On Mount
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i ERUSALEM (Special Correspondence of The
JHee.) I want to take you to the summit of
Mount Moriahanl ahow you the bite of Solo
mon's temple. It Is on the same spot where
Abraham, at the command of the Lord, was
about to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, when he was
told to desist and was shown the ram whose horns
were caught In the thicket behind him. It is the place
where the wisdom of the boy Christ astonished the
' wise men; where David, Solomon and Elijah were in.
the habit of praying and where, according to the Mo
hammedans, the blast of the trumpet will sound forth
at the day of judgment. The site Is sacred to both
Christians and Moslems and It may be called the
holiest on the face of the earth.
The geologists say that Mount Moriah is one of the
two oldest parts of the world, the other being Mount
Sinai, upon which Moses received The Commandments.
Tbey prove this by the rocks, saying that when the
world was thrown off by the sun and floated about in
its nebulous state through the air the parts which first
solidified were the summit of Sinai and the rock which
now stands inside the moBque on the top of Moriah.
This is clso a Jewish superstition, the statement being
that as the Lord saw the solid earth rising out of
choas He blessed these two spots and said:
"They shall be great in the history of the human
arce, which I shall create, and upon one of them shall
my holy city be built."
Where Solomon Built His Temple.
Mount Moriah Is on the eastern edge of Jerusalem
proper. It is Just opposite the Mount of Olives and
above the Garden of Qethsemane across the valley of
Jchosophat. The wall of the city runs around its '
lope and its top is a plateau contaJMn? thirty-five
acres, or about one-seventh of the whole vt Jerusalem
Inside the walls. The walls partially bound this
plateau and in them at the northeast corner of it is
the gate through which St. Stephen went when he was
stoned to death by the Jews. On the opposite side of
the plateau and far down below it is the Jews' walling
place and, hugging it on the west, south and north are
the boz-Bhaped limestone houses which form the
greater part of Jerusalem.
In going te It we leave our hotel on Mount Zion
and make our way down David street through a horde
of pilgrims of all colors, races and sexes. We pass
the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, go through a bazar,
where men and women sitting on the ground are sell
ing brass bracelets and beads from Hebron, past
candle shops whose wares are to be burnt at the tomb
of our Savior, and on through a vaulted tunnel-like
street which was once the cotton bazar, but which
now sells everything else. At the end of this tunnel
we ascend a stairway and find ourselves on the plateau
now devoted to the mosque of Omar, but formerly the
site of the temple of Solomon.
In Solomon's Stables.
The plateau of the temple rises in terraces. We
first enter that which was known as the Court of the
Gentiles, and was open to Jew and Gentile alike. From
, this we go up to the Court of the Israelites and then
to the Court of the Priests, which is now under the
great Mosque of Omar. It was in the later court that
the open air altar for burnt offerings stood, or, in fact,
the very rock upon which Abraham tied Isaac when he
was about to burn him. obeying the Lord.
Before we examine the plateau Itself I want to
take you down underground. There is said to have
bees seven Jerusalem which have been built aud de-
. stroyed and rebuilt again. The Holy City has a sub
terranean region, many parts of which havo been ex-
! cavated, exposing wonderful ruins. Right under the
temple platform is a catacomb of great tanks, and the
walls are said to go down many feet. There are steps
at one place, and descending them we come into a
- wilderness of vaults, whose roofs are upheld by pll-
lars and arches of stone. Some of the stone blocks
are of enormous size. I have measured one which is
eight feet wide and fifteen feet high. These stones
are beautifully laid. They are closely Joined and
show mechanical Ingenuity in their construction7. The
pillars are about four feet square and some of them
bave boles bored through the corners. It is claimed
that the vaults were constructed by Solomon for his
tables, and that the holes In the columns were the
tying places for the horses. In some of the vaults are
tone mangers, which the guides claim were used long
ago; others say that this stable story is a fiction, and
that the excavations were made in erecting the temple
and the great columns put up to sustain its platform.
But, however that may be. the architecture Is wonder
ful, and It should be considered so now. There are,
altogether, a hundred or more vaults, and the mighty
tones which wall them are so heavy that It would be
Impossible to handle them at the present time without
the use of machinery.
Guarded by Mohammedan Soldiers.
But, before we go farther, I must tell you about
the escort which guards us as we move about this
great Christian shrine. Like the rest of Jerusalem,
It now belongs to the Mohammedans, and is one of the
places which Christians are not permitted to visit
without the permission of the TurkUh governor of the
city. This I have gotten through the American coa
tul. The governor has also given me a Mohammedan
soldier and the consul has sent along his chief kavass,
the two to art as our guards. The soldier has a sword
at his side and the kavaes is armed with a scimitar and
THK
Moriah, Where the Temple of Solomon Stood
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an ebony club, finished at the top in a knob of silver
as big as my fist. The kavass is one of the major
domos, or soldiers of the American consulate. Our
consul has two of them, and they accompany him
wherever he goes upon state occasions. They are tall,
straight Syrians, more gorgeously clad than Solomon
In his glory. They have vests covered with gold em
broidery, coats with long sleeves and trousers of the
zouave order, each leg of which contains enough cloth
to make a trained skirt for a woman. I have made a
photograph of the consul with his kavasses standing
beside him. He looks like a prisoner with the kavasse
as guards.
