the general appearance and position of this famous rock. I may add, that if one stamps on a circular marble stone about the centre of the cave, seen in the accompanying engraving, hollow sounds and echoes are heard beneath, evidencing the existence of considerable underground excavations. "But what," the reader asks, "means this rock? Why has it been preserved, and preserved here as a holy and revered thing?" A question to be asked, verily but one by no means so easily answered. For this stone has given rise to a great controversy which still rages, though only, of course, with such calm, suppressed, and reticent energy as archæologists and antiquaries are capable of in a case where passion decreases with the square of the distance that, in time, separates them from the subjects of their inquiry. Without attempting in a few lines to state the arguments which have been brought forward in support of the various conflicting theories, or presuming to give any decided judgment on so complicated a question, let me endeavour, however meagrely, to satisfy, or rather to prompt, the curiosity of those of my readers who may wish to know how this stone has become such a stumblingblock. (1) The most prosaic account of it is, that it was a draw-well for the fortress of Antonia, the excavations below the cave being but a part of the great natural cisterns which honeycomb the Temple area. But the fortress did not stand here; and even if it did, that would not account for the well of a barracks ever becoming a holy and consecrated spot. (2) Was it then, as some suggest, the stone on the summit of Mount Moriah on which Abraham offered up Isaac? This is a mere conjecture, without any evidence whatever to support it, and the difficulty of accepting it is increased by the fact that Mount Gerizim is claimed-and that not without weighty and, as Dr. Stanley and others think, conclusive reasons-to be the mountain of Abraham's sacrifice. (3) A more probable supposition is, that this place was the threshingfloor of Araunah (or Ornan) the Jebusite, which David bought, and on which he erected the great Altar of Sacrifice. The account given in Scripture of this transaction is as follows: "And the angel of the Lord stood by the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. And David lifted up his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem. Then David and the elders of Israel, who were clothed in sackcloth, fell upon their faces.... Then the angel of the Lord commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and set up an altar unto the Lord in the threshingfloor of Ornan the Jebusite. And David went up at the saying of Gad, which he spake in the name of the Lord. And Ornan turned back, and saw the angel; and his four sons with him hid themselves. Now Ornan was threshing wheat. And as David came to Ornan, Ornan looked and saw David, and went out of the threshingfloor, and bowed himself to David with his face to the ground." We read also that"Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David his father, in the place that David had prepared in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. And he began to build in the second day of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign." This narrative, it is alleged, makes all clear. On the summit of this stone, by the threshingfloor, stood the angel of the Lord, seen as if between earth and heaven. Beside the stone was the threshingfloor; its top was the place for winnowing the grain, which was poured down through the hole into the cave, that was at once a granary and contained a well. In this cave, moreover, Ornan and his sons hid themselves, and came out" to meet David. On the summit of the same rock was afterwards erected the great altar, which was reached by steps, or by a gradual ascent, and through the hole the remains of the sacrifices and the blood were sent into the cave below to be disposed of by the Levites, and to be carried, by some means or other, without the Temple through its subterranean excavations. So far well. But the great objection to this theory is, that it is impossible to bring the rock within the site of the Temple, as it is 150 feet from the nearest point of its outer wall. It could not, therefore, have been the base of the great altar. For Herod's Temple (within the square of 600 feet) occupied, or rather, from its being much larger, included the site of the Temple of Solomon. (4) The last, and which will appear to our readers to be the most improbable and astounding theory is, that this cave was the "true sepulchre of our Lord!" Mr. Fergusson, its propounder and defender, broached this theory fifteen years ago, and has maintained it with great ability and with increasing confidence ever since. He lately visited Jerusalem to test its accuracy still further by an actual inspection of the spot, and has returned more convinced, if possible, than ever! While this theory is maintained on historical grounds, yet it is based chiefly on architectural. And let no one reject this kind of evidence, as if from its nature inapplicable. The very reverse is nearer the truth. Suppose we find a canoe, embedded in the filt of an English river, and the wreck of a steamer on the shores of an uninhabited island. Every one can understand how it is possible to decide with absolute certainty as to the relative ages of those two specimens of ship-building, and to know that the one was before and the other after a certain historic period. And so in regard to architecture. Mr. Fergusson, one of the first living authorities on the history of this department of art, has endeavoured to prove, and I presume to think successfully, that (1) the so-called Mosque of Omar never was, nor could have been, built for a place of Mohammedan worship; (2) that it could not have been built either before or after the Good Words, July 1, 1865.] JERUSALEM. age of Constantine; (3) and that the present church of the Holy Sepulchre could not have been erected earlier than the time of the Crusades. He concludes that this so-called Mosque of Omar was the church which Constantine built-for that a church was built by him all admit-over the sepulchre of Christ. I cannot enter further into this controversy, but must refer my readers, who may now wish to follow it out, to some of the well-known works which fully discuss it.