f LIBRARY I
UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFOKHlJ)
SAN DIEGO I
Caroline
A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE TO THE HOLY LAND.
Illustrated. 12 mo, $1.50 net. Postage extra.
A SCALLOP SHELL OF QUIET. Illustrated.
i2mo, $1.00 net. Postage 10 cents.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
*
A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
IN THE HOLY LAND
*
A BRIEF
PILGRIMAGE IN THE
HOLY LAND
RE
OF ADDftfcSS*
WITH ILLUSTRA M
SKETCHES AND PHOTOGR/
BY THE AUTHOR
MOUNT HERMON
The Mount of Transfiguration
A BRIEF
PILGRIMAGE IN THE
HOLY LAND
RECOUNTED IN A SERIES
OF ADDRESSES DELIVERED IN
WELLESLEY COLLEGE CHAPEL
BY THE PRESIDENT
CAROLINE HAZARD
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPHS
BY THE AUTHOR
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON M1FFLIN COMPANY
(Cfoe RrtJcrsiDe press, Cambrib0e
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY CAROLINE HAZARD
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published October IQOQ
FOREWORD
THESE brief Sunday evening addresses are at-
tempts to bring back to the College some of the
wonderful experiences of a sabbatical year abroad.
They record the doings and feelings of three
crowded weeks, weeks to color the whole of
a lifetime. The circumstances under which this
little journey was taken were peculiarly happy.
Many women travelling alone in the East, even
in this day, feel obliged to join a party and go
under the auspices of one of the great tourist
agencies. I am not an inexperienced traveller, hav-
ing sailed both the Atlantic and the Pacific, and
crossed our own continent more than a score of
times. So I did not follow the usual plan. I had
one companion, a dear and sympathetic friend,
and an excellent trained nurse who had been with
me in illness, and who for the sake of the ex-
perience was travelling as my maid. I found on
the Nile just the dragoman I wanted, a man
whose likeness to the butler of my childhood
seemed to establish a bond. He was a native of
Assouan, a man of sixty, keen and clever, who
had begun life with Professor Georg Ebers, and
had some real knowledge of archaeological trea-
sures. We were thus an ideal party, two ladies
vi FOREWORD
with an exceptionally clever man and woman to
look after us, free to go or stay as we chose,
with no fixed date, except that we must be in
Jerusalem for Easter.
So we landed under the shadow of Mt. Car-
mel, as some of my ancestors must have done,
for the Crusaders' shell is the crest of my
father's family. So we took our way over the
flower-besprinkled plains. So we spent days be-
side the Sea of Galilee, and followed those blessed
footsteps up to the feast at Jerusalem.
It has been my custom at Wellesley to con-
duct the evening service in the College Chapel
two Sundays of each month, and at these ser-
vices during the months immediately succeed-
ing my return I endeavored to present some
aspects of this pilgrimage. The music for each
service was arranged to supplement the service,
Mendelssohn's Elijah for Mt. Carmel, the Pas-
toral Symphony for the Plain of Sharon, Christ-
mas music for Bethlehem. In publishing the
addresses they must be shorn of a powerful
adjunct. I can only hope they may give my read-
ers a little of the joy of the actual experience.
Wellesley ought to be a better college because
its President has been on pilgrimage.
CAROLINE HAZARD.
October 15, 1909.