The Mosque of Omar.
It Is these Mohammedan guides that enable us to
visit the Mosque of Omar, which was supposed by the
Crusaders to be Solomon's temple. It was actually
built as a cathedral by the Christian emperors who
reigned at Constantinople, and is one of the finest
specimens of Byzantine architecture. When it was
constructed it was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, but
about 1,300 years ago, when Omar captured Jerusa-
lem, he turned it Into a Mohammedan mosque, and so
it is to this day.
Imagine a mighty dome of greenish copper, on the
top of which is a golden crescent. Let this be as large
or larger than that of the capitol at Washington and
let it rest upon a vast octagonal temple walled with
tiles so fine that any one of them would be prized as
a piece of rare china. Let there be a dado of marble
below the tiles and a wide frieze above them, inlaid
with Arabic characters containing texts from the
Koran, and let the whole be entered by mighty doors,
over which are arches of carvings, and you have a
faint Idea of the Dome of the Rock, the name by which
this mosque is known.
The Mohammedans Believe in Christ.
Here may be seen striking evidences of the belief
that the Mohammedans hold as to Christ and the
prophets. They believe in Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, and class Jesus as one of the prophets, although
not so high perhaps as Mohammed. In the verses of
the Koran on the front of the mosque is one saying:
"The Messiah, Jesus, is the only son of Mary, the am
bassador of God, and HU word, which He deposited lu
Mary. Believe, then, in God and His ambassador, and
do not maintain that in one there are three." An
other reads: "Blessings be on me in the day of my
birth and my death. He is Jesus, the sou of Mary,
the word of truth, concerning whom some are lu
doubt." There are other passages of the Koran
which give the stories of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
and the Mohammedans reverence this spot in connec
tion with them.
Where Gabriel Will Blow Ills Trumpet.
But let us take off our shoes and go in. The floor
of the mosque is holy ground and none is permitted
to enter except in his stocking or bare feet. The in
side is even more beautiful than that without. The
walls and roofs are a mass of carvings and mosaics.
The mosaic is made up of bits of gold and glass, the
latter of many colors, all so delicately put together
that they form beautiful paintings. Each bit is as big as
the head of a nail, or smaller, and thousands of them
are required to make each of the pictures. The col
umns which uphold the roof are of marble and the
floor Is of marble, carpeted with old rugs from Turkey
and Persia.
Right In the center of the mosque is the huge rock
upon which Abraham built his altar for Isaac, and
upon it the Mohammedans say the angel Gabriel will
stand when he blows the last trumpet calling the peo
ple to judgment. At that time, according to them,
the souls of the human race will rush to this spot and
OMAHA 'srXPAY T.K: NOVEMBER 27.
present themselves before Mohammed and Christ, who
will pass on their virtues and sins. After that all
must go to the pillar of judgment and cross a wire
topo to the Mount of Olives and thence up to heaven
or down into hell. The wicked will fall in the cross
ing. According to another Mohammedan story the
Moslems will be turned into fleas and Mohammed him
self into a sheep, in which shape he will ascend to
heaven with the Mohammedan fleas in his wool.-
The rock is esteemed sacred, by every Mohamme
dan. It is surrounded by an iron stockade, which
none is allowed to enter. The rock is about forty feet
long and sixty feet wide, and it rises about six feet out
of the floor. It fills tb,e whole inclosure and comes so
close to the fence that one can touch It, or, if devout,
as most of the worshiper I saw in the mosque were,
Jupiter the
c
i APTAIN MAXIMILIAN VON ERDMANNS-
DORFF, a retired officer of the German navy
and later a captain in the United States army
during the civil war, now living at Rich Hill,
Mo., has made public a scientific research
he has been preparing for some years. Captain von
Erdmannsdorff is a member of the Catholic church
and an extensive searcher of religion and scientific
subjects, from which he draws his conclusions. He
has, he says, made the discovery of the location of
heaven. It might be well to state that Mr. von Erd-
mannsdorff is not a religious fanatic, and his article
has attracted much attention among the better-read
people of the community. The article follows:
"The soul of a human being Is in his whoie
nervous system. If anyone loses an arm or leg he
will have but one arm or one leg in heaven. Proof:
Apostle St. Thomas wouldn't believe it was Jesus
Christ till he laid his finger in the wound of Jesus.
