THE MYSTERY OF THE WAILING WALL

The prayer of Solomon concerning the Temple precincts could not have been more emphatic.

“Whatsoever plague or whatsoever sickness there be; what prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man his own plague and his own sorrow, and shall spread forth his hands toward this house : then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive” (2 Chron. 6: 28). Nor could the response of Jehovah have been more explicit. “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent, unto the prayer that is made in this place” (2 Chron. 7: 14).

Now we turn to the modern facts. Under Constantine the banished Jews were allowed to climb the neighbouring hills and look on the Holy City from afar, and later they were suffered to enter Jerusalem once a year to kiss the foundations of the Temple. For the last seven centuries they have given grudging access to a few stones where the Moslems, beneath their great dome, have the very rock of sacrifice which was once the open threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, which David bought to make an altar to the Lord, and which was the altar-place of the Temples of Solomon and Herod.

The Wailing Wall is very closely connected in the minds of pious Jews with the former greatness of their race because it is an actual relic of King Solomon, and because no pious Jew will approach the Rock of Sacrifice for fear of treading upon the forbidden site of the Holy of Holies. For more than 50 yards stretches the wall itself, representing as it does the last visible masonry of Herod’s Temple . For nearly 60 ft. above rise its giant blocks of limestone, some of them 15ft. and 16ft. long. “Is there a prayer,” askes the Times (Aug. 26, 1929), “sadder and more pathetic than that quoted in this letter, in which they mourn the departed glories of their race in language scarce less sublime than that of their own sacred writings? ‘For the Temple that was destroyed,’ ‘for our majesty that is departed,’ ‘for our great men who lie dead,’ ‘for our Kings who have despised Him, we sit and mourn.’”

It is a pathetic tragedy. “I have witnessed,” says C. B. Mortlock, “no spectacle more moving than that at Wailing Wall. All the sorrow of the ages seems to be expressed in the plaintive music of the chant.” “Leaning against wall,” says Mr G. E. Arrowsmith, “in all sorts of dejected attitudes are a number of men, women, and children, some weeping piteously, others mumbling prayers, and yet others quietly fingering their Hebrew Scriptures. It will be many a day before I can forget those sad and haunted faces that glimmered beneath the wall of Herod’s Temple or free my ears from the mournful cadence of their cries.”

YET JEHOVAH IS SILENT, AND THE HEAVENS ARE BRASS. There is but one solution of the mystery, and it holds in the hollow of its palm the proof of the Christian Faith. “His blood be upon us, and upon our children!” was Israel's cry; and if the Blood does not cover in Atonement, it envelops in wrath: Calvary is the damnosa hereditas of the Jew, and only when they hail Him whom they pierced can the awful self-imprecation be cancelled. “We cannot yet see,” says Mr. M. L. Maxwell, the head of the Jerusalem Mission, “anything in the nature of a national turning to Jesus Christ as to their Messiah. But it may be significant that in many cases the Jews living in this city are painting up large crosses over their houses, in order to shelter under the sign of the Cross. It may be that some of them will come to seek refuge under the Blood of the Cross, which until quite recently they despised, and of which many of them had a superstitious dread.”

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AN EPISCOPAL MANIFESTO

(By the Bishops of the Southern Methodist Church.)

The first, the, essential mission of the Church of Jesus Christ is to proclaim the message of the love of God for lost, sinful men and women. If the world is not lost, the Church has no mission. If the world is not lost, Jesus Christ is not the Divine Saviour. If the world is not lost, Christ's declarations of search and sacrifice for the lost are meaningless and futile. “There is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved.”

This is the one, the vital word we bring to-day to all our people, ministers and laymen. Every other matter however important must give precedence to the earnest, sincere, vigorous, church-wide proclamation of this old-fashioned, unchangeable, uncompromising, loving, saving gospel:- Sin, conviction of sin; repentance with godly sorrow, and forsaking of sin; acceptance of Christ - “The Lamb of God” as the only, the all-sufficient Saviour from the guilt and power of sin, eternal life, over-coming, victorious, triumphant as the privilege and joy of the child of God, who has come back from the far country and is once more in the Father's House.

The Son of God

I was brought up in a strictly orthodox Jewish home. The name of Jesus was never mentioned. Never had I heard the story of Jesus, and yet, I hated Him. I sometimes think I must have drunk in a hatred of Him at my mother’s breasts - always I hated Him, perhaps even before I was born.

About six years ago I was in an automobile accident, and sustained a broken leg. I was taken to a hospital, and remained there for forty-five and a half weeks. While in this hospital and only a short time after my entrance, one morning I found myself, amidst my much suffering, asking, of myself, of course, this question, “Is Jesus the Son of God?” To say I was shocked would be putting it mildly. How such an unheard-of thing should ever have come into my mind I could not imagine; I remember I gasped. I wanted to put this thought from me, but to no avail. The question, and that with renewed persistency, was ever before me: “Is Jesus the Son of God?” I was in despair. My suffering at this time was intense. Nevertheless, amidst this great suffering and the awful anticipation of my leg being amputated (to my hip) the question was most vividly in my thoughts, “Is Jesus the Son of God?”

Finally, in much distress of mind, and no little physical pain, I cried out- “God! if you had a Son, show Him to Me.” And praise His Name, you know He did. I had a vision he is Lord Jesus. He held out His hands, oh, His voice was sweet as He said, “Come, Sadie, fear not.” I believed immediately; what else could I do? Yet I was not saved for five years. Then - I saw! I saw that the Lord of Glory had been nailed to the tree, because of sins. It was for me that He had willingly given the last drop of blood in His body. - SADIE SCHWARTZ.*

[*The Jewish Era.]