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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (July 20, 1919)
THE SUNDAY OREGOMAX, PORTLAND, , JULY - SO, 1919. CHRISTIAN CHURCH EVER DEFIES MOSLEM Light Burns for 13 Centuries Where Moses Met God. BURNING BUSH SITE HERE Cniperor Justinian Builder of Im pregnable Cathedral That Sur rounds Sacred Edifice. BT WILLIAM T. ELLIS. (Copyright. 1U19, by the New York Herald Company All Right Reserved.) tCopyright, Canada, by the New York Herald Company.) ST. CATHERINE'S MONASTERY, ML Sinai, June 15. Dead ruins are com moner than live institutions in the Near East; but here at the foot of Mount Sinai is a living: memorial of the dis tant past. Far off in the midst of the wilderness that is bounded by the Med iterranean on the north, by the Suez canal on the west, by the Gulf of Akaba and Palestine on the east and by the Red Sea on the south, is something unique a church and a monastery in a citadel that have been uninterrupted ly alive and used for the same purpose for more than 1300 years. Not once in all these centuries, say the monks, has the light been extin guished that still burns in the chapel built by St. Helena, mother of Constan tino the Great, on the traditional site of the burning bush where Moses heard the voice of Jehovah. That light appeals to the imagina tion. It is still primitive a floating wick in a glass lamp filled with olive OIL The gray groves of olive trees in the neighboring garden furnish the oil; a bit of twisted moss will serve as a wick; and there has never lacked a devotee to keep the supply of these local materials replenished. Genera tion after generation, century after century, age after age, that tiny flame has continued to shine in beautiful symbolism. Little Light Outshines the Great. During the life of this one small light all the great lights of the world have flickered or smoldered or gone out. This flame has seen the glorious beacon that was Grecian civilization extinguished by the blackness of bar barism. Rome's far-flaring torch shriveled up and guttered out while this tireless little flame held its wor shipful vigil. Venice, Genoa, Spain, Portugal, all rose in splendor and de clined in decay while the feeble and forgotten light at Sinai's foot still shone on. Mohammedanism swept across western Asia, northern Africa and eastern Europe, trampling under foot all lights except its own; this re mote Christian shrine alone escaped, while the most famous churches of Christendom had their crosses sup planted by the crescent of the prophet. Before ever England was, or France or Germany, or any other nations of the modern world, and a thousand years before the dreaming Genoan pushed the prows of his little caravels into an un known western sea, this sacred spot was venerable. Kings, conquerors, em pires, civilizations have come and gone without so much as causing a flicker of this ever-burning fire of devotion. In the atmosphere of this unrealiza bly old monastery the centuries seem contemporaneous. These walls stood strong and unconquered before the Lat ins and Greeks divided, when the Chrls tion church ruled Rome and Rome ruled the world. We are carried back to the monastic era of the church fath ers, when piety and scholarship fled from the world to caves in these rocks. Their toilsome and beautiful handicraft is still to be found among the library treasures of this monastery. Tiien, as now, religious zeal braved the rigrors and perils of the wilderness in order to follow in the footsteps of Moses and Israel an: Elijah, and, per chance to find God anew at the place cf his rendezvous with the Hebrew law giver. These walls were old. as we in the west regard time, when Islam rose in the desert across the neighboring Gulf of Akaba, and the monastery with stood that flood. Hidden Treasures of Centuries. The hereditary treasures of the place such as the jeweled cross containing within what is reputed to be a piece of trie true cross remained unmolested by the Crusaders, those prize looters ot history, who never adventured this far in force, although individual knights must have come hither, for their arms are carved in the refectory. The Reformation was a drama of the outside world to these Greek or East ern churchmen, who still regard the Roman Catholic church as a schism. Kingdoms have been established, have flourished, have fallen and- have been forgotten, while these massive walls of square hewn stones, built by Emperor Justinian, have been unshaken and unsurmounted. Something of the awe of Mount Sinai itself attaches to this wilderness sanctuarv. Like its own garden of green in sterile fastnesses. It is a symbol of changeless life and hope amid the wastes of human exist ence. r- "Mwa,ys a place of Pilgrimage, St. Catherine s monastery has seen the character of the pilgrims vary greatly. Once they were hair-splitting Alexan drians and Byzantines. Later they were palmers from England and France. Afterward came uncouth men and women from Mt scovy. Latest of all, to the number of 200 within 50 years, an average of four a day. have appeared a new peoplr, keen to climb the highest peaks and to ex amine the uttermost antiquity and treasure, .he Americans, favorites of me monKs, wno m peace times see al together only about a dozen parties of travelers a year. It is the Ameri cans who are inciting the monastery to install fire prevention and fire ex tinguishing devices and to build vaults for the priceless trersures, now hidden away in medieval fashion, and for the manuscripts and books that are beyond all replacement. Sinai Safe From Tourist Tribe. Mount Sinai will never be a popular tourist resort. Nature has attended to that. Pains and to 1 are the price that must be paid to visit it, across sandy wastes ind through difficult mountain passes. There is room for airplanes to land on the uneven and rock-strewn broad plal i hidden in the mountains near the foot of Mount of the Law. where the children of Israel v.