Memories of Olivet

Any prefatory observations are here unnecessary,
as these have been embodied in the introductory
chapter.

The volume is intended to be uniform in design
and purport with the “Memories op Gennesaret,”
and the “Memories of Bethany.” Scenes connected with Mount Olivet, of undying interest
to every Christian, have been, as in the case of
the two former, grouped together.

The frontispiece engraving is a careful attempt,
under the guidance of reliable authorities, to reproduce the Mount of Olives as it was in the time
of our Lord, and which may prove in some degree
helpful in the perusal of the succeeding pages.

It is hoped that the contents of the opening chapter will not be considered incongruous with those which follow. It seemed desirable to conduct the Reader through this outer portico, before entering Olivet’s inner Sanctuary of holier thought.

A RECENT personal visit has confirmed the long-entertained impression, that the most interesting locality in Palestine — and if so, in one sense, the most interesting spot in Ihe world — is THE Mount op Olives

For this pre-eminent distinction, it is doubtless indebted entirely, like other localities in that land of marvels, to the undying memories which cluster around it; and yet, apart from these, it possesses, in no ordinary degree, physical features peculiar to itself, and which render it almost unique among other celebrated localities. “The place is nothing — the associations are everything,” is the feeling of which, generally speaking, all travellers, in traversing the desolate, featureless valleys of that once hallowed region, are painfully conscious. Yet there are some striking and remarkable exceptions, and pre-eminently so is Olivet. So far, indeed, as the mount itself is concerned, a thousand scenes in our own and in other lands are alike infinitely grander and more beautiful. There is nothing conspicuous in height, nothing picturesque in form, nothing re-

* Other references to this visit will be found throughout the volume illustrative of its contents; these, however, have generally been inserted in footnotes, so as not to interrupt the continuity of the text.

markable, as in other sister mountains in Palestine, in colour. We had long been familiar, in imagination at least, with its contour. But the moment can never be forgotten, when, coming up from the sterner Old Testament memories of Bethhoron and Gibeon, the well-known outline of ‘* the mount before Jerusalem” disclosed itself from the heights of Nebi-SamueL It was the first time any of the localities revealed themselves, which bore the impress of the Redeemer’s presence and footsteps — the first glimpse obtained of the scenes of His teaching. His miracles, His agony, His triumph. Apart, however, from these overpowering feelings, there was nothing arresting or impressive. As the eye traversed that wide panorama, an otherwise unconspicuous green swell, with triple top, sprinkled with trees, and crowned apparently with a ruin — this, with an unpretending walled town fronting its western slope, studded with a few domes and minarets, at once and far ever took its place, in the most sacred shrine of memory, as the first view of Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives:

It requires, however, to be on the Mount itself, to appreciate its peculiar claims to our admiration. In pursuing its bridle-paths, or wandering on its slopes, the feature which makes the first and deepest impression, is the proximity of this isolated green hill to the Holy City itself, — the narrow gorge of the Kedron alone dividing them; and which in olden time must still more remarkably have separated busy life from quiet seclusion — the hum of a great capital from “sequestered solitude.” What Lycabettus was to Athens and the Athenians, or, if we might be allowed a more home and homely reference, what Arthur s Seat was, and is, to our own northern capital, — such was Olivet, and especially in former times, to Jerusalem. The comparison might be pursued between these three mountains, at all events, in the conspicuous feature common to all, (and in each case so impressive,) the view from their summits. There are few prospects in the world finer than what are obtained from the two former. From the rocky apex of the Attic mount, the eye takes in at a glance, Athens and its Acropolis, the -^gean Sea, Salamis, and the graceful hills of -ffigina; besides a grand sweep of varied landscape, from Hymettus on the left, to the bold mountains to the far right which encircle the Gulf of Corinth. With the view from the Scottish Lycabettus more of our readers will be familiar, with its striking counterpart and duplicate of Acropolis and Mars Hill, and nobler than blue Mgean. But though in some respects it be unfair, comparing what are in themselves so dissimilar, we hesitate not to say, that, in diversity and strangeness of combination, the view from the summit of Olivet will not suffer when thus confronted with its western compeers. The striking feature here is that of contrast; — a contrast which, as we have just said, must have been greater and stranger still, when the city hard by, now comparatively solitary, was then “full of people.” In the palmy days of Jerusalem, it must have seemed like a vast Border watch-tower, separating death from life. Not more striking the transition between the green strip of the Nile in Egypt and the barren contiguous desert: not more striking the contrast between the tropical verdure on the banks of the Barrada at Damascus, with the arid desolation of the hills of bare red earth, at whose base rushes its life-giving stream;

6 MEMOBIES OF OLIVi;!.

than that between the view on the one side of OuVET, — the hallowed and gorgeous magnificence of Jerusalem, ‘* beautiful for situation,” (the western slope of this Jehel Tilr* keeping vigil, like a wakeful Levite, over its sacred edifices,) — — with that on the other, — a wild sea of sand-hills and limestone rocks, tossed and tumbled, as with Titan bands, in endless, fantastic, savage confusion, till they sink in the deep depression of the Jordan valley; — the Dead Sea gleaming like dulled quicksilver in the far distance, backed by the wall of the Moab mountains. When these latter have their weird forms tinted with the varying hues of evening, the intervening barrenness becomes more apparent. It seems an awful and impressive picture of desolation and death, set in a frame of turquoise and amethyst.

But if such be the Mount op Olives, apart from sacred associations, what must it be with them? It reminds us of these same mountains of Edom of which we have just spoken, when their gray rocks and furrowed ridges, picturesque in themselves, are gilded and glorified with sunlight. Holy memories indeed! from the time when Abraham was here greeted, as there is a strong probability in believing he was, by the aged priest of Salem, on his way from the conquest of the five kings to his tents and terebinths at Hebron ;t

* Jebel Tdr: — “The mountain of mountains: “” the strong mount: “” the mountain rock: “the Arabic and Chaldee name for the Mount of Olives. What Hermon — “Jebel-esh-Sheikh” — ‘the Chief mountain,” was to Dan and Naphthali in northern Palestine, so was Olivet to the southern tribes of Benjamin and Judah, — “the Mount “par excellence. Mount Tabor is also called, at this day, Jebel TAr, from its conspicuous summit: although Van de Yelde supposes this to be simply a contraction of* Tabor.”

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