It was sitting on a housetop overlooking Jerusalem on the last day of our visit to the Holy City that we heard in detail the story of the official entry of the British forces. The woman who told us had spent the years of the war as well as most of her life in Jerusalem though she is an American. Her children were born there, she speaks many of its languages, she knows its people and she loves it. She is one of the women appointed by Lord Samuel, the High Commissioner, to serve on an advisory council to assist the government in establishing policies for the protection and betterment of women. She is the Christian representative, the others being Mohammedan and Hebrew.

The story, as she told it, revealing all the fear and anxiety of those hard years, the pressure of uncertainty, the daily, hourly struggle for food with sufficient nourishment to keep the children and the old people alive, made us feel again, as so many times before, the sharp stab of the fact that it is not those who bear arms alone who go to war. Little faces, whose right it is to be round and rosy, covered with smiles, must be pale and wan, yes, must even forget how to smile, as millions of little ones have forgotten since nineteen hundred and fourteen. Old faces, whose right it is to bear the marks of peace and contentment after the struggle of the years, must be left instead with marks of pain and anguish as have millions of the aged since nineteen hundred and fourteen. He is a cruel monster, War, and if man, after what he has seen these past years, does not imprison him, starve him, and leave him to die, then man deserves the bitterness of the fate that will be his.

Threatened deportation, first by the German, then by the Turk, had been again and again postponed for the little group known as the American Colony but finally word came that in ten days all must go. The men of military age, though neutral, had been ordered away a week before and were expecting the arrival of a Turkish officer at any moment, to tell them the time had come. Food was very scarce, there was no sugar, little flour, and no fats. The woman who told us the story was herself doing all-day and sometimes all-night duty as a nurse in the Red Crescent Hospital which was our present hotel. Some of the letters she showed to us proved what a consolation she must have been to the young British soldiers, who lay with the Turks, prisoners, and sorely wounded. The thundering of the guns had been drawing nearer but, despite rumors that crept into the streets and the hospital wards that the Turks were slowly losing ground, they themselves reported progress. Great airplanes droned over the city, cannon roared in the hills. One afternoon there was unusual commotion in the open space before the hotel and, standing by the window, our friend saw the Germans making hurried preparations for leaving. Signal wires, telephone wires, rugs, removable furniture, tons of supplies, went out through the Jaffa Gate. The Turkish General visited her—he must leave the wounded in her care. The German doctors would go with the troops. He would leave two days’ provisions and medicines, after that—

When he had gone, half afraid to believe it, she whispered the word to the British patients. They were nearly mad with joy, and there was little sleeping that night. “When? When?” they would whisper as she or her helper passed them. She could only answer, “I do not know. We have provisions for two days.” Very early in the morning, before it was fully light, the Mayor of the city, one of the direct descendants of Mohamet, sent her a message saying that he was about to surrender the city.

At half-past eight that morning the outposts saw the white flag approaching. General Shea was the officer sent by General Allenby to accept the surrender of the city. At half-past twelve Jerusalem had passed into the hands of the British, guards were placed at all public buildings, and instructions given to the Chief of Police. The joy of the people—Jew, Christian, and Moslem—was shown in the crowds that filled the street, the tears and embraces, the shrill cries in many tongues. Even the Turkish sick and wounded in the hospital showed relief. For the twenty-third time in its history Jerusalem had surrendered. But this time there were no cries for mercy, no bitterness, no wailing, no terrible fear of the conqueror.

Outside the walls the guns banged and hammered at the Turkish defences. Much had to be done before Jerusalem was safe from attack, but although, spurred on by advices from Germany, the Turks made an attempt to recapture the City, it was a disastrous failure.

