A Ride on the Lake, and a Storm

       Now, on Monday morning, I am in a boat on Lake Galilee. One sail up and four oars plying. It has been raining in the night and a fog hangs over the waters, but the fine lace veil of the morning mist is lifted and the Gadarene shore on one side and the Tiberias Hills on the other are coming to revelation and look like the banks of the Hudson in late September, after the frosts have put their diligent and skillful pencil upon the foliage. Yes, on the right hand side are the very hills down which the swine ran when possessed of the devil. You see that Satan is a spirit of bad taste. Why did he not say, "Let me go into these birds," whole flocks of which fly over Galilee? No, that would have been too high "Why not let me go into the sheep which wander over these hills?" No, that would have been too gentle. "Rather let me go into these swine. I want to be with the denizens of the mire. I want to associate with the inhabitants of the filth. Great is mud. I prefer bristles to wings. I would rather root than fly. I like snout better than wing."

       But the most of the memories of this sheet of water and its surroundings are elevating. What a sedative to Christ must have been a look at this lake after the hard religious work of the day. The air off the waters cooled His hot brow. Up and down these banks our Lord walked, and the best society He ever had was when He was alone with the mountains and the sea. But suddenly, this Monday morning, the winds rise, and our boat begins to rock. Never before in any waters have I seen such a change in five minutes. The oarsmen toil hard at their places. Fortunately we are near our landing at Capernaum. If the winds and the waves increase for the next half hour as they have in the last ten minutes, and we were still out, our craft would be unmanageable and we would have to cry as did the disciples on the same lake, "Lord, save, or we perish." While our boat is thumping on the rocks, some of our oarsmen plunge waist deep in the water and carry ashore those of our party who do not wish to wade. All is well. Peace, be still.

       Few people see the ruins of Capernaum to advantage, for in spring and summer tall weeds cover the entire place, and snakes, undisturbed, crawl over the beautiful sculpturing of the fallen architecture. But now the old city has its gloves off and gives us its bare hand as we approach it. We climb over the stones of the synagogue where Christ preached oftener than in any other building and which might have been called the scene of His pastorate. There, on one of the fallen walls, I saw the ancient sculpturing, representing a pot of manna, to which the people may have pointed when they said to Christ, "Our fathers did eat manna in the desert," and Christ replied, "My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven."

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Lake Galilee

       After having had on our breakfast-table fish from Galilee, like that which Christ gave broiled to His disciples after their night of "poor luck" in fishing. I spread my overcoat on the snow-white pebbles of the lake and began to read the Poems of the Evangelists, descriptive of what took place on or near these waters, more sacred than any that ever gleamed in any other bowl, whether of Divine or human sculpturing. A sail boat glides near, but as there is no wind, the sails down and the oars propel the prow through the shattering crystal. Again Christ walks this lake, and He comes to me in a feeling of peace which He only can breathe into the soul. We can understand now how high winds can lift this lake. The canons, as they are called in Colorado, or the wadys as they are called in Palestine, are invitations to hurricanes. Last night, from a calm that moved not a tassel of our tent, in one minute there rushed by a wind that tested every rope and pole of our encampment to the utmost, and blew away from the front of our tent, not only the coals of our bonfire, but the ashes and the wood, and caused a fright of some of our group which called the dragoman, who prophesied that in twenty minutes it would be over, and sure enough in about that time there was not enough atmospheric motion to flutter a feather.

       We are camped near the village of Tiberias. Many of the Lives of Christ say that Christ was never here. The Bible does not say He ever visited Tiberias, but it says: "Jesus went about all the cities and villages," and I have no doubt He visited this city, which was second to none in importance. Some authors say Christ did not come to Tiberias because it was populated by a very degraded people. This was the very reason that would have brought Him here; the worse the disease, the more need of a doctor. Yes, Christ was here! What more can God in His goodness grant me in the way of natural scenery and religious opportunity than that I should see this lake? I have walked its banks, read the Book of Luke in its presence, worshiped a whole Sabbath at its crystal altars, bathed in its depths, letting the sacred floods roll over me, and to-morrow will sail on its surface. When I first thought of coming to Palestine, I went to the Tourist Company in New York and, unrolling the map of the Holy Land, I took my pencil and made on it two circles, saying, "I may not have time to see all the Holy Land, but those two regions I must see." One circle was swept around Jerusalem and its approximates, the other circle around Lake Galilee and its approximates. I thank God that I have compassed what I came for and much beside.