* If I might presume to give any opinion on the subject, it would be briefly this: I cannot accept of the proofs in favour of the authenticity of the tomb in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. It seems to me to be demonstrated by Mr. Fer"the Dome of the Rock" was built by gusson that Constantine, and that, too,-in the absence of any other known motive,-because he believed it to be the tomb of our Lord. + I recognise also the strength of the evidence adduced to establish the probability of Constantine having been able, even in the fourth century, to ascertain the real position of the sacred spot, both from the tradition of the Christian Church in Jerusalem, and also from the perfection of the Roman census-an argument brought to bear Among others I would mention Dr. Robinson's great work on Palestine, as containing the most forcible arguments against the present site:" Williams's Holy City as its best defence, and also for the reply which it gives to Mr. Fergusson's theory in favour of the Dome of the Rock. Mr. Fergusson's view is given in his article Jerusalem," in "Smith's Dictionary," and also in his recently published lectures. Lewin's "Siege of Jerusalem" may also be consulted, and Sandie's "Horeb and Jerusalem." + Mr. Fergusson quotes in the Appendix to his recently published Lectures, an extract from a small volume of travels to the Holy Land, by a pilgrim named "Theodericus," in the year 1172, and entitled "Theodericus de Weis Sanctes." It is edited by Dr. Tobler, and was just issued from the German press as Mr. Fergusson's book was being printed. The pilgrim confirms all his views. He states more than once that the "Dome of the Rock" was erected by Constantine and his mother Helena. Some interesting inscriptions are given by him as copied from the church while in the possession of the Christians, who worshipped in it during the whole period of the Latin kingdom, and a few years before it was taken by Saladin. These inscriptions are along each of the eight sides, and some are as follows:-"Pax æterna ab æterno 66 Templum Domini sanctum Patre sit huic domui;" Dei sanctificatio est," &c. &c. Dei cultura est. est. "Bene fundatus est domus Domini super firmam petram," &c. Inscriptions of the same character were in other parts of the building. We must confess, however, that the omission of any reference to the tomb is remarkable. De Vogne, in his recent great work on the Temple, gives translations in French of some of the Arabic inscriptions, added most probably in the time of Saladin, and which read as a protest against the Christian Church and the known Christian beliefs, and probably displaced the Christian inscriptions of its founders and worshippers. They are "Praise be to God, He has no such as the following: Son"" He does not share the empire of the universe" "Jesus is the Son of Mary, sent by God, and his Word" "Do not say there is a Trinity of God," &c. As Mr. Fergusson remarks, there is not a word in the Arabic inscriptions of David, Solomon, or even Mahomet, but of Jesus the Son of Maria," whose name appears four for the first time on this question by the learned Mr. Fergusson has also, I think, satisfactorily Admitting all this, then, it may be asked how I can avoid coming to the conclusion that the authentic site has at last been discovered? I must confess my inability to give any reply, beyond the very unsatisfactory one-that I cannot believe! doubt, I frankly acknowledge, is chiefly derived from the mere force of impressions made on the spot. My To believe that this room, with its hollow excavations beneath, was a tomb at all; that Joseph of Arimathea got possession of the huge rock, occupying so remarkable a position, as his own private property, and was allowed to cut out the first tomb in it; that he who was terrified to confess Christ before the Sanhedrim, should have had the boldness to bury Him, or rather should have been per "The census was so perfect that throughout the wide extent of the Roman empire every private estate was surveyed. Maps were constructed, indicating not only every locality possessing a name, but so detailed that every field was measured. And in the register connected with the map even the numbers of fruit-trees in the garden were inscribed. Not only every Roman province, and especially every Roman colony, but every municipality was surveyed with this extreme accuracy. A plan of the district was engraven on brass, and deposited in the imperial register office, while plans were placed in the hands of the local administration and in the provincial archives."-("Greece under the Romans," 561.) had no difficulty in ascertaining the true site, as a temple By this means Mr. Finlay thinks Constantine could have to Venus had been erected over it by Hadrian, to profane it. + When in Jerusalem I was assured, on what seemed the best authority, that the Greeks had got up a new Gethsemane of their own, in opposition to the Latins; case. How difficult it is even "on the spot" to ascertain but on further careful inquiry I found this was not the the truth! mitted to do so, within one hundred and fifty feet of the Temple wall, and overlooked by the fanatics who had condemned Him, and the Roman soldiers who had executed Him; and that the resurrection, involving the presence of Roman guards, holy angels, pious women, agitated apostles, and Christ Himself, should have taken place here, nominally indeed at that time without the walls, but practically under the gaze of both the Temple and the fortress-all this I cannot as yet assent to. Moreover, it does not seem to me at all unlikely that the place of Christ's burial should have died out of the memory of the early Church. To the first believers the tomb of the dead Christ would, it appears to me, be soon lost in faith in the living Christ. Golgotha as a place, with its dreadful horrors, would be uncared for in their adoring love of the grand spiritual truths of which it