From Dan to Beersheba: A Description of the Wonderful Land, with Maps and Engravings and a Prologue by the Author Containing the Latest Explorations and DiscoveriesNewman, John Philip
Religion
From Dan to Beersheba: A Description of the Wonderful Land, with Maps and Engravings and a Prologue by the Author Containing the Latest Explorations and Discoveries
Newman, John Philip
Palestine -- Description and travel
For more than forty years the light of a pure Christianity has
been shining upon the city of David, dispelling the mists of error,
revealing new forms of moral beauty, and lighting up the path of life.
In 1841, the European mission to Jerusalem was modified and its several
branches united under a common head, whose episcopal supervision
includes Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Abyssinia.
Uniting in this religious compact, England and Prussia agreed that the
diocesan bishop should be nominated alternately by the sovereigns of
the two kingdoms, with the right of veto invested in the Archbishop
of Canterbury as to the Prussian nominee. The only stipulations in
the contract are the right to alternate with the British sovereign
in appointing the incumbent of the Episcopal see, and the use of the
cathedral when not occupied by the English Christians. True to her
traditional policy to gain all things and lose nothing by her treaties,
England consented, and the treaty was ratified. To support the bishop,
the late Frederick William of Prussia funded $75,000, and England
contributes annually a sum equal to the interest on the above amount.
The foundation stone of the new Protestant Cathedral was laid by Bishop
Alexander in 1842, on Mount Zion, and consecrated to God on the 1st of
January, 1849. To comply with the exacting conditions imposed by the
Turkish government, the church was built in connection with the English
consulate. It is now called “Christ Church,” and is an elegant Gothic
structure of yellow limestone, capable of accommodating 300 persons.
Attached to it is a large plat of ground, occupied by residences and
offices for the clergy and agents of the mission. Bishop Gobart, the
present incumbent of the see, is a man of genuine Episcopal dignity;
his face is kind and intelligent; his heart has the pathos of a woman’s.
His Easter sermon was simple, tender, evangelical. He enlists your
attention by the tenderness of his tones, and melts you to tears by the
depth of his emotion. He is a Christian of large charities, maintaining
out of his ample income several schools in different parts of Palestine.
He is assisted by the Rev. Mr. Hefter, an eminent scholar and a
thorough gentleman, and by the Rev. Dr. Sandriczki, who has the general
oversight of the literature of the mission. Near the church on Mount
Zion is the Bible House, well supplied with the precious Word of Life.
Not far from it is the female school, containing thirty native pupils;
and beyond the wall on Zion, in a substantial stone building, is the
male department, in which eighty boys were being educated for Christ by
five Christian teachers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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