-aited for the descent of JToses, but fliphts over these jagged and gusty peaks will never be popular. A motor road or a wagon trail seems an im possibility. The camel wil continue to be. as in the days of the patriarchs, the one popular means of conveyance. This sacred site seems -ermanently in accessible, as if designedly shut off from the profaning vandalism of the merely curious. Therein Mount Sinai is unique among notable mountains. Olympus is on the main travel route, through Greece; thousands of Americans have seen it. Ararat is accessible from everywhere by boat and train. Mount Hermon is just off the beaten path through the Holy Land and a pleasant, easy side trip. The Himalayas and Fuji-Yama have long been a tourist show. But Sinai has for ramparts hot and for bidding deserts and difficult passes through precipitous and forbidding mountains. Before ever he was chosen leader of Israel's hosts, Moses knew this region afoot. Fleeing from Pharaoh, after his hot sense of Justice had led him to slay the Egyptian oppressor of hi-t Hebrew compatriot, Moses made his way to the mountain fastnesses of Sinai even as did a later prophet, Elijah, when escap ing the vengeance of Queen Jezebel. Here he became a shepherd, dwelling for 40 years amid these ravines or wadys, and these mount Ins. Every peak and every glen became as familiar to him as to the Shepherds of today, whom one encounters in the remotest spots. Often Moses clambered over the slippery face of these mountain sides, following his surefooted flocks. When I ascended Jebel Musa Mount Moses, the traditional Mountain of the Law I found abundant evidences that sheep and goats, with their - ttendants. visit this peak far oftener than do human beings. Doubtless ?lo.i was here as a shepherd before ever he came to the place as a prophet. 'r'his familiarity with the Peninsula of Sinai which Moses possessed before ever he becan.e the deliverer of the Jews trom J&srypt was. of course, ai place as a destination for the Israelites. Moses lived here, and reared a family, in a black goat's hair tent such aa the Bedouins still use. He more nearly re sembled in personal appearance one of these dignified sheiks than the august western figures portrayed by Michael angelo and Sargent. Before ever Moses returned to Egypt he had dreamed dreams and made calculations while roaming this mountain wilderness of how and where his people might travel and dwell in Sinai. The entire course of the Exodus is colored by the fact of the long residence of Moses amid these granite peaks and defiles. Propitiate Mountain Spirits. There is reasonableness in the close association of the burning bush with the Mount of the Law. Tbey were both familiar ground to Moses; the Voice in the Bush is a logical place forerunner of the Voice on the Mountain. No thoughtful person who has traveled amid these mountains can escape the sense of awsomeness which these mag nificent heights impart. Even the most sophisticated has thoughts of the supernatural while in Sinai: that the primitive peoples who dwelt here should people the passes and the peaks with spirits is most natural. As we cross the various passes, or come to curious rocks, the camel driv ers toss stones upon the immemorial heaps that have been piled by their predecessors. It may be loosely inter preted as "fpr luck." or it may be ac cepted as straightout propitiation and worship of the spirits of the moun tains. The same usage obtains as far east in Asia as Japan. So does tiie other, as a sort of effigy or memorial, ir-.portant factor in the choice of the. practice of setting one stone upon an after the fashion followed at Mizpah by Jacob and Laban. I find one of these common "pillars' or piles in a photograph I took on top of Jebel Musa. More abstract and lofty were the musings of Moses amidst these moun tains. This was the school wherein he learned Jehovah, the one God, whom he was later to interpret to his peo- J pie and to all mankind. Moses and Elijah, and we know not what other wide-faring prophets of Bible times, found God in these rocky fastnesses. Secluded, suggestive, sublime, Sinai is a scene of surpassing .sanctity. Hermit Shares Cave With I. lorn. From earliest days a holy spot, the Sinai mountains were found to be an ideal place for the early Christian monastic refugees from Egypt and Syria. Here are caves in plenty, and solitude and remoteness from the se ductions and snares of the world. One of the monkish legends concerns St. Stephan he whose skeleton has for centuries sat grewsomely at the en- trancs to the mortuary of St. Cather ine's monastery of whom it is said that when he lived here in the sixth century he shared his cave on Jebel Musa with a lion, the beast recognizing the sanctity of the recluse. Neighboring Arabs were not always kind to the Christian hermits. Some times they massacred them in numbers; oftener they persecuted them individ ually. It was primarily to afford a refuge for these holy men. the story of whose sufferings had aroused his religious zeal, that the Roman Emperor Justinian erected the citadel, in the year 527. The spot chosen, a narrow valley between two high mountains a poor one from a strategic standpoint even in those pre-sunpowder days. The ill-equipped Arabs could hurl rocks and shoot arrows over into the mon astery. The reason for the location, however, is obvious: the walls were built around a sacred shrine, St. Helen's Chapel of the Burning Bush. Hard by was the well at which Moses had watered his be especially attractive to the men who matic circumstances, this spot would flocks and in the desert wells are the oldest and most persistent of land marks. At the place where the Voice had come to Moses under such dra had fled to this same wilderness in search of the Presence. That the royal mother of Constan tine the Great, famous seeker aftet