than those of Rome:
for all Europe has heard of Sion and of Calvary, while the Arab and
the Assyrian, and the tribes and nations beyond, are as ignorant of
the Capitolian and Aventine Mounts as they are of the Malvern or the
Chiltern Hills.

The broad steep of Sion crowned with the tower of David; nearer still,
Mount Moriah, with the gorgeous temple of the God of Abraham, but built,
alas! by the child of Hagar, and not by Sarah's chosen one; close to
its cedars and its cypresses, its lofty spires and airy arches, the
moonlight falls upon Bethesda's pool; further on, entered by the gate
of St. Stephen, the eye, though 'tis the noon of night, traces with ease
the Street of Grief, a long winding ascent to a vast cupolaed pile that
now covers Calvary, called the Street of Grief because there the most
illustrious of the human, as well as of the Hebrew, race, the descendant
of King David, and the divine Son of the most favoured of women, twice
sank under that burden of suffering and shame which is now throughout
all Christendom the emblem of triumph and of honour; passing over groups
and masses of houses built of stone, with terraced roofs, or surmounted
with small domes, we reach the hill of Salem, where Melchisedek built
his mystic citadel; and still remains the hill of Scopas, where Titus
gazed upon Jerusalem on the eve of his final assault. Titus destroyed
the temple. The religion of Judaea has in turn subverted the fanes which
were raised to his father and to himself in their imperial capital;
and the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob is now worshipped before
every altar in Rome.

Jerusalem by moonlight! 'Tis a fine spectacle, apart from all its
indissoluble associations of awe and beauty. The mitigating hour softens
the austerity of a mountain landscape magnificent in outline, however
harsh and severe in detail; and, while it retains all its sublimity,
removes much of the savage sternness of the strange and unrivalled
scene. A fortified city, almost surrounded by ravines, and rising in the
centre of chains of far-spreading hills, occasionally