Identifier: winterpilgrimage00hagg (find matches)
Title: A winter pilgrimage : being an account of travels through Palestine, Italy, and the island of Cyprus, accomplished in the year 1900
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider), 1856-1925
Subjects:
Publisher: London New York Bombay : Longmans, Green, and Co.
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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ered theplace, where we found ourselves quite alone. It is spa-cious with a great dome; its windows are full of lovelyand ancient stained glass; its walls set with harmoniousEastern tiles; its floors covered with rich carpets. Un-derneath the dome, fifty feet or more in length, sur-rounded by an old iron screen and one of wood, standsthe sacred rock, where Abraham is said to have madeready Isaac for slaughter, where, too, as seems to begenerally admitted, stood the Jewish altar of Sacrificefor many generations. Indeed there is a hole piercedthrough its centre that received, it is thought, theblood of the victims, which was carried away by thedrains beneath. Some fine, natural instinct, or perhaps a priestly tra-dition, caused the Hebrews to leave that rock untouched.Except for the steps cut on it by the Crusaders it ismuch as Nature made it in the beginning, and doubtlessso it will remain until the end. Millions of years ago itwas heaved up in the first cataclysms of the universe. 272
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uo Q w U < w KH O HU W eaO fa co THE NOBLE SANCTUAKY 273 Thousands, or millions of years hence it will crumbleand disappear in the last general catastrophe. Thesacred associations that make it famous above everyother stone in the world—even that of Mecca—willcling, as it were, to but one hour of the immeasur-able aeons during which it is destined to endure.Through long, long epochs it must have been but a rockupon a mountain breast. Through other epochs yet tocome again it may be but a rock upon a mountainbreast. But for two thousand years or so it was theAltar of God, that atom of His wide creation from whichHis chosen people offered Him praise and incense, sym-bolised in their burnt sacrifices. This rugged mass ofstone impressed me more than all the vaunted gloriesof the Noble Sanctuary. Also it is a true relic. Thecourts, the walls, the columns, they have vanished everyone. No trace of them is left above the ground. Yet thatrock of ages still remains, the only thing, as I su

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