David Meeting Abigail by Peter Paul Rubens.

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A Funeral in the Holy Land

       We saw to-day a procession, mostly dressed in black, approaching. Soon we heard the wailing of many women. It was a sad moaning outcry. They followed an ornamented box which contained the dead body of a girl. At the front of the box was a pole on which was a sort of cap with locks of the hair of the deceased floating from beneath it. On the same covered pole were some adornments which I imagine had been worn by the deceased during her lifetime. The box was on the shoulders of four men. The procession of weeping women was led by one whom I supposed to be the mother of the dead child. She had in her hands a narrow piece of blue cloth about a yard long, which she lifted into the air, now by one hand and now by the other, and as if in effort to break it and no doubt carrying out the oriental custom of rending in grief. I thought I could see her sorrow was genuine, and it was the real mother bewailing her dead, and so no doubt there was as much heart-break in the lamentation as there is when an American mother bemoans her childlessness. There may also have been other relatives in the throng who were agonized. But the most of the crowd seemed to dramatize bereavement, and careful inspection discovered the tearless eyes, and that they were enacting something that seemed called for by the proprieties of the occasion. The corpse was carried into a sacred enclosure, and two or three men went through genuflexions which meant no doubt much to them but nothing to us; meanwhile the women of the procession sat down at the distance of a city block away from the enclosure, but the men sat nearer by. Then the box with the floating tresses of the departed girl was brought out and the procession resumed its march to the grave and the wild and bitter cry again ascended. I followed to the gates of the cemetery and was passing in, when my friend called attention to the fact that we had no right to enter. Some twenty of the women were, by angry voice and violent gesticulation, forbidding our going in. They evidently discovered that we were strangers and of another nationality and religion, and our intrusion would be a sacrilege. So we halted, but we had seen for the fin; time the type of an oriental burial. It was to us a deeply sad and solemn spectacle. No element of the ludicrous disturbed our minds as others have sometimes been impressed. While the grief of the mother stirred our sympathies, the affectation of sorrow by others was only what we have witnessed in civilized lands, where sometimes a long row of carriages and a profusion of crape and costly silver handles to a casket mean nothing except that the funeral must be fashionable, although perhaps the most of the people in the procession are glad the old man is at last dead, for now there will be a distribution of his property.

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Cana and Mount of the Beatitudes

The Beatitudes Sermon by James Tissot.

       Now we are waiting for orders to mount for Cana of Galilee. We find in the village at a Greek convent some of the water-pots, or specimens of the same kind, that were used at the famous wedding where Christ turned the contents of them from common water into grape juice. We were surprised at the size of these water- jars. I measured them and found them eighteen inches in width from edge to edge, and nineteen inches in depth. What a bountiful and strange vintage at that wedding. Not a grape, not a winepress, yet six of these great jars filled with a beverage richer than Malaga, and yet so harmless that after all the wedding banqueters had partaken till they could drink no more, there was in all the festal hall, not a flushed cheek, nor a glassy eye, nor a dizzy head, nor a disturbed stomach. But let not the modern guzzler pat himself approvingly as though he were, in drinking wine, doing only what the Lord helped the people of Cana to do. There is not one drop of that kind of wine in any of the flasks, decanters, or rum jugs of the present day. Christ, by a glorious miracle, turned water into wine, but the devil by infernal miracle turns wine into suicide, and poverty, and assassination, and orphanage, and woe, and death. Take your choice of miracles.

