those that fought for them, and make slaves of their children.

As yet undaunted, the besieged held out through four months more; but then seeing that the Saracens would not relinquish the prize, but bring up reinforcements, and continue the attack as long as necessary to wear out the Christians, the Patriarch Sophronius went to the wall, and held a parley with Abu-Obeidah. Their conclusion was, that the city should be surrendered upon condition that the inhabitants received articles of security and protection from the hands of the Caliph Omar himself, and not from any deputy.

Intelligence of this proposal came to Omar at Medina, and, considering the great respect which the Christians had for their Holy City, he thought it not beneath his dignity to go thither, and take possession. Mounted on a red camel, carrying provisions before him and luggage behind him, in Eastern simplicity, rather than Eastern pomp, the old Caliph set out from his own sacred city. Travelling by easy stages, and administering justice at his pleasure, and with a very high hand, in every place, he approached Jerusalem. And it was on this journey, we may note, that the Caliph pronounced a law still in force in all Mohammedan countries, although its execution in Turkey is for the present suspended,—that every one who embraced the religion of Mohammed, and afterwards returned to his original religion, should be put to death.

A brief parley with Sophronius was enough to settle the conquest of Jerusalem. Omar, with his own hand, wrote these few words :

"In the name of the God of mercy, the Merciful.

"From Omar, son of the scribe, to the people of the city of Ælia, is granted security for their persons, and their children, and their wives, and their goods, and all their temples. The temples shall not be destroyed, and shall not be emptied."

This was a grant of life, but there was no guarantee for liberty; and the articles which he had imposed on Damascus, and which are still the law of oppression over

all the lands conquered from Christendom, became binding on the people of Jerusalem.

The gates were thrown open, and Omar, followed by Abu-Obeidah and the army, entered without bloodshed. Sophronius received his new master, and attended him in a visit to the church of the Resurrection. While they were there, the time came for prayer, according to Mohammedan custom; and the Caliph, standing still, said to the Patriarch, "I wish to pray." "O Emir of the believers, pray where thou art," answered Sophronius. But, remembering the promise he had just written, Omar only answered, “Lá,”—"No." Hurrying to the door, he knelt on one of the steps outside, and recited the accustomed prayer. Then, sitting down, he said to the Patriarch, "If I had prayed in the temple, the Moslems would have come after me, and taken possession of it, saying, 'Omar prayed here.' And then he wrote down an order, forbidding every Moslem to pray upon that step, except it were one by himself alone: nor might they use force, in order to pray there, nor stand there to publish for prayers. "But show me," said he, "a place where I may build a mosque."

Sophronius led him at once to the open space on Mount Moriah, where the first and second temples, that of Solomon and that of Herod, had stood. In contempt of the Jews, the Christians emptied into the desolated place the rubbish of the city; and perhaps to prevent the conqueror from refusing the offer of such a site, and demanding another, to the greater injury of the city, the Patriarch told him of a stone (sakhrat) that, according to tradition, marked the spot where Jacob was when God spake with him. Omar bade him point out the stone; but it was covered with rubbish. That mattered little. The Caliph reverently took up some dirt in his mantle. The Moslems did the same, and in a very short time the stone was clear and clean. Omar then gave orders to lay the foundations of a great mosque around it, and soon arose the edifice that still bears his name.

After taking this account of the founding of the mosque

Historia Saracenica, à Georgio Elmacino Arabicè exarata. Lib. 1.

of Omar from the Arabian historian, El Makeen, we borrow a description of its present state from the pen of a gentleman who visited Jerusalem in the year 1849, and had an exterior view of the building from the roof of the Governor's house."

"The enclosed area on which the mosque stands, called El-Haram-Schereef, (the noble place of retirement,) is about five hundred and twenty paces in length, and three hundred and seventy in breadth; the walls of the city form its boundary on the east and south; the western side is enclosed by Turkish houses, occupied by the attendants on the mosques, and schools for children; and on the northern side are some houses, and a wall with three gates. There are several slender minarets in the area, (a privilege confined to royal mosques,) and it is beautifully planted with cypresses, orange-trees, mulberries, and other shrubs. This is a favourite place of resort with the Moslem ladies. A considerable portion of this area is supported by large subterraneous vaults, originally formed of fifteen rows of square pillars, measuring about five feet on a side, built of large bevelled stones. These structures, erected on the slope of Mount Moriah, for the purpose of forming a level area, extend further than is yet known, and were most probably the work of Solomon. There are several large cisterns beneath the area; and a fountain springs up from a great depth under the mosque, communicating with a Turkish bath, situated near the wall of the area.

