“Whited Sepulchres.”

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4459, 7 September 1909, Page 3

“Whited Sepulchres.”

(By A Banker.)

The great city to which the eyes of the civilised world are at the present time so anxiously directed, Constantinople, is—from a distance—perhaps the most beautiful city to be found anywhere upon the face of the earth. Approached from the sea, especially at sunset, it is indeed a fascinating and attractive spectacle The slender, tapering minarets and rounded domes of infitimerable mosques—there are several hundreds of them—towering upward to ihg sky, are lighted up with a roseate grow, some of the latter apparently <"wered with burnished brass, which gutters strangely in the horizontal rays of the setting sun; while the windows of the extensive mansions and lofty buildings on each side of the roadstead glister and sparkle with a vivid fiery glow ; the fine hospital above the graveyard of Scutari, where lie the remains of so many brave British soldiers who died of wounds and disease in the Crimean "War, appearing as if a crimson fire were raging within its walls. In the Golden Horn and in the Bosphorus—that lovely channel bordered on each side by gardens, and forests, and ornate villas with grounds sloping down to the water—fleets of feluccas and other craft lie at anchor, adding to the interest of the scene. But upon landing, what a transformation I Instead of beauty and grace, squalor, mire and garbage. The narrow streets reeking in malodours; some nearly ankle-deep in fetid mud ; unclean mongrel dogs—the scavengers of the city—trooping about in droves and raking out and devouring the putrid offal ; dilapidated, nmd - bespattered houses with broken windows and decaying woodwork—-though it is fair to admit that a few of the streets in the better portion of the city are kept in somewhat better order—while crowds of human beings, nearly all men, slouch along, some of them clothed- if such a

term can be used—in patchwork and Vrags. Even in the squares facing some ’"of the mosques—and some of these are certainly most ornate and handsome

erections, the internal decorations of the . mosque of St. Sophia especially being —pools of stagnant water allowed to fester in the sun, and to provide a congenial breeding ground for mosquitoes ; while roadmaking is apparently scorned with disdain. And ever there have been of ourselves those wKi are “ like whited sepulchres, bes-itifeJ* but full of all uncleaDness.” But *1- >•.; is a fountain opened for sin and f< r uacleanness, even the blood shed upon the cross by the Saviour of the world ; and, in the words of the old hymn, “ Sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.” For by that Atonement all who will but accept the benefits offered are “ justified from all things.”