       The most fearful climb in Palestine is the ascent of the Mount of Beatitudes. The horses fairly groan with the effort of transporting one up the first mountain, which is only a stepping-stone to the Mountain of Blesseds. Then we ride across fields where every step seems a trap for the feet of the horses. They stumble with their fore feet, and knuckle with their back feet, until it is only by a stout grip of mane or saddle we stay on. But oh, what a sweep of vision, now that we have reached the top. It is like the Valley of the Hudson, from Catskill Mountain House. I am entranced. Hail, hills of Galilee! Hail, Lake Gennesareth! Yonder, clear up and most conspicuous, isSafed, the very city to which Christ pointed for illustration in the sermon preached here, saying, "A city set on a hill cannot be hid." There are rocks around me on this Mount of Beatitudes enough to build the highest pulpit the world ever saw. Ay, it is the highest pulpit. It overlooks all time and all eternity. The Valley of Hattin, between here and Lake Galilee, is an amphitheatre, as though the natural contour of the earth had invited all nations to come and sit down and hear Christ preach a sermon in which there were more startling novelties than were ever announced in all the sermons that were ever preached. To those who heard Him on this very spot, His word must have seemed a contradiction of everything they had ever heard or read or experienced. The world's theory had been, "Blessed are the arrogant; blessed are the supercilious; blessed are the tearless; blessed are they who have everything their own way; blessed are the war eagles; blessed are the persecutors; blessed are the popular; blessed are the Herods and the Caesars and the Ahabs." "No! No!! No!!! " says Christ, with a voice that rings over these rocks and through yonder Valley of Hattin, and down to the opaline lake on one side, and the sapphire Mediterranean on the other, and across Europe in one way, and across Asia in the other way, and around the earth both ways, till the globe shall yet be girdled with the nine Beatitudes. But as we were climbing to the top, I could not help remarking to the one who rode next to me, "It is appropriate that the ascent to the Mount of the Savior's Blesseds should be difficult, for some of the attainments commended there by our Lord are heights most difficult to reach. For instance: Who really loves his enemies? We may not wish them harm; indeed, you may wish them well. But there are not many who have a real affection for those who maltreat them. I never, personally, knew of but one person who without doubt, gained the glorious height. That was David T. Talmage, my father. More like Christ was he than any person I ever knew, unless it were my mother. Dead, a quarter of a century, yet their example is to me pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. But such characters are not frequent. Loving your enemies is a grace not easily attained. Was I not right in saying to our dragoman, ' David, the Mount of Beatitudes is hard to climb.'"

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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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Memorable Spots

       Now we are at Nazareth, the place of the Savior's boyhood. We came along the very road that Christ took when he returned from Jerusalem after his interview with the Doctors of the Law. Through the Valley of Esdraelon, the battlefield of nations; and by round-topped, beautiful Tabor, from the edge of which Deborah signaled Barak to open the battle; and near awful Megiddo, and across plains where nine hundred iron chariots rolled their lacerations and crushings; and within sight of where Sisera forsook the chariot and afoot fled until Jael nailed him; and within sight of where "the only son of his mother" was resurrected (and I know if the Lord could afford to make a Resurrection Day for one young man, he can afford to make a Resurrection Day for all our dead); the same road in sight of Endor, where Saul went in the night to consult the witch and came to no good, as those who consult witches never do; and then the road comes to the foot of Mount Nazareth, not ascending by the steep and jagged path which Christ ascended, but by a new way which modern engineering has built, and we go zigzagging up the heights, steep above steep, until we seem to hover over Nazareth, a village of such overpowering interest that all the world has seen or wishes to see it.

       How the Omnipotent has scooped out these valleys and molded these hills on which and through which Jesus, the lad, walked, sometimes with His father, sometimes with His mother, sometimes with village contemporaries, and sometimes alone. We halt at the very fountain where Joseph and Mary and Christ used to fill the goat-skins. We stop for the night at a Russian convent, and for the first time in many nights, have a pillow in-doors. Before dark I open my Bible and within sight of the hills to which the young Christ so often looked up, while they looked down, I read the story of Jesus of Nazareth, which appears so vivid and strange and new, it seems as if I had never read it before.

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At the Sepulchre

       As our caravan moved on at seven o'clock in the morning, through a village, we saw about fifty women, dressed mostly in black, on their way out of a graveyard; others were still seated by the graves and were crying, "Oh my mother! Oh my husband! Oh my child! Oh my father!" Our dragoman informed us that this was the continuance of a very old custom. The bereft women go at day-dawn to the grave, three mornings after a burial, and after that every week for a year. "There it is," I said. "Turn over and read in Luke and John, "Very early in the morning they came unto the sepulchre.'"