sacred sites as she was. turned power ful influences toward Sinai Is evident from the presence of various treasures. Beautiful marbles, supposedly from the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, where the Apostle Paul once had a great ad venture, adorn the apse of the church, which now adorns the original Chapel of the Burning Bush. Four massive brass candelabra rest on lions that supposedly date back to a pre-Christian period. The mosaic in the apse it historic, but it is not as old as the pillars and capitals of the church. Oth er precious treasures, gold, silver and jewels, wrought into ecclesiastical ves sels, the monks brought forth from their hiding places to show us. Into the little chapel of the Burn ing Bush no one may enter without removing his shoes. The traditional position of the bush is marked by a silver plate. There is only one win dow, and through it once a year, in April, a ray of sunlight strikes a silver ( cross. The) walla of the room, like I those of the church, are covered with icons and pictures, mostly worthless. The centuries have not brought a sin gle great painting to this church; and. to be sure, the monks would not have: recognized it as such. Men who hang gilt Christmas tree ornaments upon magniticent Bronze chandeliers, the work of artists in metal who wrought their masterpieces from pious motives, could scarcely be expected to appre ciate any form of art. The contents! oi xne monastery are a strange com mingling of the sublime and the ridic ulous, the noble and the tawdry. I aceavuered Cltidml Still Stmnam. That, however, is running a bit ahead of our story. We are first of all concerned with this mighty citadel of cut stones and buttresses and ram parts and towers, a Christian em peror's votive offering. It still stands unbreached, a testimonial to the good workmanship of an earlier day. There have been repairs to the upper part, which, the monks say, was left un finished at Justinian's death. The walls are so thick that rooms and chapels are to be found inside of them. Nothing short of high explosives could batter down these defenses of a garri son of religious recluses. When danger threatened, and long before the Amalekltes of Sinai attacked the Exodus caravan, there was trouble on this peninsula, and it has continued ever since. The monks could not call for the police or the soldiery. They simply had to remain safe within" their own strcng walls and live upon their own subterranean stores of food and their unfailing wells ot water. Front their ramparts they could look down through archers' portholes upon the impotent besiegers. They also have a secret underground passage into their high-walled gardens. Ancient Artillery Flre4. These militant monks have been pre pared to fight all through the cen turies. Their armament consists of eight pieces of artillery which ap parently date back almost to the dis covery of gunpowder. ' Three of the eight have bores the size of a pistol and they are lashed to blocks of wood. Others are about one inch in caliber and have wooden wheels. All are muzzle loaders, fired by a match applied, to the vent. It looked as if It would be committing suicide for a man to attempt to use one of these ancient derelicts. Nevertheless, when we left the monastery we were given a salute ot two guns, along wltn the tumultuous ringing of the mon astery bells. The noise, especially in that echoing valley, was terrific The servant, doubtless prompted by grat itude for American backsheesh, had evidently loaded the old pieces almost to the muzzle. When the Turks were most menacing during the war the monks secured from the British modern rifles for all their Inmates, alone with an adequate sup ply of ammunition. Eitraiee to Fort ChurcTa by Windlass. Unique among defensive measures is this citadel's method of entrance and egress. This is a doorway, high up on the wall and covered by a wooden shut ter through which persons whose cre dentials were acceptable were hoisted up and in by a windlass. That wind lass formerly was used for all visitors, and during the present war, when the Turks threatened, it was the only meth od of communication with the outside world; The illustration shows one of our party being lifted Into the citadel. There is now again open, since the advent of the British has brought an assurance of protection to the monas tery, the small door on the eastern side of the citadel. This Is only wide enough to admit one person at a time. It open into a narrow corridor through the massive rtone walls, where two heavy metal shjathed doors with prodigious bolts and locks have to be passed. Then the entrance, still nar row, sharply turns into another corri dor to the right, where a third huge armored door swings. Another turn to the left opens into the courtyard. Three men could hold that corridor against a hundred. Verily, it is the church militant which dwells on Mount Sinai. (To Be Continued Tomorrow. IRRIGATION BONOS UPHELD NORTH WIT ISSCE CONFIRMED BV DECREE. Government Geological Expert Ar rives to Make Final Investigation, of $5,000,000 Project. NORTH MADRAS, Or., July 19. (Spe cial..) The voting of 15,000.000 bonds by the North Unit irrigation district of Jefferson county has been valtdated and In all respects confirmed in a de cree by Circuit Judge Duffy in the county clerk's office. The bonds are to be a just obligation for construction and other expenses incurred by the district. Professor Crosby, government geo logical expert, arrived In Madras this week to make the final investigation of this Irrigation project and to make examination of the dam site at Benbam Falls, on the Deschutes river. The North Unit irrigation district has an area of more than 100,000 acres and comprises one of the finest bodies ot dry farming land in Central Oregon. Japan's Silk Exports $190,000,000. YOKOHAMA, July 19. 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