One of the young men joined us on the roof and contributed his share of the description of the next thrilling days. It was on December 11th, 1917, that General Allenby, Commander-in-Chief, took formal possession of the City. He would not enter through the break in the old wall made when the former Kaiser with his great retinue entered as a Crusader. Indeed orders have been given to have the break closed. Allenby would carry no flag. On foot and accompanied by a Guard that altogether numbered about one hundred fifty, he stood on Mount Zion on the steps of the Citadel at the entrance to David’s Tower. He had been met outside the narrow gate by the Guard representing all branches, faiths and races that make up the British Army. Behind him, as he stood on the steps with his staff, were the leading men of the City, ready to listen to the reading of the Proclamation. There were no shouts of victory, no trumpets, no evidence of the spirit of triumph over a foe. The Proclamation was read in Arabic and English, in Hebrew and Greek, in Russian, in French and Italian. As the people, standing respectfully in the open spaces and upon the housetops, heard each in his own tongue that all men might “pursue their lawful business without fear,” and the promise that “every Holy Place, revered and held sacred by any faith, will be defended and protected,” a look, first of incredulity, then of confidence, passed over their faces. Many Mohammedans ran from the square to repeat the words in homes from which some fearful ones had not dared to come. Murmurs and gestures of approval were given on every side. The windows of the Red Crescent Hospital were filled with faces of those who, though very ill or badly wounded, could not miss this significant moment of the Great War. All the promises made that day have been sacredly kept, our friends told us.

In the old Turkish barrack square the Commander-in-Chief met the heads of all the religious communities. The sheikhs in charge of the Mosque of Omar, the representatives of the Priests and Patriarchs of the Latin, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and Coptic churches who had been deported by the Turks, the heads of the Jewish communities, the Syrian Church, the Greek Catholic, the Abyssinian and the Anglican Churches, all were there. It was indeed a cosmopolitan company as to religious faiths. “The bright color of the holiday dress which most of the people had put on, I can see in detail at this moment,” said our friend. “Not one step in that simple ceremony shall I ever forget. In two hours, leaving guards over all holy places, with Mohammedan officers and soldiers from the Indian regiments to guard the Mosque of Omar, the General walked back through the Old Jaffa Gate as he had come, received the salute of his troops, entered his car and went down to the fighting area.”

The relief workers took up the heavy burden of bringing food to the people whose thin bodies and pale faces showed the effect of months of starvation diet. All supplies must come up over roads muddy and torn by heavy traffic, crowded with army food and equipment that must have right-of-way. The task was one that taxed patience and energies to the utmost. The health commission assumed the equally great task of clearing the streets of unspeakable filth left in the wake of the Turkish rule, our friends shouldered their burden of securing medical attention and food for the sick, helpless and wounded men.

“Only gradually,” said our friend walking up and down on the roof, her cheeks flushed by the memories of days so vividly recalled, “did we come to realize that this Holy City was free. It was as though we had been going about in heavy chains that, suddenly taken from us, had left us too dazed to move. We unconsciously looked for old restrictions, old threats, old taxes suddenly to be laid upon us. Despite the glory of its past,” she added, leaning far over the parapet to look out upon it, “the City in all its long history was never so truly the City of Zion as now.”

When we went back to our hotel, standing at the windows from which the wounded had looked, we felt that though other scenes of many cities in many lands would fade with the years, the description of that day when a victorious army under the leadership of a great General, a true soldier, and a Christian gentleman had, beneath the shadow of the Tower, proclaimed a message of possession more truly in accord with the word and teaching of Jesus than any ever recorded in history, would never leave us.

The sunset that night was more glorious than any we had seen. The hills were on fire with it, the Gate was gold. Then the valleys darkened, the streets were still, the crowd of Arab and Greek, Jew and Moslem, the shepherds, the merchant with his camels, the shopmen and the traveler, all sought shelter. It was night, and we looked for the last time out on the hills to the place where the stars shone over Bethlehem. Never did more reluctant pilgrims leave a Holy Place.

The train, going twice each week down from Jerusalem and connecting with the train for Cairo, had begun to carry both sleeping compartments and dining car. We boarded it late that night at the foot of the long hill. Before it was light, we had pulled out of the Jerusalem station and did not get even one more glimpse of the city set on a hill. Instead when we opened our eyes we were almost out of the Judean Hills and soon were moving along through desert-rimmed lowlands. Then the desert itself lay about us for hours, livened by occasional caravans that also were going down to Egypt. Once an airplane flew over us and on into the glare of the cloudless sky. We thought often of Joseph and Mary and the Child fleeing through this lonely desert, to find in alien Egypt refuge from the jealous wrath of the Roman king. How rapidly the world has learned to cover time and space since then! How slow has been its progress toward the kingdom the Child, whom Herod feared, had come to build. God grant that now over the new paths through old Palestine messengers bearing Good Will may come with all speed.