       To-day at noon, I said to our dragoman, "What is that?" pointing to an old square building in the distance. He replied, "That is a khan." Delighted was I to have an opportunity of seeing the kind of building in which Christ was born. We rode in under the arched entrance and dismounted. We found the building of stone, and around an open square, without roof. The building is more than two thousand years old. It is two stories high. In the centre are camels, horses and mules. Caravans halt here for the night or during a long storm. The open square is large enough to accommodate a whole herd of cattle, a flock of sheep or caravan of camels. The neighboring Bedouins here find market for their hay, straw and meats. Off from this centre, occupied by beasts of burden, there are twelve rooms for human habitation. The only light is from the door. I went into one of these rooms and found a woman cooking the evening meal. There were six cows in the same room. On a little elevation there was some straw, where the people sat and slept when they wished to rest. It was in such a room as that our Lord was born.

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A Plague of Dogs.

       On the following night we encamped where I, for the first time, understood why the Bible writers have such dislike for dogs. The dogs of Palestine are an idiosyncratic race of curs. I am fond of dogs and like to pet them, but upon these I could not think of bestowing a friendly pat of the hand or an inviting whistle. First of all, they seem afflicted with parasites. They carry about with them insectile colonies. These unseen invaders, without right of lease or any kind of permission, make the poor dog a plateau for perpetual residence, and though the canine serves on them writ of ejectment they will not go. They fear neither bite nor growl nor scratch. They have made up their mind that the dog owes them a living. They enjoy his perturbation. They ask him what he intends to do about it. They particularly delight in ensconcing themselves where neither his tooth nor nail can touch them. They seem to have measured the distance and secured the exact spot. They play hide and seek with his nose. To take revenge for their tormentors these Arab dogs make the night hideous. I am writing this at midnight, because the) 7 will not let me sleep. Near my tent a dog began with a deep bass and that waked up a whole choir of voices on all keys. They let off whole volleys of racket. One would think that they would get hoarse or exhausted. But, no; when they stop it seems that the music required that they rest a few notes. But they come in a little further on, no more tired than a cornet that is being shaken and wiped while the performer is waiting for his next turn. But now they all come in together. This is the full band. This must be the chorus, voices deep, voices shrill, voices snappy, voices a-growl, voices defiant. Only those can fully appreciate my meaning who have encamped for the night in the outskirts of a Palestine village.

       Next day we arrived at Gideon's Fountain, where the men lapped the water as they crossed. Out of an archway of rock the water bubbles. Yonder is Mount Gilboa, where Saul and his two sons died. This is the valley of Jezreel, through which Jehu drove furiously. To-day we are in sight of Mount Carmel. It looks like rain, after a drought; clouds larger than a man's hand drifting across the top of Carmel. From a great height the mountain, first precipitately, then gradually, declines into the Mediterranean Sea.

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A Watering Place

       Six o'clock in the morning. Last night I heard a hyena. Its voice is a loud, resounding, terrific, almost supernatural sound, splitting up the darkness into a deeper midnight. Beginning with a howl and ending with a sound something like a horse's whinnying. Here we are, squat by a fire, under the starlight with two Arabs, I knowing as much of Arabic as they of English, namely nothing. Skies above the mountains of Samaria crimsoning with the morning. A few hours pass and we come to the well of Dothan, mentioned in Bible story Cattle, donkeys, camels at the well. Women with pitchers on their heads or lowering their vessels to have them filled. Men with pails attached to strings struggling in pleasantry. The water splashing over the stones, while caravans of camels just arrived wearily lie down with a grunt and wait their turn for water. In the trough girding the well the mouths of beasts are thrust thirstily. There is Rachel watering the camels. There are young men and maidens looking at each other roughly bewitching. There are herdsmen angry with each other and ready to strike, and looking daggers because some other camel, or cow, or calf, or donkey, than their own, has won precedence at the trough.

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At the Well of Jacob.

       We dismounted from our horses in a heavy rain at "Jacob's Well," and our dragoman on the slippery stones nearly fell into the deep chasm of this most memorable of all the wells ever digged. I measured the well at the top and found it six feet from edge to edge. Some grass and weeds and thorny growths over-hang it. In one place the roof is broken through. Large stones embank the well on all sides. Our dragoman took pebbles and dropped them in, and from the time they left his hand to the instant they clicked on the bottom you could hear it was very deep. It is a rich region of land, "the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph," and I do not wonder the old patriarch bought it, for it is a farm field of great luxuriance, and however much he paid for it he got it cheap. Within sight, as we stood at the well, were Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, each eight hundred feet high, the mountains of cursing and blessing. The woman of Samaria, who met Christ at this well, told the truth, as my own eyesight testifies, when she said, "The well is deep," and no wonder she cried out, "Thou hast nothing to draw with." She knew not that Christ was speaking of spiritual supply. For that well God gives everyone a pail if he will only let it down into the floods. Within fifteen minutes of Jacob's well is the village called Sychar, to which the disciples had gone when the woman of Samaria came to the well, as He in the heat of twelve o'clock at noon asked to have His thirst slaked. Thetopography of the surroundings of this well and of other localities visited this week, led me to say then what I feel now: "Any man who goes through Palestine and remains an infidel, is either a bad man or an imbecile."