CONTENTS
Sonnet : Mount Carmel
I. CARMEL BY THE SEA 3
Sonnet : The Mount of Beatitudes
II. THE MOUNT OF BEATITUDES 19
Sonnet : The Sea of Galilee
III. THE SEA OF GALILEE 29
Sonnet : Capernaum
IV. CAPERNAUM 41
Sonnet : "If God so clothe the Grass "
V. THE PLAIN OF SHARON 53
Sonnet : Joppa
VI. JOPPA 65
Sonnet : Bethlehem
VII. BETHLEHEM 75
viii CONTENTS
Sonnet: "Jericho
VIII. JERICHO 87
Sonnet : The "Jordan
IX. THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA 97
Sonnet : The Wilderness
X. THE WILDERNESS 107
Sonnet : The Lament
XI. JERUSALEM THE LAMENT 117
Sonnet : Easter
XII. JERUSALEM THE TRIUMPH 129
ILLUSTRATIONS
MOUNT HERMON, THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIG-
URATION (P a g e 32) Colored frontispiece
THE BEACH OF ACRE WITH MOUNT CARMEL 8
THE MARKET AT ACRE 12
THE VIRGIN'S FOUNTAIN AT NAZARETH 20
THE MOUNT OF BEATITUDES 24
TIBERIAS 30
A WEDDING PROCESSION IN TIBERIAS 36
THE SEA OF GALILEE, SHOWING ANCIENT FOR-
TIFICATIONS (colored] 42
CHILDREN ON THE PLAIN OF SHARON 58
HOUSE OF SIMON THE TANNER 68
THE HUSBANDMAN AND HIS TOOLS 76
" HE GOETH BEFORE THEM, AND THE SHEEP
FOLLOW HlM " 80
x ILLUSTRATIONS
THE DEAD SEA, AND RUINS OF HEROD'S CAS-
TLE (colored} 92
THE DRAGOMAN 98
THE HILL OF BLOOD (colored) no
THE MOSQUE OF OMAR, ON MOUNT MORIAH,
THE SlTE OF THE TEMPLE Il8
THE WALL OF WAILING 120
THE WALL OF WAILING, SHOWING HEBREW
INSCRIPTIONS 122
THE OBEISANCE. A FATHER TEACHING HIS SON 130
IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE 136
*
CARMEL BY THE SEA
MOUNT CARMEL
LOW-BROWED, majestic, stretching out to sea,
The long, high level of Mount Carmel sweeps
Its giant crescent, guarding lucid deeps
Of shallow water on its northern lee,
Where restless waves are tossing light and free.
The beach lies at its foot; upon its steeps
Are caverns wild where still the jackal creeps,
While birds of prey still circle noiselessly.
Elijah dwelt here ; here the priests of Baal
Invoked their god, the while the prophet fanned
Their zeal ; here fire descended at his call.
And here Crusaders of a later day
And paladins and heroes took their way
To conquer for the Cross the Holy Land.
A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE IN
THE HOLY LAND
I
CARMEL BY THE SEA
The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them ;
and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall
blossom abundantly, and rejoice, even with joy and singing : the
glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Car-
mel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the
excellency of our God. ISAIAH, xxxv: 1,2.
IN the beautiful springtime of the year we
approached the Holy Land by way of the sea.
Fortunately for us, although it seemed unfor-
tunate at the moment, there was a heavy storm
raging when we lay off Jaffa, which made it im-
possible to land. For three hours the ship was
tossing on the waves, with the wind and rain
beating upon it ; and then finally steamed to
the north, in despair of making the landing which
would take us by the nearest way to Jerusalem.
So it was late on the afternoon of March 20,
1907, that our good ship, the Prince Abbas,
4 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
finally stopped under the summit of Mt. Carmel,
at the southern extremity of the Bay of Acre,
the bay toward which the Crusaders took their
eager way, and the mountain which they hailed
with solemn joy.
The sea was still raging, and one has to make
the landing in a small boat, going down over
the ship's side by a hanging flight of steps and
being caught in the sturdy arms of sailors, when
the little boat rises to meet the swing of the
great ship. The landing itself has its terrors,
especially on a stormy evening such as we had,
when the boat rises and falls from eight to ten
feet and you have to make your jump at the
top of the wave to the perpendicular wharf,
where there are only crevices between the stones
to put your foot. But we finally landed in safety
and walked along the rough wharf, with its
sharp-cut stones, till in a moment we trod the
soft, sandy soil of the country which from the
time of Christ has always been called the Holy
Land. Dark clouds were still over our heads,
and the blue-gray mass of Mt. Carmel rose pre-
cipitously, its five hundred feet towering above
us.
The next day the sun had come out, and we
made an expedition to the top of the mountain.
