Standing in such a cavern, where the light and darkness alternately chase each other, where no sound is heard save the measured tramp of pilgrim feet on the marble floor above, and where History silently but triumphantly points to her works in confirmation of her story, the mind is filled with admiration for the past. Of all the works of Solomon, there is nothing remaining which so impressively reflects his wonderful intellect, and so truly conveys to the mind an idea of his unbounded resources as this lake. Of its antiquity there can be no doubt; as to its design there can be no dispute; and of the glory it reflects upon the memory of its founder there can be no diversity of opinion. It was seen and described by Aristeas in the century preceding Christ, and it is subsequently mentioned by the Mishna, by Tacitus, and the Jerusalem Itinerary, and it now invites the modern traveler to its cavernous depths to drink of its crystal water, and thereby confirm those traditions which the lapse of time had transformed into fables.[130] Though permitted to explore the Temple area the second time, yet I reluctantly left a spot where of old God had appeared to his people, and where the Redeemer often taught as one having authority. And where, on earth, have occurred events of greater grandeur and of more powerful influence? Within an area of less than forty acres the history of our religion may be said to have occurred, and there all that is now real in our faith was once foreshadowed by the most costly and imposing symbols; and to-day Moriah bears testimony no less to the fulfillment of the prophetic judgments demanded against her than to the veracity of her historians. In less than forty years after the Savior’s prediction of the destruction of the Temple, his words were fulfilled by Titus, who left the holy fane a mass of scorched and smoking ruins; and now spanning the Appian Way in ancient Rome, the Arch of Titus remains the monument of his terrible work. After a period of desolation lasting seventy years, the Emperor Adrian rebuilt Jerusalem, calling it _Ælia Capitolina_――the former after the family name of the emperor, and the latter in honor of Jupiter Capitolinus. Plowing up the surface of the area, he erected on the site of the Jewish Temple one to Jupiter, which he adorned with the colossal statue of himself, placing the equestrian one on the very site of the “Holy of Holies.” Nearly two and a half centuries later the Jews were permitted, by Julian the Apostate, to rebuild their Holy House, but they were deterred in the attempt by flames of fire bursting suddenly out from the earth upon them, and by other manifestations of the divine displeasure. For more than 150 years subsequently nothing is recorded of the Temple area till the middle of the sixth century, when the Emperor Justinian ordered the erection thereon of his magnificent church to the Virgin Mary, which, in 636 A.D., Omar converted into the Mosque of El-Aksa, and upon