yet have there been festive throngs like those joyous hundreds of thousands who, with

their hymns of praise, crowded towards the city on the eve of a Passover. No wonder

that the song burst from the lips of those pilgrims:

'Still stand our feet Within thy gates, Jerusalem! Jerusalem, ah! thou art built

As a city joined companion-like together.' Psalm 122:2,3

From whatever side the pilgrim might approach the city, the first impression must have

been solemn and deep. But a special surprise awaited those who came, whether from

Jericho or from Galilee, by the well-known road that led over the Mount of Olives. From

the south, beyond royal Bethlehem--from the west, descending over the heights of

Beth-horon--or from the north, journeying along the mountains of Ephraim, they would

have seen the city first vaguely looming in the grey distance, till, gradually approaching,

they had become familiar with its outlines. It was far otherwise from the east. A turn in

the road, and the city, hitherto entirely hid from view, would burst upon them suddenly,

closely, and to most marked advantage. It was by this road Jesus made His triumphal

entry from Bethany on the week of His Passion. Up from 'the house of dates' the broad,

rough road would round the shoulder of Olivet. Thither the wondering crowd from

Bethany followed Him, and there the praising multitude from the city met Him. They had

come up that same Olivet, so familiar to them all. For did it not seem almost to form part

of the city itself, shutting it off like a screen from the desert land that descended beyond

to Jordan and the Dead Sea?

From the Temple Mount to the western base of Olivet, it was not more than 100 or 200

yards straight across, though, of course, the distance to the summit was much greater,

say about half a mile. By the nearest pathway it was only 918 yards from the city gate to

the principal summit.1

Olivet was always fresh and green, even in earliest spring or during parched summer--

the coolest, the pleasantest, the most sheltered walk about Jerusalem. For across this

road the Temple and its mountain flung their broad shadows, and luxuriant foliage

spread a leafy canopy overhead. They were not gardens, in the ordinary Western sense,

through which one passed, far less orchards; but something peculiar to those climes,

where Nature everywhere strews with lavish hand her flowers, and makes her gardens--

where the garden bursts into the orchard, and the orchard stretches into the field, till,

high up, olive and fig mingle with the darker cypress and pine. The stony road up Olivet

wound along terraces covered with olives, whose silver and dark green leaves rustled in

the breeze. Here gigantic gnarled fig -trees twisted themselves out of rocky soil; there

clusters of palms raised their knotty stems high up into waving plumed tufts, or spread,

bush-like, from the ground, the rich-coloured fruit bursting in clusters from the pod.

Then there were groves of myrtle, pines, tall, stately cypresses, and on the summit itself

two gigantic cedars. To these shady retreats the inhabitants would often come from

Jerusalem to take pleasure or to meditate, and there one of their most celebrated Rabbis

was at one time wont in preference to teach.2 Thither, also, Christ with His disciples

often res orted.

Coming from Bethany the city would be for some time completely hidden from view by

the intervening ridge of Olivet. But a sudden turn of the road, where 'the descent of the

Mount of Olives' begins, all at once a first glimpse of Jerusalem is caught, and that quite

close at hand. True, the configuration of Olivet on the right would still hide the Temple

and most part of the city; but across Ophel, the busy suburb of the priests, the eye

might range to Mount Zion, and rapidly climb its height to where Herod's palace

covered the site once occupied by that of David. A few intervening steps of descent,

where the view of the city has again been lost, and the pilgrim would hurry on to that