CARMEL BY THE SEA 5
Lovely trees grow about its base, and a well-
engineered road winds up and around the face
of the cliff. At the top is a great monastery, its
foundation datingfrom the fifth century; and be-
yond, the long level stretch of the mountain-
crest reaches out a distance of almost twelve
miles. In ancient times this whole range was well
wooded. "Though they hide themselves in the
top of Carmel, I will search and take them out
thence," the Lord declares by the mouth of the
prophet Amos. 1 And in Isaiah's time there was
evidently no lack of trees. Now it is bare and
desolate, a long, bold promontory overlook-
ing the sea.
The Latin Carmelites reached Haifa in 1170,
and some twenty-five years later became the rul-
ers of that portion of the country. An English-
man, St. Simon Stock, of Kent, was their gen-
eral in 1245. Afterwards they were massacred,
but in the middle of the sixteenth century re-
established themselves; and when Napoleon was
besieging Acre, he used the monastery for a hos-
pital. When Acre was taken, the old building
was destroyed; but soon after, before the middle
of the eighteenth century, the present splendid
edifice was built. It faces the southwest, over-
1 Amos, ix : 3.
6 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
looking the sea, a long building of stone, two
stories in height, the church in the middle and
the monastic cells on each side. In the very
heart of the church is a small cave, its rough
walls still showing, which tradition points out
as the cave in which Elijah sought shelter when
Ahab was seeking his life. A little lower down,
near the foot of the mountain, is the Cave of
the Prophets, said to have been the one in
which Obadiah hid "an hundred men of the
Lord's prophets by fifty in a cave, and fed them
with bread and water." The monks will tell you
that there has been religious worship in the first
of these caves on the summit of Mt. Carmel con-
tinuously since the time of Elijah; that the sons
of the prophets really dwelt there until the time
of Christ, when they embraced Christianity. It
was at the eastern end of this long ridge of Car-
mel that the prophets of Baal and Elijah met
together. The whole description of the place cor-
responds exactly with what one sees now. And
as I walked over the flower-besprinkled ground,
I could not but remember with awe and wonder
that dramatic scene.
" Cry aloud ; for he is a god ; either he is talk-
ing, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or
peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked,"
CARMEL BY THE SEA 7
mocked the prophet, as the day declined, and
the priests of Baal leaped upon the altar of
their God. And at the time of the evening sac-
rifice Elijah came near, and said, "Lord God
of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known
this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I
am thy servant " . . . " Then the fire of the Lord
fell, and consumed the burnt-sacrifice, and the
wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked
up the water that was in the trench. And when
all the people saw it, they fell on their faces;
and they said, The Lord, he is the God ; the
Lord, he is the God." '
In the northern plain far below flows the
brook Kishon, to which the prophets of Baal
were taken after their defeat. One can fancy the
concourse of people and the tumult and aston-
ishment of that day. Now the mountain stands
in lonely and desolate grandeur. Great blocks
of flint and broken stone bestrew its top. At
the season when we were there, lovely flowers
grew in all the crevices of the rock, the
splendid anemone, purple and scarlet, great tufts
of mignonette, the dainty cyclamen, with its
leaves like silver shields ; and there was the
fresh shining of the new grass. It must always
1 I Kings, xviii : 27, 36, 38,39.
8 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
have been a wonderful place for flowers, "the
excellency of Carmel." "Thine head upon thee
is like Carmel," the Song of Songs declares of
the beloved. It runs far out into the sea, a
place of strength and beauty.
There is another association with Mt. Car-
mel far more tender and charming than this
story of wrath and punishment. After Elisha,
the servant of Elijah, had been with his master
to the very end, he journeyed up toward the
north, from Jerusalem to Bethel, and then came
to Mt. Carmel by the sea. You will remember
the story of the Shunammite woman, 1 how as
Elisha travelled backward and forward from his
cave on Mt. Carmel and passed her house, she
made him a little room into which he could
turn for rest and refreshment. On the death of
her son she took the child's body to this pro-
phet's chamber and bade her servant saddle an
ass, and they rode quickly toward Mt. Carmel.
From the eminence of the mountain Elisha saw
her afar off and " said to Gehazi his servant,
Behold, yonder is that Shunammite. Run now,
I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is
it well with thee? Is it well with thy husband?