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By Sacred Places of the Holy Land

Encampment In Desert of Mount Sinai by John Frederick Lewis.

       Now we leave Jerusalem for the long journey north through Palestine. A little way out we got on a hill and took the last look at Jerusalem, and I felt and remarked it was the last look at that sacred city on earth, and the next Jerusalem we shall see will be the heavenly. We went on within sight of Mizpah and Gibeon, where Joshua commanded the sun to stand still; on by Rama, connected with Samuel's history; on by the traditional village where the parents of Christ missed their boy, about three and a half miles from Jerusalem. This is the road over which Jesus came and went from Jerusalem to Nazareth. Tonight we encamp at Bethel, where was once a school of the prophets, a theological seminary. Elijah and f&isha were here. Near this Abraham and Lot divided the land. Here Jacob, pillowed on a stone, saw the ladder used by angels' feet, and he set up a stone and consecrated it. To-night the heavens were full of ladders, first a ladder of clouds, then a ladder of stars, and all up and down the heavens are the angels of beauty, angels of consolation, angels of God ascending and descending. "Surely God is in this place," said Jacob, "and I knew it not." But to-night God is in this place and I know it.

       The next night we encamp on the ruins of Ahab's ivory palace and within sight of the pillars of one of Herod's temples. But this place is more distinguished for Elijah's vision and the equipage of fire. The place is girt with a blue sash of mountains. The next day we saw the tomb of Joseph. His bones were brought up from Egypt. Gentile and Jew, Protestant and Catholic, and Mohammedan, agree that this is the place of that Prime Minister's burial. What a funeral it must have been and what a procession from Egypt to Canaan!

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A Pilgrimage to the Birthplace of Christ

      Now we are back again in Jerusalem, and must make an excursion to our Lord's birthplace. At nine o'clock this crisp December morning, for there was a sharp frost last night, I am afoot on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem; I have just crossed the valley of Hinnom. It is deep and impressive, a wall of rock on one side and a steep hill on the other, mounting toward the Holy City, a few olive trees on the way up as though they had climbed as far as they could, and then halted. I pass the plain where Absalom marshaled troops against his father David, and the hill of Evil Council, where Judas planned for the capture of Christ. I am on the road where the wise men went to find Christ at the order of Herod, men wise enough not to make report to the cruel monster. It is the road that marks the distance between the birthplace and the deathplace of Him who made the world and will yet redeem it. Christ made long journeys, but after all, died within five miles of His early home. In all the region through which this road runs, the Davidic, Solomonic and Herodic histories overlap each other. I meet on the road many camels with heavy burdens on their way to Jerusalem. These animals set one thinking as does no other creature, and I enjoy meeting them on foot better than I enjoyed riding upon their backs. But now Bethlehem is in sight, and we are toiling up the hills which Joseph and Mary ascended in this same month of December, long, long years ago. The town of Bethlehem, to my surprise, is in the shape of a horseshoe, the houses extending clear on to the prongs of the horseshoe, between which I look and see the fields where Ruth gleaned and Boaz was fascinated with her charms, and about which is garlanded the immortal pastoral which, in the Bible, lies peacefully between the war-lyrics of Judges and Samuel. Though David was a "man of war," his great-grandmother, Ruth, was a farmer's wife and a woman of peace. Near one end of the semicircle of rocks on which Bethlehem stands is David's well, now a wide, (hep basin of stone, almost dry, but at certain seasons almost full. No wonder that when David was hounded of persecution and thirsty, he wanted a cool draught out of it, crying: "Oh that one would give me to drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate." The mouth of the well cut out of the eternal rock is about four feet across from edge to edge, and a wet goat-skin bottle was lying near by. But we must not dwell too long on the topography of Bethlehem. Hills, hills, hills! Rocks, rocks, rocks! From the village, looking down, the backs of the mountains appear like the backs of the mountains of New Hampshire from the top of Mount Washington. The whole scene, more rough and rude than can be imagined. Verily Christ did not choose a soft and genial place in which to be born. But the scenery, though rough, is sublime, and the hills for width and precipitation are displays omnipotent. The gate through which our Lord entered this world was a gate of rock, a hard, cold gate, as the gate through which He departed was a swing-gate of sharpened spears.

