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 Ten Commandments. They 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 mosque on the top of Moriah. There is also a Jewish tradition that as the Lord saw the solid earth rising out of chaos He blessed these two spots and said: “They shall be great in the history of the human race, which I shall create, and upon one of them shall my holy city be built.” Mount Moriah is on the eastern edge of Jerusalem proper. It is just opposite the Mount of Olives and above the Garden of Gethsemane across the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Its top is a plateau containing thirty-five acres, or about one seventh of the whole of Jerusalem, inside the walls. The walls partially bound this plateau, and in them at the northeast corner of the city is the gate through which St. Stephen is said to have passed when he was stoned to death by the Jews. Across from the plateau and far down below it is the Jews’ wailing place. Hugging it on the west, south, and north are the box-shaped limestone houses which form the greater part of Jerusalem. In going to it we leave our hotel on Mount Zion and make our way down David Street through a horde of pilgrims of all colours and races. We pass the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, go through a bazaar where men and women, sitting on the ground, are selling glass bracelets and beads from Hebron, past shops selling candles to be burnt at the tomb of our Saviour, and on through a vaulted tunnel-like street which was once the cotton bazaar, but which now sells everything else. Ascending a stairway at the end of this tunnel, we find ourselves on the plateau now occupied by the Mosque of Omar, but formerly the site of the Temple of Solomon. This plateau rises in terraces. We come first on to the level, 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. In the latter court stood the open-air altar for burnt offerings, the very rock upon which Abraham tied Isaac when he was about to sacrifice him in obedience to the Lord’s command.