This is the real thing,--a plain gray limestone rock, level and fairly smooth, the unchanged summit of Mount Moriah. Here the priest-king Melchizedek offered sacrifice. Here Abraham, in the cruel fervour of his faith, was about to slay his only son Isaac because he thought it would please Jehovah. Here Araunah the Jebusite threshed his corn on the smooth rock and winnowed it in the winds of the hilltop, until King David stepped over from Mount Zion, and bought the threshing-floor and the oxen of him for fifty shekels of silver, and built in this place an altar to the Lord. Here Solomon erected his splendid Temple and the Chaldeans burned it. Here Zerubbabel built the second Temple after the return of the Jews from exile, and Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated it, and Herod burned part of it and pulled down the rest. Here Herod built the third Temple, larger and more magnificent than the first, and the soldiers of the Emperor Titus burned it. Here the Emperor Hadrian built a temple to Jupiter and himself, and some one, perhaps the Christians, burned it. Here Mohammed came to pray, declaring that one prayer here was worth a thousand elsewhere. Here the Caliph Omar built a little wooden mosque, and the Caliph Abd-el-Melik replaced it with this great one of marble, and the Crusaders changed it into a Christian temple, and Saladin changed it back again into a mosque. This Haram-esh-Sherif is the second holiest place in the Moslem world. Hither come the Mohammedan pilgrims by thousands, for the sake of Mohammed. Hither come the Christian pilgrims by thousands, for the sake of Him who said: "Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father." Hither the Jewish pilgrims never come, for fear their feet may unwittingly tread upon "the Holy of Holies," and defile it; but they creep outside of the great inclosure, in the gloomy trench beside the foundation stones of the wall, mourning and lamenting for the majesty that is departed and the Temple that is ground to powder. But amid all these changes and perturbations, here stands the good old limestone rock, the threshing-floor of Araunah, the capstone of the hill, waiting for the sun to shine and the dews to fall on it once more, as they did when the foundations of the earth were laid. The legend says that you can hear the waters of the flood roaring in an abyss underneath the rock. I laid my ear against the rugged stone and listened. What sound? Was it the voice of turbulent centuries and the lapsing tides of men? II GOLGOTHA "We ought to go again to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre," said the Lady in a voice of dutiful reminder, "we have not half seen it." So we went down to the heart of Jerusalem and entered the labyrinthine shrine.