Is it well with the child? And she answered, It
1 2 Kings, iv: 8-37.
CARMEL BY THE SEA 9
is well. And when she came to the man of God
to the hill, she caught him by the feet : but
Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the
man of God said, Let her alone; for her soul is
vexed within her : and the Lord hath hid it
from me and hath not told me. Then she said,
Did I desire a son of my lord ? did I not say,
Do not deceive me ? Then he said to Gehazi,
Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine
hand, and go thy way : if thou meet any man,
salute him not ; and if any salute thee, answer
him not again : and lay my staff upon the face
of the child. And the mother of the child said,
As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I
will not leave thee. And he arose and followed
her."
You will remember the rest of the story,
how Elisha came to the house and went to his
own little room and " shut the door upon them
twain and prayed unto the Lord " ; and after a
while, when life returned to the dead body once
more, he called the Shunammite, " And when
she was come in unto him he said, Take up thy
son. Then she went in, and fell at his feet, and
bowed herself to the ground, and took up her
son, and went out." '
1 2 Kings, iv: 25-37.
io A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
I can hardly tell you what it was, actually to
stand upon a place full of such hallowed asso-
ciations, associations which become a part of
one's very self, as these stories are a part of
one's earliest childhood. You will sometimes
hear people say that they are disappointed in
the pilgrimage to the Holy Land ; but if they
are, I cannot but think that the fault is their
own. They have not cultivated any sense of
historical perspective ; perhaps their experience
has been limited, and they expect to find things
in that far Eastern country as they would find
them in their own home village in the New
World. Things are very different : the women
with their one garment of embroidered linen,
covering them from the neck to the ankles, and
a sort of shawl-like veil wrapped about the head
and shoulders, a most comfortable and pic-
turesque dress ; the men, in their flowing robes
which almost amount to full skirts, and a coat
that falls from the shoulders, often made of
sheepskin. They are all different from anything
we are accustomed to see. "The black tents
of Kedar " are still pitched upon the northern
slopes of Mt. Carmel, low, wide tents, with
doors so low that one must stoop to enter. That
is the sort of tent that Jael invited Sisera to
CARMEL BY THE SEA n
enter ; and it was close beside the brook Kishon
that her doughty but treacherous deed was ac-
complished. Here it was that Deborah came
with Barak to the fight. You will remember
Barak's faint-heartedness when he was told that
he must lead the hosts of Israel. " If thou wilt
go with me, then I will go; but if thou wilt not
go with me, then I will not go," he said to
Deborah. And she replied, " I will surely go
with thee, notwithstanding the journey that
thou takest shall not be for thine honor, for
the Lord shall sell Sisera into the hand of a
woman." z And it was at the foot of this moun-
tain that Deborah and Barak sang the song,
one of the most splendid poems of the Bible :
" Awake, awake, Deborah; awake, awake, utter a song:
Arise, Barak, and lead thy captivity captive, thou son of
Abinoam. . . .
The stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
The river of Kishon swept them away, that ancient river, the
river Kishon." a
On the other side of Mt. Carmel lies the
Plain of Sharon. As one stands upon the long
ridge which makes its summit, to the west the
great sea is lying ; to the north, the valley of
1 Judges, iv : 8, 9. a Judges, v : 12, 20, 21.
12 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
the brook Kishon, and Mt. Hermon in the
distance; to the east, the mountains beyond Jor-
dan, Pisgah and Nebo; and to the south the
splendid Plain of Sharon. It is a true entrance
to the Holy Land. This way the Crusaders
came, fired by enthusiasm to reconquer the
land for believers in Christ. Just across the bay,
of which Mt. Carmel forms the southern boun-
dary, lies the city of Acre, where Richard Creur-
de-Lion and his hosts landed. It is still a me-
diaeval town, with its double wall and its one
gate, for it lies on the promontory jutting into
the sea. We drove and walked along that noble
beach, fording the Kishon as it rushes to the
sea. Close behind us came a long string of cam-
els, one supercilious beast following after an-
other in soft-footed silence. Just outside the
gate, the caravans had gathered, and some fifty
camels were sitting crouched on their haunches
in a solemn circle under the olive trees, while
one tall haughty creature stood alone, as if mak-
ing some profound oration.