• The Christian Life as Pilgrimage
• Where Jesus Walked

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A Baptism in The Jordan

       Yesterday on horseback we left Jericho, and having dipped in the Dead Sea, we came with a feeling that we cannot describe upon the Jordan, a river which more people have desired to see than any other. On our way we overtook an American who requested me to baptize him by immersion in the river Jordan. We dismounted at the place where Joshua and his host crossed the river dry-shod. We were near a turn in the river and not far off from where rocks and sands are piled up in shape of cathedrals, domes and battlements. We pitched our tent, and after proper examination of the candidate for baptism, I selected portions of Scripture appropriate. One of our Arab attendants had a garment not unlike a baptismal robe. With that garment girdled around me, I led the candidate down under the trees on the bank, while near by were groups of friends and some strangers who happened to be there. After a prayer, I read of Christ's baptism in the Jordan, and the commission "Go teach all nations, baptizing them." The people on the bank then joined in singing to the familiar tune that soul-stirring song:

"On Jordan's stormy bank I stand."

       With the candidate's hand in mine, we waded deep into the Jordan, and I then declared, "In this historical river, where the Israelites crossed, and Naaman plunged seven times for the cure of his leprosy, and Christ was baptized and which has been used in all ages as a symbol of the dividing line between earth and heaven, I baptize thee in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen." As the candidate went down under the waves and then rose, I felt a solemnity that no other scene could have inspired. As the ordinance was observed under the direction of no particular denomination of Christians, and no particular church could be responsible for it, I feel it my duty to report what I did to the Church Universal.

       On our way up from Jericho to Jerusalem the sun was very hot. I got off and sat under the shadow of the horse. I felt as if I could not ride another step, but the dragoman informed us that a little way off was a cool place. Soon we halted by a ledge of rocks, the mountain was between us and the sun, and threw a sombre blanket over us. And three or four of us spontaneously cried out: "This is the shadow of a great rock in a weary land!"

 A modern baptism on the river Jordan.

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Where Elijah Was Fed by Ravens

       Now we are on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. We started out early and crossed the Jehoshaphat valley, which, if it had not been memorable in history and were only now discovered, would excite the admiration of all who look upon it, so deep, so wide, so long, so tunneled with graves, so overlooked by Jerusalem walls. With enough books in my saddle-bags, on a horse sure-footed for the mountain passes, and in good company, and within sight of Mount Olivet, and close by the Garden of Gethsemane, and with the heavens and the earth full of sunshine, we start on the famous road to Jericho. We pass through ravines and gorges, and by dark caves which might be an intrenchment for robbers like those which the man fell among on his way to Jericho along this very road. We have today met several groups of Bedouins, who, judging from their countenances, might be easily turned into bandits. But the supremacy of law, even though it be Turkish law, and our accompaniment of twelve stout men, escorts and attendants, put us out of the danger of being like that previous traveler, stripped and wounded and left half dead. What scenery we are passing through! How any man can be disappointed with the Holy Land I cannot understand. Some of the Palestine tourists have been chiefly impressed with the fleas, the filth and the beggars. To me the scenery, if it had no sacred associations, would be appallingly majestic. There is nothing in America or Europe that surpasses it for a mingling of beauty and grandeur. "What is that ravine?" I cry out to the dragoman. He says, "That is the brook Cherith; here is where the ravens fed Elijah." "Are there any ravens in this region now?" I asked. He answered, "Yes; they are large, in size between the buzzard and the eagle, and could carry a heavy piece of meat if they tried." But how different is the brook Cherith from all my preconceived notions of it. It is like one of the awful gulches in Yellowstone Park. It is six hundred feet from the top to the bank. It has in its sides great caverns, where Bedouins make their home. The brook Cherith when in full force is a silver wedge splitting the mountains into precipices. But behold the valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea bursting upon our vision, and in an hour we are at the two Jerichos, the one where, at the sound of the poor music played on "rams' horns," the walls crashed, and the other Jericho where short Zaccheus from the gallery of a sycamore tree hailed the Lord, and the Lord hailed him. It was here our Savior so beautifully announced His mission, "The Son of Man is come to seek and save that which was lost." By the warmth of a campfire I sit down to write this, and looking up see the Quarantania, the mountain of Christ's temptation. I am at the foot of that "very high mountain" where Christ was "led up of the Spirit" to be tempted. Neither on the sides of it nor on the top is there a spear of grass or a flower. It is a desert mountain. Its robber dens are here visible. Amid these indentations and on the cold bleak heights, and alone, save when angels came to minister unto Him, Christ stayed in that awful struggle against pandemoniac cohorts which rode up to trouble and baffle and destroy, if they could, the Son of God. As on the top of the city temple Christ battling with temptation illustrated His willingness to sympathize with those who are struggling with city allurements, so by the memory of His contest here in lonely places He is willing to come to the rescue of those who in country places, or alone confront the Satanic. A depression on either side the mountain seems to divide it from the other ranges so that the mountain is itself alone. And now the sun is setting, making the mountains look like balustrades and embattlements of amber and gold, and the moon just above the crests seems to be a window of heaven through which immortals might be looking down upon the scene.