"The human soul is mostly electricity and mag
netism. Everyone has felt attracted toward someone
else; and when the soul leaves the body it will fly to
the great center of attraction or magnet, which is
heaven and God. The soul will make that journey
Some Freak Misers
The other day an old woman in Plalstow, England,
diod of starvation. She had $750 in gold and notes
in the house at the time, and was possessed of free
hold property besides.
John Elwes, who lived In the eighteenth century,
was a typical instance of the miser, who prefers the
means to the end. When he, possessed of a million
of money, walked the streets of London, philanthropic
people would sometimes thrust a penny Into his hand,
so beggarly and poverty-stricken was his appearance.'
One of the anecdotes told of Elwes is rather pleas
ing. By an accident in the street he received an in
jury to both his legs and a doctor was called In.
Elwes protested that the expense was quite unnec
essary and that he was not much hurt. So he made an
arrangement with the doctor. The doctor was to take
one leg and treat it as he lined. Elwes would take
the other leg and do nothing to it. And he would
bet the doctor the amount of his bill that the untended
leg got well first. He used to boast afterward that
he beat the doctor by a fortnight.
Hume tells of a miser who, ou his deathbed, sum
moned the magistrates and said he would leave them
100 for charitable purposes. No sooner had they
gone than he had them recalled to know if they would
takve 5 off for ready money.
Anotjier miser rue-ant to disappoint his natural
heirs and leave his money to a hospital. But the hos
pital had to pay for the drawlng-up of the will, as he
would have died intestate sooner than face the ex
pense himself. Hume declares that avarice la the
"only one viee which may be found la life with as
strong features and as high a coloring as need be em
ployed by any satirli-t or comic poet." New York
World,
1910.
can put his mouth through the bars and impress a kisJ
on it.
As we walk about the fence examining the rock
our turban guide shows us its wonders. "Here," says
he, pointing to a round, hole in one of the sides, "Is
the mark of Mohammed's heel. It was from that spot
that the holy prophet ascended to heaven, and as he
rose the rock started to go up with him, holding fast
to his heel. The Angel Gabriel had to put his hand
upon it to keep it down, and here," pointing to five
curious marks, "are the places where Gabriel's fingers
rested when he did so."
A little further on the guide tells us that this rock
is the center of the earth, and that some believe it to
be, also, the gate of hell. He shows us a plate of jas
per as big as a checkerboard, in which are three
Future Heaven
inside of twenty-four hours. Proof: Jesus said to
the repentant sinner, crucified alongside of him, "To
day you will be with me in paradise." Also In
twenty-four hours.
"Where Is heaven? Can it be situated on our
sun? The sun Is turning around himself about every
ten days; he is slowly cooling off; large continents,
so-called sun spots, are forming on his surface, only
to be engulfed again Boon. Fire and gases shoot up
thousands and thousands of miles, particularly when
one of those sun spots sinks. There is no ghost of a
chance for a ghost to exist on our sun, or on any other
sun of I the universe. So we may eliminate our sun
and all other suns as a fixed place for heaven.
"It is obvious that the Inrerlor or inside planets,
Venus, Mercury, Vulcan and Titian, are all too small.
"We now will examine the superior planets. Mars
is the next; he is smaller than our earth and by his
red light and other signs show that he Is in a dying
condition, though he is likely inhabited the same as
Venus, we pass him by.
"Now comes Jupiter, the largest of all our planets.
He turns around himself in nine hours, fifty-five mln
utps twenty-seven seconds, so he has a day of about
five hours, which beats the eight-hour day all to
pieces. He has five moons to light the night. He is
1,330 times as large as our earth in volume, four
fifths as dense as our earth; and, not solid enough for
human beings, there Is enough to give every ghost a
150-acre homestead. He has the best climate, a per
petual spring, like our May, about 75 to 80 degrees
Fahrenheit, because his axis stands only in an angle
of 2 degrees 30 minutes to the plane of the Jupiter
ecliptic, to our earth's axis of 23,4 degrees at present
to the earth's ecliptic plane. On account of Jupiter's
large size and rapid rotation anyone can fly near the
equator of Jupiter without an aeroplane. If our
earth would turn seyenteen times as fast as now
everything would be flying away fn space. Jupiter
has an atmosphere, but on account of his perpetual
spring, storms and high winds are not possible. Trees
must be of immense size, also there must be plenty
of flowers.
"Jupiter's distance from the earth is between
310,000,000 to 516,000,000 miles, and our soul would
have to fly only 6,972 miles per second to get there
inside of twenty-four hours. This is less than the
yelocity of electricity, 25,000 miles, or of light, which
is 164,000 miles per second. Jupiter has 4,400
eclipses of the moon and as many of the sun. There
probably will be many heavens, maybe one for each
solar system, and we may go visiting the same by and
by. For the people of our earth there is but one
heaven, and that is on Jupiter.
