MOSQUE OF OMAR, OR THE NOBLE SANCTUARY. This splendid edifice on Mount Moriah, covers a portion of the space once occupied by the more brilliant Temple of Solomon. It is believed to have been commenced by the Caliph Omar, the first of that name, and father-in-law of Mahomet, . between the years 638 and 644, and very much enlarged, beautified and enriched, in fact, quite rebuilt by the Caliph Abd-el Melek, in 686. It was seven years in building: the liosletas believe it to stand over the rock on which Jacob was sleeping when he saw the vision of the heavenly ladder, but it is still more sacred to them, as to us, from having been the sacred rock beneath the altar of Solomon's Temple, whereon the daily sacrifice was offered. During the time of the Latin kingdom in Jerusalem this mosque became a Christian cathedral, where the service was daily sung and an altar erected on the summit of the rock. The building was called by the Crusaders the "Temple of the Lord." The fanciful and intricate patterns of the porcelain walls of the mosque, the graceful letters of the inscription round it, and the tracery of the windows are still more beautiful cn a closer inspection —nothing can be more perfect of their kind, or more peculiarly charming than the harmony of the colors; the windows are filled with stained glass of the very richest and most brilliant colors, that even the pahniest days of the medieval ages could produce in Europe. Two rows
of columns encircle the center, forming a double corridor, and support the clerestory and tha dome: these columns have evidently belonged to some other building—their capi tals are mostly of acanthus leaves. The rock itself is enclosed in a metal screen of lattice work about six feet high, and to it, we are told by. the Bordeaux Pilgrim, in 333, the Jews came every year, anointing the stone with oil, wailing and rending their garments, thus proving its authen ticity in their minds; it had been for many years polluted by an equestrian statue of the, Emperor Adrian elevated on the very rock itself. The Bordeaux Pilgrim specially mentions that this rock adored by the Jews was pierced: below it is the "noble cave" spoken of in the Mishna, into which the blood, etc., from the altar drained, and descended thence by a con duit into the valley of Siloam, the gardens of which were enriched by this drainage.*