272 



THE OLIVE LEAF. CHAP. 



the same sense of the individual, so far as his spiritual 

 relations are concerned, for he enjoys a large measure of 

 freedom, and his destiny is shaped to a large extent by 

 his own conscious, willing action. 



But leaving this subject, and passing on to the pic- 

 torial dramatic parable of the prophet, he is next com- 

 manded to get a potter's earthen bottle, and along with 

 the oldest members of the priesthood and the people to 

 go to the Valley of Hinnom, and there break the bottle 

 in the sight of his companions. The place to which 

 the prophet was commanded to go was the spot that, 

 from time immemorial, had been devoted to the recep- 

 tion of broken pieces of pottery. It was the same part 

 of the Valley of Hinnom, immediately outside the 

 Potter's Gate in Jerusalem, where, to this very day, the 

 peasant may be seen employed in crushing and grinding 

 into dust the little heap of broken pottery which he has 

 accumulated for the manufacture of the material used 

 for mortar or cement. There, where a number tf 

 peasants were hard at work, passing their heavy stones 

 over the little heap of pottery before them, and rousing 

 the echoes of the desolate valley by the continuous 

 sound of their blows, he was to hurl the earthenware 

 vessel upon the rocky ground in the presence of the 

 crowd ; and then, like the peasants beside him, he was 

 to gird up his flowing garments, take from one of them 

 his large grinding stone, and proceed to pound the 

 broken sherds into smaller fragments, until at last it 

 should be all reduced to powder. And when this 

 solemn action was finished, he was to give the awful ex- 



