JERUSALEM’S TRAGIC HISTORY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1812, 11 April 1918, Page 4

JERUSALEM’S TRAGIC HISTORY.

Two of the most interesting spots in Koine to-day have nothing to do with national defence. They are the arch of Titus, and the gladiators’ entrance to the Colosseum. They both tell of Jerusalem. Within the vault of the arch of Titus may still he traced the carved figures of sorrowful Jewish captives led in triumph to the Eeternal City from the blazing welter of their own. There they are, with representations of the seven-branched candlestick and the golden table, and above the mighty arch through which the gladiators marched into the arena is the plan of the Holy City as it was before its fall. It is customary to speak of the tragedy of Jerusalem and the Jews as the most complete in history. But is that true? A portion of Jerusalem is in British hands to-day, and millions of Jews survive to return. Where are Carthage and its people? Carthage fought for the mastery of the entire world. It lost, and was destroyed far more thoroughly than Jerusalem., Not only was every single structure in it demolished; the entire site of Carthage was passed under the plough. Where are the Carthaginians to-day? And where are the Saracens who vanished after eight centuries of dominion in Europe? Jerusalem has changed hands some five and twenty times, but the last occasion was the first bloodless conquest of the city, for even when Ezra and Nehemiah returned by permission of Cyrus, they’were compelled to rebuild the broken walls, each man holding a trowel in one hand and a sword in the other —a feat that inspired the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon with the title of his famous magazine, “The Sword and Trowel.” How Turkish rule has thwarted sanitary improvements in Jerusalem may be seen from the fact' that most of the inhabitants obtain their drinking water from rain-water cisterns, and the remainder from springs and wells. Yet so far hack as 1874 the Baroness BurdettCoutts offered to spend £25,000 on modern water-works for the Holy City, provided the authorities undertook to find the £SOO or £6OO a year, necessary for upkeep. The offer was declined.