"In the centre of the area stands the celebrated mosque, founded by the great Caliph Omar, when he took possession of Jerusalem, A.D. 637. The site was, at that time, used by the Christians as a depository for the filth and offal of the city, by which they manifested their contempt for the Jews. The mosque was converted into a church by the Crusaders, but restored by Saladin to its original destination. It is called SAKHRAT by the Moslems, in consequence of a large mass of rough calcareous rock lying in the centre, held in extraordinary veneration, under the name

• Journal of a Deputation sent to the East by the Committee of the Malta Protestant College, in 1849. By a Lay Member of the Committee. (A. Crawford, Esq., M.D.)

of Hadjar-el-Sakhrat, 'locked-up stone:' it is second in sanctity only to the black stone of Mecca, because, among various other traditions, it is believed to have fallen from heaven, to have been the rock on which the angel of death sat when God, by commanding the angel to sheathe his sword, stayed the pestilence He had sent among the Israelites, in consequence of David's presumptuous numbering of the people,-and to have been the rock, also, from which Mahomet, after his night-journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, ascended up to heaven.

"Although the mosque is a beautiful specimen of light and elegant Arabic architecture, its splendour has been greatly exaggerated, and falls infinitely short of the conceptions to be formed, from the narrations of Scripture, of the magnificence and glory of the temple of Solomon, the place of which it occupies. In the wall bounding the great area, on the side corresponding to the Mount of Olives, is a gate, believed to occupy the situation of the Golden Gate of Solomon's temple, through which our Saviour made His triumphant entry from the Mount of Olives. But this gate is kept blocked up, owing to a prophecy or superstition among the Moslems, that it is through this gate the conqueror will enter, who is to overthrow their dominion in Jerusalem. When the gate was formerly open, the Armenian Bishop, on the day of palms, followed by a procession, rode through it in triumph, seated upon an ass, in imitation of our Lord; but it has been shut since the Crusaders made their entrance into Jerusalem by the gates of Stephen and Damascus. On the south side of the enclosure is another mosque, named El-Aksa, of great antiquity, and held in high veneration, belonging to the sect Shafei. Besides these mosques, there are several small oratories, and a handsome marble fountain for ablutions.

"Christians and Jews are forbidden to enter these hallowed premises, under penalty of death, unless by special permission, which is scarcely ever granted. The fanatic Moslems would immediately surround and murder any one not holding their creed, whom they found within the gates of the enclosure: the English physician to the British

hospital, Dr. M'Gowan, was assaulted and dangerously wounded, a few years since, though he only ventured within the precincts at the earnest entreaty of one of the Moslems residing there, to visit a dying Turk. How painful and humiliating to behold a place so sacred to every Christian heart-consecrated once by the name of the living God, Jehovah-Jireh, and hallowed for ages by His presence between the cherubim in His holy templenow trodden only by those who openly deny Him in His character of God, manifest in the flesh,' and cast contempt upon His glorious work of redeeming love! What an instructive example does this furnish of the literal fulfilment of the following awful judgments, delivered by the Prophet of God, about five centuries before their execution:-

"The Lord hath cast off His altar, He hath abhorred His sanctuary, * He hath violently taken away His tabernacle, He hath destroyed His places of the 'I will bring the worst of the Heathen, and they shall possess their houses, and their holy places shall be defiled.' The mountain of the house is

assembly.'

become as the high place of the forest.'

"This referred, no doubt, to the fact, that the site of His holy sanctuary should be occupied by a temple resembling those erected by the Heathens in groves and forests on the hills."

GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES.

No fact of history is more notorious than the persecution of Galileo by the Roman Inquisition. Galileo believed that the earth revolves round the sun, and taught accordingly. The Church of Rome had never so taught,-and to this day only condescends to say that this opinion of the earth's motion may be tolerated,-and therefore forbade the philosopher to disturb the common persuasion that the earth, not the sun, was in the centre of the solar system. A complete account of what passed between Galileo and the Inquisitors cannot be expected; but the readers of the "Youth's Instructer"