Light clouds hung over the city that Sunday morning when we looked out at the tower of David, one of the oldest monuments of Jerusalem, standing directly across the open space in front of our balcony. It still looks the part it long played as a watch-tower and a place of refuge and strong defense. The people call it the Citadel, and until the coming of the British it served as a garrison for Turkish soldiers. During our first days in Jerusalem we had walked about Mount Zion, had read of the various controversies waged over exact locations, had gone into the House of Caiaphas, the House of Annas, and had looked at the upper room. They may or may not have been the exact spots made tragic or sacred by that last week of the Great Life. It did not matter to us. The stone courtyards, the little chapels, the marks of Crusaders’ crosses, the burial stones made us conscious indeed of the triumphs and tragedies of men and nations that had written themselves from that hilltop into the history of Palestine and so into the making of the world. It was very easy, standing in that upper room, bare now save for an ancient picture, to imagine the long table, the couches, the reclining disciples. One is almost overwhelmed as he realizes the effect of that simple supper of bread and wine upon the characters of succeeding generations of men. What breaks in the ranks of Christendom the varied interpretations of its significance have made! To what heights of spiritual power, to what depths of shame, sorrow and repentance has it led those who, following His request, have celebrated it in remembrance of Him. In wonderful cathedrals, in rude chapels, in the lonely spots of earth, in the jungle, in the desert, on the islands of the sea, in the hospitals, in prison, on the fields of war kneeling before improvised altars within sight of the no man’s land which tomorrow would be their graves, men have heard the words: “As oft as ye eat this bread and drink this wine—”

How intensely He struggled, in those hours in the upper room, to make them understand that He loved them, to lead them to a comprehension of the meaning of service, to help them to accept the great commission His death would leave them to fulfil.

We could almost hear the voice of our Lord saying: “Behold the hour cometh, yea is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own and shall leave me alone: yet—I am not alone because the Father is with me.

“These things have I spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.”

It was easy to see Peter standing by the fire in the place which they showed to us and to hear the cowardly words, “I never knew him,” but easier still, as though a beam of light had fallen upon a dark picture, to hear Jesus saying, “Tell my disciples and Peter.... Peter, lovest thou me?... Peter, feed my sheep.”

From the background of Mount Zion we went to the Garden, not to the formal garden of Latin or Greek, with their chapels, their neat little gardens, their oranges and their olive trees planted about with fragrant flowers and green grass, though they are very beautiful, terraced there upon the steep sloping hillside. We went instead to the Armenian Garden, kept as nature made it, a wall with the vine leaning over it, a fallen trunk covered with doll moss, and the olive trees, large and small, gray green with twisted boughs ages old, grass as in a meadow, with lilies of the field nodding here and there in sunny spaces, though it was still winter. A soft mist hung about the hill and settled in low lines over the Garden. In one of the trees, hugging a branch, was a tiny gray bird. We could hear its song in the silence.

The friend who had come with us had been often in the Garden. He told us of the beautiful service of the Relief Workers here on Easter morning, of the night after Allenby entered Jerusalem when the workers filled with joy over the manner of the victory came to this sacred spot to pray in gratitude and for strength for the long wearying days of toil which lay ahead. He told us of the Armenian girl, kneeling early one morning in the damp grass, trying to repeat Gethsemane’s prayer. She was a graduate of the American Woman’s College, was teaching in a girls’ high school when deportation orders came, and from then until her rescue had been an Arab’s slave in his dirty tent.

It was very still. The walls of the city shut out its sounds, and it was too early for regular traffic along the road to Bethany. A British Tommy climbed over the wall and sat upon a great rock under a gnarled old tree, his hat in his hand. Pictures of the old masters painted on walls of cathedrals, hanging in great galleries, hymns tender and sweet that had thrilled the souls of thousands, poetry that had comforted man in his deepest hours of need, shadowy forms of Crusaders who had dared the perils of sea and land, hunger and thirst and the swords of the enemy, the monk, the pilgrim, the student searching for truth:—all these passed before us under the olive trees and went out into the mist.

Suddenly the day seemed to fade and that night of centuries ago came stealing into the Garden. Kneeling there under the olive trees, we saw Love make its supreme sacrifice and were not ashamed of the overwhelming emotion that stirred our souls to greater depths than ever had been touched before. We read the words softly—“if possible—if possible—nevertheless thy will be done.” The rest of the picture was not so hard to look upon for He had triumphed. He rose from His prayer a Conqueror.

There was more than one grassy hollow near the sheltering wall where the disciples might have slept in the open, as did many at the time of the Passover. Regretful, He wakened them. The Roman soldiers with staves and smoking torches were coming down over the hill. His doom was sealed. What the law gave them no right to do, misunderstanding, cunning, and craft had done. Judas kissed him. We read the rest of the story from a little book that made it very plain.^[1] Then we prayed, but not with words—there were no words.

On the little bridge that crosses over the Kedron to the Bethany road we stood for a long time looking back, loathe to leave. We remembered the white crosses of yesterday standing in long rows over there on the other side of the mount. He was not alone in the Garden! With Him there had gathered through the centuries an understanding multitude, young and loving life as did He, who had met their own Gethsemanes and gone out from them bravely to die.

