its broad, round lantern and swelling black
dome surmounted by a glittering crescent, is bathed in full sunlight;
serene, proud, eloquent of a certain splendid simplicity. Within, the
light filters dimly through windows of stained glass and falls on marble
columns, bronzed beams, mosaic walls, screens of wrought iron and carved
wood. We walk as if through an interlaced forest and undergrowth of
rich entangled colours. It all seems visionary, unreal, fantastic, until
we climb the bench by the end of the inner screen and look upon the Rock
over which the Dome is built.

This is the real thing,--a plain gray limestone rock, level and fairly
smooth, the unchanged summit of Mount Moriah. Here the priest-king
Melchizedek offered sacrifice. Here Abraham, in the cruel fervour of his
faith, was about to slay his only son Isaac because he thought it would
please Jehovah. Here Araunah the Jebusite threshed his corn on the
smooth rock and winnowed it in the winds of the hilltop, until King
David stepped over from Mount Zion, and bought the threshing-floor and
the oxen of him for fifty shekels of silver, and built in this place an
altar to the Lord. Here Solomon erected his splendid Temple and the
Chaldeans burned it. Here Zerubbabel built the second Temple after the
return of the Jews from exile, and Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated it,
and Herod burned part of it and pulled down the rest. Here Herod built
the third Temple, larger and more magnificent than the first, and the
soldiers of the Emperor Titus burned it. Here the Emperor Hadrian built
a temple to Jupiter and himself, and some one, perhaps the Christians,
burned it. Here Mohammed came to pray, declaring that one prayer here
was worth a thousand elsewhere. Here the Caliph Omar built a little
wooden mosque, and the Caliph Abd-el-Melik replaced it with this great
one of marble, and the Crusaders changed it into a Christian temple, and
Saladin changed it back again into a mosque.

This Haram-esh-Sherif is the second holiest place in the Moslem world.
Hither come the Mohammedan pilgrims by thousands, for the sake of
Mohammed. Hither come the Christian pilgrims by thousands, for the sake
of Him who said: "Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye
worship the Father." Hither the Jewish pilgrims never come, for fear
their feet may unwittingly tread upon "the Holy of Holies," and defile
it; but they creep outside of the great inclosure, in the gloomy trench
beside the fou