' "God rules the universe by the laws of nature and
the chemical actions; automatically each soul will find
Its place through the law of 'par pari gaudet.'
"Beiween Mars and Jupiter there are over eighty
Btnaller planets or planetoids. During her Journey
through the planetary atmosphere, which Is one two
thousandth part as dense as earth's atmosphere, the
soul will probably gather the substance for her celes
tial body.
"The soul will have to stay on one of the above
planetoids till she purges herself of all slcs, and when
troug enough fly over to Jupiter.'
golden nails, saying that the plate originally contained
nineteen nallB which Mohammed had driven Into it.
One nail drops out at the end of each age, and when
the last nail is gone the end of the world will occur.
The guide offered to let me pull out the last three
nails for a dollar apiece, but I have no desire to hasten
the judgment day, and, therefore, refused. In that
way, perhaps, I saved the world.
"The devil got at this plate one day," so our con
sular kavass tells me, "and was jerking out the nails
at a great rate when the Angel Gabriel caught him and
pulled hlin away." These stories are silly, but they
are only a few of many which are told us when we are
inside the mosque. Nevertheless the average Moham
medan of this side of the world believes them, and we
see gray-bearded, long-gowned turbaned men and
white-sheeted veiled women praying ever these holy
places. They kiss the marks of Mohammed's foot
prints and run their handkerchiefs and beards over
the rock. They pray as they do so, for Mohammed
said that one prayer here is worth a thousand Uttered
anywhere else, and Jie prayed here himself.
Solomon's Temple. 1
The greatest interest of Mount Moriah, however,
is connected with the fact that we know this was the
actual site of Solomon's temple as well as that of the
two other temples which succeeded it. The first house
of God erected by the Israelites was the tabernacle.
This was constructed at the direction of Moses in the
Desert of Sinai just after he had received the com
mandments. It Is said to have been Just about half
the size of the temple of Solomon, although there are
passages in the scriptures which lead us to think the
temple must have been very much larger. The taber
nacle was a movable building. It was about fifty feet
long and sixteen or seventeen feet wide. The roof
and walls were formed of curtains made of linen or
wool beautifully sewed, fastened in places with
gold buckles. There were also curtains of
goat's hair and of ram's wool dyed red. Some sup
pose the roof of the tabernacle to have been flat, and
others that it was ridged like a tent, with a cube In
side about sixteen feet square, which was the holy of
holies. In the latter was the ark of the covenant and
the table of the law.
How Built.
Solomon's temple was planned by David, and it is
eald that he collected much of the materials. As to
Solomon himself, he made a bargain with Hiram, king
of Tyre, to aid him in supplying the timber and cer
tain classes of the mechanism. Hiram was a Phoeni
cian king, who lived up the coast and who controlled
the forests of Lebanon. He gave Solomon a conces
sion of certain tracts of cedar and fir, and, Solomon
sent men iu parties of 10,000 each to the mountains
to cut down the trees. The servants of Hiram aided
them, and it Is said that they carried the lumber to
the shores of the Mediterranean and floated it down
to Jaffa, whence It was carried up to Jersusalem, about
forty miles inland. It is stated that Solomon annu
ally gave King Hiram 20,000 measures of wheat and
twenty measures of oil as his part of the contract, and
that the two kings were associated together.
The first temple was begun by Solomon just 2,915
years ago, and it took seevn years to build it. I have
translated some of its dimensions Into feet, taking the
cubit, which was then the unit of measurement, . as
twenty Inches. The cubit was a measure as long as
the distance from a man's elbow to the tip of the mid
dle finger, and it varies from eighteen to twenty-one
inches. At twenty inches the ground plan of the tem
ple was sixty-six feet wide and 133 feet long, and, ac
cording to some statements, its height was fifty feet,
although one of the roofs rose eight feet and the other
sixteen above the inside walls. There is another place
in the Bible in which it Is stated that the height of the
porch was 120 cubits, which would make it 200 feet
high.
The Temple of Herod.
The Temple of Solomon had long disappeared be
fore Christ was born. Iwas destroyed by Nebuchad
nezzer, 506 B. C. aud a new building was not erected
until the Jews came back from their captivity at
Babylon. This was also destroyed many years later
and a third and last temple was erected by Herod the
Great eighteen years before Christ was born. It was
in that temple that occurred the scenes of Christ's
ministry. It was there that He talked with the priests
as a boy of 12, and from there He drove out the
money changers.
The Temple of Herod Is said to have been much
finer than Solomon's. It has been described by Jose
phuB, who probably had a ground plan of the building
before him when he wrote, and who says that the
spare which it covered was about twice as large as
that of the old temple. It was much the tame style
as the Temple of Solomon, but its approaches were
more Imposing, and It probably displayed all the archi
tectural beauties of the time, which was one of mag
nificent buildings. FRANK G. CARPENTER.