Again we went through St. Stephen’s Gate and along the path where the Roman guards had led their prisoner. We stopped at Pilate’s Hall. Like a king indeed he met the false testimony of his accusers, the cynical questions of Pilate, the jesting soldiers who had seen many a man condemned to die but none who met the madness of a multitude that cried “Crucify! Crucify!” with such dignity and calm. No wonder Rousseau cried aloud as he studied the story, “Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus died like a God!” With what ardent devotion have the great artists of the past attempted to paint for us those scenes. So vivid were they as we stood there in Jerusalem, looking up at the tower of Antonius where Jesus suffered the scourging, that their reality pierced our souls.

When the fickle crowd left the hall shouting curses as they had shouted hosannas, they moved along the narrow street which still bears the name Via Dolorosa.

Opposite the Pretorium is a convent. In it are orphans and stray waifs picked up about Palestine. The ravages of war have added to the usual number and the place is crowded. On this Sunday they were at service, and the clean happy faces as they sang made us feel that it was because of the Sorrowful Way over which He had walked that they were sheltered and fed. Although intended for Jews, Turk and Armenian, Jew and Gentile sat together in the Chapel of Love and Forgiveness. It is under this convent, many feet below the level of the present street that one finds bits of the old Roman pavement over which the multitude, curious, cruel, mocking, followed Him to the place of crucifixion.

Each spot along the Via Dolorosa is marked—the place where the Master took up His cross, the turn in the narrow street where in answer to the tears and prayers of the women He said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourself and your children,” the spot where, staggering from weakness, He fell beneath His cross and Simon lifted it and carried it to the hill of Death, dumbly sharing the Saviour’s pain. At each place of suffering as we passed, we saw men and women praying and making the sign of the cross. All men walked silently.

Via Dolorosa, since the coming of the British, is scrupulously clean. The houses of stone with beautiful doorways and old carvings on the doorposts make a solid unbroken wall on either side, and very early the street is quite dark. Narrow and not even a mile in length, it stands out in the memory above all the great highways of the world.

We did not follow the narrow streets to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where reverent worshipers were at that moment kneeling before the tomb, or kissing the stone upon which are the marks of the three crosses. It seemed incredible to us at first that this small church could cover both the spot which was called Calvary and the tomb in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea. Within the church are the chapels of the Greeks, the Romans, the Armenians and the Copts. In each are beautiful shrines with very precious lamps studded with jewels, lamps that burn in honor of each of the four Christian groups. Once there were four great doors of entrance to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but so frequent were the quarrels of those coming to worship that these doors were closed leaving only one way of entrance. The key to this door is still held by a Mohammedan according to the command of General Allenby, in memory of the fact that the Caliph Omar spared and continually protected this Church. Priceless jewels are hidden within it, the gifts of Pilgrims from every land. Its treasury is the richest in the world. Jamil saw it when it was shown to the former German Emperor for whom he interpreted, but could never find it again, so devious were the ways that led to it. The Kaiser’s gift, presented as with impressive ceremony he knelt to pray, was of great value—in gold.

But it was not to this church of the Holy Sepulchre with its wonderful shrines, its most sacred associations reaching back into the long past, filled with memories of devout men and women, rich and great, poor and lowly, young and strong, weak and old, who had reverently worshiped before the rent in the rock, the place where the soldiers parted His garments, the tomb in the solid stone down in the very bowels of the earth, worn smooth as glass by the feet of pilgrims who, like Peter and John, must stoop to enter it, and Golgotha, reached by winding steps cut in the rock and leading up almost to the roof of the church—it was not this place which we sought as we came from the garden of Gethsemane, following Him along the Sorrowful Way. It was out on the hills beyond the Damascus Gate to the spot called Gordon’s Calvary that we went, not because we cared to enter into all the reasons why many believe it to be the place of suffering, rather than the other, but because out there on the wind-swept rocks under a darkening sky, with a garden in the little valley and the tombs cut in solid rock, their “great stones” lying near—out there with no priest and no altars it was easier to read the words of the Book and try to understand them.

It was on this Mount of Calvary, looking down upon the city, that there came to us an overwhelming sense of the sin of selfishness and greed. In the ruins of Belgium we had felt it, in the tumult of war on the battlefields of France we had seen what it could do, in the records of the desperate struggles of the Peace Table we had caught glimpses of its power, in China we saw its work, in Korea we looked upon its suffering victims, and here on Calvary the weight of the world sorely wounded and dismayed by sin, pressed hard upon us. It would not have been possible to bear had we not read also of the stone rolled away and the great triumphant Victory.

A deep conviction settled down upon us until it possessed every muscle and fiber of body and mind, until it possessed our souls—the thing that He preached and that only can save the world. His great command that man love his God and serve his neighbor—this principle alone can rescue humanity from the abyss of chaos into which blind greed, individual and national, has plunged it. As the pilgrims knelt at the Holy Sepulchre, we knelt there under the open skies on the hill that is called Calvary to accept again His first great commandment, and the second that is like unto it, in repentance and humility to pray for pardon for past failures and strength for new endeavors.

That night at evening service in clear soprano voice a boy in the choir sang:

The echo of the last line followed us home. There is work to be done—challenging, mighty world-building tasks—and for the doing of them those who call themselves servants and followers of Him whose brave, suffering footsteps we had traced from the Garden along the Sorrowful Way to Calvary have waited too long.