was but the awful threshold. I can therefore quite conceive of St. Paul, for example, when in Jerusalem after his conversion, visiting neither the place of Christ's death nor that of his burial, nor caring thus to "know Him after the flesh," although he held living communion with Him every day in the Spirit. Belief in persons not places, in living realities not mere localities, appears to me as much more likely to have characterised the early than any subsequent age of the Church. And just as in the course of years faith began to grow weak in a living person or in eternal truths, so would it naturally seek to strengthen itself by a visit to places, until it became still weaker by contact with the visible, and the kernel be at last lost in the shell. In the meantime we wait for more light on this interesting subject. The spade and pickaxe, which we hope soon to see vigorously at work in Jerusalem, may help to solve these and many other questions. But should the sepulchre of Christ never be discovered-if it lies unknown in some lonely recess among the "braes" overlooking the Kedron, we are not disposed greatly to lament it. "We have a vision of our own- OUR INDIAN HEROES. BY JOHN WILLIAM KAYE. VII.-LORD CORNWALLIS. In this little gallery of Indian worthies, I have hitherto exhibited the portraits only of men, who have held subordinate or, at most, secondary positions-who have executed the work entrusted to them, not taken the supreme direction of affairs, and borne upon their own shoulders the responsibilities of the government of an Empire. Of such, indeed, the collection will mainly consist. But I purpose here to vary the prevailing character of the series by giving some account of the career of a Governor-General; and I have selected Lord Cornwallis, because he was both a soldier and a statesman, and his career was one in which the perilous excitement of the camp, and the more tranquil labours of the council chamber, had alternately possession of his mind. His career was not merely an Indian career. During a long life devoted to the service of his country, he was distinguished on many different fields, in many distant parts of the world, for he lived in eventful times, and he was one in whom all men trusted. But it is as an Indian soldier, and an Indian statesman, that he must be here regarded. He was three times selected to govern the British Empire in the East. Twice, the burden of the Governor-Generalship actually descended upon him, and, the second time, it weighed him down to the grave. He was the sixth child, and the eldest son, of the fifth baron, but first Earl Cornwallis, by a daughter of the second Viscount Townshend; and was born in Grosvenor Square, on the last day of the year 1738. Of his childhood, there appears to be no record, but at an early age he went as Viscount Brome, (the second title of the family,) to Eton, and ascended, by ordinary gradation to the sixth form. After leaving school, he chose the army as his profession, and entered the Grenadier Guards at the age of eighteen. Obtaining the permission of the Duke of Cumberland to complete his military education, he went to Turin, to study at the military academy there, but learning that a British army was about to be employed in Germany, he volunteered to join the force, and was appointed aide-de-camp to Lord Granby. In this capacity, he was present in several actions, including the battle of Minden. His promotion was very rapid. He was a captain in the 85th in 1759, and two years afterwards, he was lieutenant-colonel of the 12th foot. This latter command he retained till 1765, when he was appointed aide-de-camp to the king. In 1762, he succeeded, by his father's death, to the earldom. In 1766, he was made colonel of the 33rd regiment. Two years afterwards, being then thirty years of age, he married Jemima, daughter of Colonel Jones, of the 3rd Foot Guards,-an union which was pro ductive of the purest, but too short-lived, happiness The war of American Independence commenced, 66 There was not in all the country one to whom the voice of duty more overpoweringly appealed. It is stated that his wife made powerful But," interest to cause his appointment to be rescinded, and the consent of the king was obtained. says his biographer, "he peremptorily declined to On the 10th of avail himself of the permission. February, 1776, he embarked for America. Of the events of the war I do not purpose to write. His first service in that country extended over a period of nearly two years. In January, 1778, he paid a brief visit to England. In April he again embarked for America; and from that time Lady Cornwallis, who had lived in retirement during his absence, a prey to the deepest melancholy, never recovered Her husband, when he heard from her depression, but died, as she herself said, of a broken heart. She that she was dying, threw up his command, and returned to England. But it was too late. survived his arrival by a few weeks, and then passed away from the world. From that time the public service became everything to Lord Cornwallis. He was eager to return to the seat of war, that he might find relief for his private sorrows in the exciting realities of the great conflict. His wishes were gratified. He was reappointed to the army; and he took an active part in its operations, In December, he emuntil the capitulation of October, 1781, when he became a prisoner of war. barked for England, and arrived at home in the early part of the following month. He was then on his parole; and for some time he was kept in a state of painful uncertainty and anxiety respecting the exchanges which were in course of negotiation. The king's government, "fortune of war" had been adverse, were anxious who had unabated confidence in him, though the again to re-employ him, on some service of responsibility, and sounded him as to his willingness to go to India. It was in contemplation to invite him to assume the chief command of the army in "Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis." Edited, with Notes, by Charles Ross, Esq. I am greatly indebted for much valuable matter to these admirably-edited volumes. |