Inside the gate was the crowded Oriental life.
A narrow way runs through the middle of the
streets, sunk about three or four feet below the
sidewalk. There is barely room in it for the
donkeys to jostle past one another, and horses
THE MARKET AT ACRE
CARMEL BY THE SEA 13
and camels pick their steps over its uneven
stones. It was market-day, and the place was full
of sellers of sweatmeats and strong with odors of
savory broths. There were the round flat loaves
of bread, baked on both sides, perhaps two inches
thick, the same sort of which Jesus inquired,
"How many loaves have ye?" Ornaments and
leather-work were displayed in lavish profusion ;
leather belts and whips, and bridles for both
camels and asses were shown in great variety. All
the activities of a mediaeval town were being car-
ried on. It made a strange contrast from the si-
lence and solemnity of that mountain upon which
holy men had lived, to the bustle and confusion
of a Mohammedan town. And in spite of the
intense interest of that strange city, with its novel
methods of life, it was a relief to reach the sea
once more, and to walk that beautiful shell-strewn
beach from which the Crusaders brought their
pilgrim shells, and to look with reverent eyes
upon the "Excellency of Carmel." For us, it
was the gate of promise, and the days which
followed these first days by the sea are forever
memorable.
After that overthrow of the prophets of Baal,
for many many years there was said to be no
temple or image, but only an altar upon the top
i 4 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
of Mt. Carmel. Tacitus speaks of it, and Pliny
says that Carmel was the name of the shrine and
of the god. It was the place which typified the
purest religion, which showed the conception of
an omnipresent and omnipotent God who is with-
out form and substance, but a God who speaks
to the heart of each of His children. A moun-
tain is the most permanent thing in the world,
its head uplifted toward the sky. In the midst
of his desolation the prophet Jeremiah had a
message of hope from this holy hill. The cry
of the soul is for the direct message, for the open
way. Holy men were always foretelling the time
when the Revealer would appear. "As I live,saith
the King, whose name is The Lord of hosts,
Surely as Tabor is among the mountains and as
Carmel by the sea, so shall he come." *
Let us pray :
O Thou who art without form or similitude,
who art not in the raging wind, or in the fierce
fire, speak to us with the still small voice each
listening soul may hear. We rejoice O Lord that
Thou dost never leave Thyself without a wit-
ness, that Carmel and Tabor are perpetual re-
minders of the ancient days of Thy glory, which
' Jeremiah, xlvi : 18.
CARMEL BY THE SEA 15
our eyes may see, and our minds reverently con-
template. But far beyond the external may we
penetrate to the indwelling Spirit, the spirit
of pure worship, of perfect consecration which
there was manifest. We come to raise an altar
of our own hearts to Thee. Descend, we beseech
Thee, and touch our souls with divine fire.
AMEN.
THE MOUNT OF BEATITUDES
AN upland plain, with sandy soil and bare j
Tall tufts of grass start from the barren ground
And branching bushes; scattered all around
Are jagged rocks to form a shelter where
The foxes still have holes and make their lair ;
While birds of prey up in the blue profound
Of lambent sky are, circling o'er the mound
Twin-crested, basking in the springtime air.
It was upon that sun-crowned little hill
Beneath the Syrian sky the Master spoke
Such blessed words that they are living still ;
" I have compassion on the multitude ; "
And while He blessed and gave them mortal food
The everlasting bread for them He broke.
II
THE MOUNT OF BEATITUDES
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. MATTHEW, v: 3.
FROM our earliest infancy have we heard these
opening words of the Magna Charta of Chris-
tianity. The Beatitudes have been part of our
mental furniture. We have heard sermons on
each one. We all would say that we know the
Sermon on the Mount ; and yet when I saw that
Mount itself on a spring afternoon, not very
long ago, the whole scene took on new meaning.
It was as if that verdant plain, and that lovely
hill, held echoes of the Master's voice. One
heard afresh His holy words, " Blessed are the
pure in heart, for they shall see God." Awak-
ened by the wonder of it all, for us a veil had
fallen, and for one transcendent moment that
Beatitude was fulfilled.
