Jesus Afoot

       In traveling along the roads of Palestine, I am impressed as I could not otherwise have been with the fact that Christ, for the most part, went afoot. We find Him occasionally on a boat, and once riding in a triumphal procession, as it is sometimes called, although it seems to me that the hosannas of the crowd could not have made a ride on a stubborn, unimpressive and funny creature like that which pattered with Him into Jerusalem very much of a triumph. But we are made to understand that generally He walked. How much that means only those know who have gone over the distances traversed by Christ. We are accustomed to read that Bethany is two miles from Jerusalem. Well, any man in ordinary health can walk two miles without fatigue, but not more than one man out of a thousand can walk from Bethany to Jerusalem without exhaustion. It is over the Mount of Olives, and you must climb up among the rolling stones, and descend where exertion is necessary to keep you from falling prostrate. I, who am accustomed to walk ten or twelve miles without lassitude, tried part of this road over the Mount of Olives, and confess I would not want to try it often, such demand does it make upon one's physical energies. Yet Christ walked it twice a day, in the morning from Bethany to Jerusalem, and in the evening from Jerusalem to Bethany. Likewise it seems a small thing that Christ walked from Nazareth to Jerusalem, but it takes us four days of hard horseback riding, sometimes on a trot and sometimes on a gallop, to do it this week. The way is mountainous in the extreme. To those who went up to the "Tip Top House," on Mount Washington, before the railroad was laid, I will say that this journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem is like seven such American journeys. So, all up and down and across and recrossing Palestine, Jesus walked. Herod rode. Ahab rode. Saladin rode. Solomon rode. Antony rode. But Jesus walked. With swollen ankles, and sore muscles of the legs, and bruised heel and stiff joints, and panting lungs and faint head, along the roads and where there were no roads at all, Jesus walked.

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