But about him the Passover pilgrims, catching their first glimpse of

the Holy City, gave way to the storm of emotion that had gradually

gathered as they drew near to the threatened City of Delight.

It had moved him to look upon this most majestic fortification,

embattled and begirt for resistance against the most majestic nation

in the world. But he who came as a stranger could not feel within him

the tenderness of old love, the sanctity of old tradition, and the

desperation of kin in his blood as he gazed upon Jerusalem. Yonder was

a roof-garden; to him, no more than that. But the inspired Jews beside

him knew that in that place the sun of noon had shone upon Bathsheba,

the beautiful; and in that neighboring high place the heart of the

Singing King had melted; to the north was a stretch of monotonous

ground overgrown with a new suburb; but that was the camp of

Sennacherib, the Assyrian whom the Angel of the Lord smote and his

army of one hundred and four score and five thousand, before the

morning. Yonder were squalid streets, older than any others. But the

Kings had walked them; the Prophets had helped wear trenches in their

stones; the heroes and the strong-hearted women of the ancient days

had gone that way. No house but was holy with tradition; no street but

was sanctified by event. Small wonder, then, that these who came to

this Passover, the most momentous one since that calamity which had

occurred forty years ago on Golgotha, wept, cried aloud to Heaven;

became beatified and made prophecies; railed; anathematized

Jerusalem's enemies; assumed vows and were threatening. Julian of

Ephesus was shaken. He looked about him on the tempestuous host, then

touched his horse and rode down to the city.

On the Hill Scopus over which he approached an inferior number of

Romans were camped, and these had maintained a semblance of siege only

sufficiently effective to close all the gates on three sides. The Sun

Gate to the south of the city was therefore the most accessible point

of entry for the pilgrims. Following the people who had preceded him,

Julian approached this portal, left his horse with the stable-keeper

without and prepared to enter Jerusalem.

Collecting at the causeway of the Sun Gate the pilgrims came with such

impetus that the foremost were rushed struggling and protesting

through the tunnel under the wall and forced well into Jerusalem

before they could control their own motion. Once within, the host

spread out so that one looking at the immense space they instantly

covered wondered how so great a mass ever passed through the

circumscribed limits of a fifty-foot gate. At times stopping was

impossible. Again there were momentary lulls, as when the sea recoils

upon itself and is stilled for an instant. They who stood to watch,

wearied of days of such invasion, unconsciously wished that the

interval might endure till they could rest their number-wearied

brains. But, as if the stagnation were the result of congestion

somewhere without the walls, when the wave returned it came with

redoubled height and power and the Sun Gate would roar with the noise

of their entry.




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