Let me try to tell you about it, inadequate as
words must be.
We had spent the night in the lovely hill town
of Nazareth, climbing up to it from Haifa by the
ao A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
sea, a drive of some twenty miles. The river
Kishon was crossed, and before very long the
low meadows of the sea level were left behind,
and the hill country began. Nazareth is set in
an amphitheatre of hills, facing south, its streets
running in terraces following the contour of the
hillsides. One is taken to the Church of the
Annunciation, built over a small cave where the
Virgin was supposed to be when the Angel
came. The building is an elaborate florid struc-
ture, and the house they call the Virgin's has a
very modern appearance. The place of real in-
terest is the Fountain of the Virgin, a spring of
living water from which all the town takes its
supply. Here Mary must have come carry-
ing her water-jar, just as the women do to-day.
Here perhaps the baby Jesus came, strapped
to his mother's back, as one sees small chil-
dren now. The water ever flowing, ever re-
newed, a constant stream but never the same,
is the one unchanging memorial of the days
of Christ.
As we left the city the road wound up the hill,
climbing higher and higher till at last the whole
country north and south lay spread before us.
This is " the brow of the hill whereon their city
was built," to which they led Jesus "to cast him
THE MOUNT OF BEATITUDES 21
down headlong." * There was the Mediterranean
to the left, and the great fertile plain along its
border at our feet. Blocking the northern view
rose Mt. Hermon, white, majestic, a dome of
dazzling snow crowning the fir-clad slopes, and
we remembered that " The trees of the Lord are
full of sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he
hath planted." 2 To the east rose the mountains
beyond Jordan, the country of Moab. It is a
view His boyish eyes must often have gazed
upon, for here He lived till He began to be about
thirty years old.
The road wound on through Cana, Kefr
Kenna, as its modern name is called. Here was
the first miracle, and here is the well, with the
spring still flowing from which the water was
brought at the marriage in Cana. 3 Here are the
women gathered around it stopping to talk a
while, as the great "water-pots of stone" are
slowly filled. One walks in the midst of sacred
associations ; time turns back, there is no
beginning or end. Nathanael lived here, the
" Israelite in whom was no guile." Cana is only
a little distance from Nazareth, an easy walk
from the home of Jesus. This was a part of
His own province, where He said in the days
1 Luke, iv : 29. * Psalm civ : 16. 3 John, ii : 7.
22 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
of His ministry that a prophet was held in
honor except in his own country, and in his
own house. 1
After leaving the village came a long stretch
of plain, with an apology for a road winding over
it. At last even the dirt road was lost, and the
wagon jolted over rough fields sometimes
ploughed for the spring sowing. We rattled over
half broken-down stone walls, and into and out
of ditches from two to three feet deep. Our
drive was not to become monotonous, for after
all these experiences, in trying to take a ditch
at an angle we stuck fast and stayed for an hour
or more. A shepherd with a fleece over his
shoulders came to our help, and finally we were
on our way again, always going toward the Sea
of Galilee. It was a lovely spring day, with
pleasant sunshine; flowers were blooming about
us, the anemone in scarlet, which is sup-
posed to be the lily of the field, which Solomon
in all his glory could not equal. Wild mignon-
ette and cyclamen were blooming ; blue mints
flowed in azure spikes ; the grass was gay with
lovely bloom.
And then as we went on, feeling that this was
indeed holy ground, on our left we saw a hill of
1 Matthew, xiii : 57.
THE MOUNT OF BEATITUDES 23
curious shape, a round green hill, with a flat
top, having two little peaks at the outer edge.
Karn Hattin, it is called, the Horns of Hat-
tin. Across the grassy, flowered plain we saw
it, rising scarcely sixty feet ; what we should
call a "sugar-loaf" or "Drumlin." The top is
level except for a hollow in it, a hollow quite
large enough to hold the multitude who came to
hear, large enough to let the people sit down
by companies of fifty and a hundred, when the
five thousand were fed; for this is believed to be
the place, not only of the preaching, but of the
feeding of the people. Was it not like our blessed
Lord to think of the bodily wants of His hearers ?