At Kantara we saw a company of Jews sent by the Zionists into Palestine. They were a weary group, their faces bore marks of deep suffering. They spoke Russian only, so we could not talk with them. They were going by train to Haifa. We could only hope that their sorrows were over and that in the land of their fathers they would find peace, a chance to forget, shelter, food and a home. But we could not feel sure. The threatening words we had heard from the lips of the Arab, the protests on the part of the Jews that there was not land enough in Palestine capable of bearing crops to give food to those who now struggled to live, the bitter race hatreds and religious feuds very near the surface always ready to burst into flame,—these things made us doubtful. The transformation within a generation of this land of Palestine into a safe and happy home for all the Jews of all the world seems but the futile day dream of children when one faces conditions as they are. Many lands have done many things to the Jew who once in simplicity worshiped the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and tried sincerely, not only to obey the great commandments of Moses, but to teach them to his children. Whether again they can gather from all lands and bring with them the best who shall say? It may be that the fervent exhortations of rabbis, the wisdom of judges, the training of educators, the science of agriculturists, the modern irrigation miracles of engineers, the proper placing of peoples, will make of Palestine a modern state where the dream of economists, political and social, will one day be demonstrated in action. The only spot we saw that seemed like the coming of the day was Ramallah, the city that had to be taken by storm before the troops could reach Jerusalem and visited by us to see the splendid work of the schools of the Quakers who for long years have given learning and new life to children of Syrian and Armenian, and now and then to a Moslem or a Jew. From that little town between six and seven hundred Jews and Syrians had emigrated to America. Since the war many had returned and were rapidly building the city. Others had sent money to rebuild the homes of their families. These homes were of stone built two stories high with the flat roof but with plenty of space for light and air. Gardens surrounded many of them and trees were being planted everywhere. The children were well nourished, well clothed, and well trained. It helped us to have more confidence in the dreams with the fulfilment of which all Christendom is in sympathy. If only patience and unselfishness can be set as watchmen over against the door of enthusiasm! We were told that the Hebrew High Commissioner of Jerusalem looks to Ramallah as a prophecy.

We sat for a while on the journey from Kantara to Cairo with a British officer and a nurse who had seen hard service during the war and is now in charge of a number of stations where the native nurses meet her to report progress and receive further instructions. She helps them to understand the care of mothers and young babies and trains them to fight the terrible diseases of the eye that result in a staggering percentage of blindness. The native girls are taking up their work with enthusiasm, even the little children are sharing in the campaign against flies. “That is a far harder campaign than any we have ever waged when you consider the people you have to train to fight,” said the officer. And remembering the flies on our days at Suez and Port Said, we could agree with him. It was nearly midnight when she left the train at a little station in the sand. Her man-servant was waiting with her horse and we watched her ride off to her hospital out there somewhere in the blackness. “No finer women on God’s earth than those who wear that uniform,” said the officer.

A half hour or more and he left us. He was a lover of the desert and almost made us forget how pitiless, how cruel, how destitute of all that makes life for most of us, it is. He knew the names of all the stars and when they would appear in the velvet sky over his great stretch of camps. He loved the cold of the night and was not afraid of the heat of midday, he loved the sunrise and sunsets and “the desert-folk worth many times the puny men of cities.” He, too, rode off into the darkness.

At last—Cairo—and we left the train through the long station, bright as day. A car was waiting. The luxury of our room made us feel that we had entered fairyland. It had been so long since we had seen the things for rest, comfort and cleanliness that had in our past been common necessities, that now after these months of journeying about the world they seemed extravagances indeed!

The next morning we looked through the open French windows with their rose hangings, out upon the Pyramids and the Nile. The river lay almost at our feet. The beauty of it was intoxicating in the soft light of the rising sun. When my friend broke the silence she said, “It is indeed beautiful,” then smiling she added “but,—

Awake, awake, put on thy strength; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.... Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit on thy throne, O Jerusalem.—Peace be unto thee, O Zion.”