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The Great Temple That Herod Built

       I am also thrilled and overpowered with the remembrance that yonder, where now stands a Mohammedan mosque, stood the Temple, the very one that Christ visited. Solomon's Temple had stood there, but Nebuchadnezzar thundered it down. Zerubbabel's Temple had stood there, but that had been prostrated. Then Herod built a temple because he was fond of great architecture, and he wanted the preceding temples to seem insignificant. Put eight or ten modern cathedrals together and they would not equal that structure. It covered nineteen acres. There were marble pillars supporting roofs of cedar, and silver tables on which stood golden cups, and there were carvings exquisite, and inscriptions resplendent, glittering balustrades and ornamented gateways. The building of this temple kept ten thousand workmen busy forty-six years. Stupendous pile of pomp and magnificence! But the material and architectural grandeur of the building were very tame compared with the spiritual meaning of its altars, its Holy of Holies, and the overwhelming significance of its ceremonies.

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The Grief of David

       But here passes through these streets, as in imagination I see him, quite as wonderful and a far better man, David, the conqueror, the king, the poet. Can it be that I am in the very city where he lived and reigned? Yes, I have since coming here stood in the very place where he received the news of Absalom's death. He was wrapped up in his boy Absalom. He was a splendid boy, judged by the rules of worldly criticism. From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot there was not a single blemish. The Bible says that he had such a luxuriant shock of hair that when once a year it was shorn, that which was cut off weighed over three pounds. But, notwithstanding all his brilliancy of appearance, he was a bad boy, and broke his father's heart. He was plotting to get the throne of Israel. He had marshaled an army to overthrow his father's government. The day of battle had come. The conflict was begun. David, the father, sat between the gates of the palace waiting for the tidings of the conflict. Oh, how rapidly his heart beat with emotion. Two great questions were to be decided: the safety of his boy, and the continuance of the throne of Israel. After a while a servant, standing on the top of the house, looks off and he sees some one running. He is coming with great speed, and the man on the top of the house announces the coming of the messenger, and the father watches and waits, and as soon as the messenger from the field of battle comes wkhin hailing distance the father cries out. Is it a question in regard to the establishment of his throne? Does he say: "Have the armies of Israel been victorious? Am I to continue in my imperial authority? Have I overthrown my enemies?" Oh! no. There is one question that springs from his heart to the lip, and springs from the lip into the ear of the besweated and bedusted messenger flying from the battlefield - the question, "Is the young man Absalom safe?" When it was told to David, the king, that, though his armies had been victorious, his son had been slain, the father turned his back upon the congratulations of the nation, and went up the stairs of his palace, his heart breaking as he went, wringing his hands sometimes, and then again pressing them against his temples as though he would crush them in, crying: "O my son Absalom! my son! my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom! my son! my son!" Stupendous grief of David resounding through all succeeding ages!

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