accompaniment of the flute, they might implicitly yield themselves to the spiritual

thoughts kindled by such words.

When the pilgrims' feet stood within the gates of Jerusalem, there could have been no

difficulty in finding hospitality, however crowded the City may have been on such

occasions47 - the more so when we remember the extreme simplicity of Eastern manners

and wants, and the abundance of provisions which the many sacrifices of the season

would supply. But on this subject, also, the Evangelic narrative keeps silence. Glorious as

a view of Jerusalem must have seemed to a child coming to it for the first time from the

retirement of a Galilean village, we must bear in mind, that He Who now looked upon it

was not an ordinary Child. Nor are we, perhaps, mistaken in the idea that the sight of its

grandeur would, as on another occasion,  48 awaken in Him not so much feelings of

admiration, which might have been akin to those of pride, as of sadness, though He may

as yet have been scarcely conscious of its deeper reason. But the one all-engrossing

thought would be of the Temple. This, his first visit to its halls, seems also to have called

out the first outspoken - and may we not infer, the first conscious - thought of that

Temple as the House of His Father, and with it the first conscious impulse of his Mission

and Being. Here also it would be the higher meaning, rather than the structure and

appearance, of the Temple, that would absorb the mind. And yet there was sufficient,

even in the latter, to kindle enthusiasm. As the pilgrim ascended the Mount, crested by

that symmetrically proportioned building, which could hold within its gigantic girdle not

fewer than 210,000 persons, his wonder might well increase at every step. The Mount

itself seemed like an island, abruptly rising from out deep valleys, surrounded by a sea of

walls, palaces, streets, and houses, and crowned by a mass of snowy marble and glittering

gold, rising terrace upon terrace. Altogether it measured a square of about 1,000 feet, or,

to give a more exact equivalent of the measurements furnished by the Rabbis, 927 feet.

At its north-western angle, and connected with it, frowned the Castle of Antonia, held by

the Roman garrison. The lofty walls were pierced by massive gates - the unused gate

(Tedi) on the north; the Susa Gate on the east, which opened on the arched roadway to the

Mount of Olives;49 the two so-called 'Huldah' (probably, 'weasel') gates, which led by

tunnels50 from the priest-suburb Ophel into the outer Court; and, finally, four gates on the