"I have compassion on the multitude," He says,
" because they have now been with me three
days, and have nothing to eat" ; f and this place
was the place where He blessed the loaves, and
the disciples distributed to the hungry thousands.
And I, that speak to you, saw it! It is not some-
thing far away, in almost another world, but a
little hill, green and tender, a gently swelling
mound, rising from a level plain ; justa hill like
any hill, and yet a hill which transcends all others,
for here He sat and taught, here He uttered
those words which haunt our memory, here
1 Mark, viii : 2.
24 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
He who is the Light of the World let His
light shine !
A little later we saw it again from the Sea of
Galilee. This lovely lake lies about seven hun-
dred feet below sea level, so that from the sur-
face of the lake all the hills about acquire height.
This mound, which rises less than a hundred feet
above the plain, thus becomes a mountain nearly
a thousand feet high. A narrow ravine, the Val-
ley of Doves, leads to it, from the border of the
lake. A fishing boat could approach very near
its base. Jesus could easily go " up into a moun-
tain " from the water. When the multitudes
thronged Him, it seems to have been this moun-
tain to which He turned for quiet. "And when
he had sent the multitudes away he went up into
a mountain to pray," St. Matthew says, and St.
Luke in relating a similar experience adds, " he
. . . continued all night in prayer to God."
This was on the night before He chose the
twelve Apostles. Here He was, perhaps, when
the storm came up, and He saw His disciples
tossed with the waves, and " went to them
walking on the sea." From one side of the
mountain He could plainly see the lake, and He
knew the force of that contrary wind. In His
time many villages flourished on the borders of
THE MOUNT OF BEATITUDES 25
the lake. Multitudes came to Him " from Gali-
lee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem,
and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan." *
Now it is a desolate country. The villages are
few and far between. The cities of Galilee, Ca-
pernaum, Bethsaida and Magdala are gone ;
only ruins remain. But the mountain is there ;
the hills He loved are the same ; the flowers
He knew still bloom. It is His country, glori-
fied by His life, and made vital by His remem-
brance. One realizes as never before that He
was what He loved to call Himself, the Son
of Man ; that He was " tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without sin."
It is the poor in spirit, He declares, who are
truly rich, " for theirs is the kingdom of God."
The old barriers fall, old distinctions are gone.
And for His sake the land is a Holy Land.
His blessed eyes beheld it, His feet trod its
springtime freshness. And as He came to show
us the Father, so the land shows us Him, in
His humanity, in the splendid realization that
humanity and divinity can be united. One loves
the land for His sake, one loves the grass, one
loves the flowers, because here He came, that
we might have Life.
1 Matthew, iv : 25.
26 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
Let us -pray :
O Thou who dost clothe the grass in beauty,
we come to Thee to be clothed upon, knowing
that Thou wilt clothe us with power and might
if we come to Thee with a living faith. We
cannot comprehend, dear Lord, how Thou dost
work Thy wonders, but we come with believing
hearts, knowing that Thou hast manifested Thy-
self, knowing that to the pure in heart Thou
wilt reveal Thyself. Give us the pure hearts, we
pray Thee, that we may walk with the open
vision. We cry to Thee, as did the blind men
of old, desiring to see. Teach us that Thy glory
is all about us, that Thy throne is not afar
off, but may be in our inmost hearts. Come to
us, dear Lord, in this freshness of the year, and
shed upon us the perpetual dew of Thy blessing,
for Christ's sake. AMEN.
THE SEA OF GALILEE
*
THE SEA OF GALILEE
SWEET waters, whose serene and limpid wave
Upheld the pulpit from which words were said
To outlast time ; on whose banks feasts were spread
Which to the soul an unknown vigor gave
You did obey, when storms began to rave,
The " Peace, be still," and each foam-crested head
Became like solid oak beneath that tread
Which bore embodied love, and power to save.
The mountains mirror their fair heights in thee ;
Upon their slopes His blessed footsteps trod
Whom multitudes went to the wilds to see,
And to be fed with bread come down from heaven.
From thee went out the Spirit's mighty leaven,
For here was manifest the Son of God.
Ill
THE SEA OF GALILEE
And he arose and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea,
Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great
calm. MARK, iv : 39.
I WANT you to think of a soft spring day,
with green grass all about, short tufts, not like
that of our fertile meadows, but grass coming up
in little bunches and clumps and intermingled
with most beautiful flowers: the splendid scar-
let anemone in three varieties, cyclamen, vari-
ous larkspurs, and blue - eyed veronica, golden
buttercups, and daisies, all sprinkled through
it, a most enchanting variegated carpet of
flowers.
It is a lovely country to drive over, with the
Mount of Beatitudes rising like what we call
a sugar-loaf hill to the left hand, and Mount
Tabor, with a dome-like rise, to the right. On
and on the horses stumble in the miry road.
And presently there is a cleft in this open table-
land, and looking far down is the silver gleam
of the Lake of Galilee. What associations clus-
30 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
ter about it under all its names! The Sea of
Galilee, the evangelists are fond of calling it;
the Sea of Chinnereth or of Chinneroth it is
called in the Old Testament, and the Lake of
Gennesaret in the New ; and, in honor of the
Roman Emperor, the Sea of Tiberias. We
associate with our English word "sea" the idea
of immensity ; but you must think of it more
as the Germans use the word "See." We have
the Sea of the Four Cantons, or the Sea of
Zurich, among the Swiss lakes with German
names; and this beautiful sea is not half as
large as either of those. It is another illustra-
tion of the truth that it is not physical size
which influences the world, for spiritual forces
are quite independent of territorial extent. It is
only twelve and a quarter miles long, and at the
widest scarcely seven miles, pear-shaped, wider
at the north and narrowing toward the south.
Many of our own New England lakes are far
larger, and yet no lake in the world can be so
precious.
As we first looked down from the plain high
above it, it lay a wonderful expanse of bright-
ness, a shield of silver and blue, set among the
springtime hills, while just across rose the coun-
try of the Gadarenes, lovely pale green hills,
THE SEA OF GALILEE 31
sloping sharply down, just as we began to find
we had to descend ; for the lake lies six hundred
and eighty feet below the Mediterranean and
more than eight hundred feet below the plain
over which we had taken our way. So it was
a steep descent, and the road wound down and
down by ravines and broad masses of volcanic
rock, black and grim, sharply defined in the
lovely verdure. Down and down wound the
road, with the City of Tiberias always in plain
sight as the goal of the long way across the
plain. It had been cool and fresh in the late
afternoon breeze upon the upland, and became
warmer as we descended. The masses of low
brown buildings took shape, the hills on the
opposite shore grew higher, and the day's jour-
ney ended at the city gate.
It is still a walled town, the walls in places
broken and almost obliterated; but there is a
beautiful arch through which the road enters,
and just beside it a good little inn kept by a de-
vout German, who has lived here some twenty
years. We scarcely stopped to see our rooms,
but hurried immediately to the shore of the
lake, and stood upon the sandy beach, strewn
with tiny shells, and plunged our hands into
the most sacred waters of the world.
32 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
It was an enchanting evening: the sinking
sun was shining full on the opposite hills, and
clothing them with a softened glory. At the
north, the snowy dome of Hermon took on
lovely rosy lights, while a stratum of dark pur-
ple cloud lower than the summit seemed to lift
it far up into the empyrean. As the sun sank,
and purple shadows fell upon the waters, the
light climbed on the hills until the snows of
Hermon were left in celestial glory; and we
remembered it was upon this mount that " his
face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was
white as the light." l
The water of the lake is wonderfully clear,
like Alpine water, and of a soft opal greenish
color. It is over a hundred feet deep, and the
greatest depth is supposed to be one hundred
and forty-eight feet. Mountains that rise from
its surface continue their descent below its
waters ; and it fills the deep ravine cut among the
hills. The temperature of the water is warmer
than that of the Swiss lakes, which are fed by
mountain streams coming from glacial sources.
As the level of the Sea of Galilee is below the
ocean, the heat of the sun makes some differ-
ence; but it is also fed by springs of volcanic
1 Matthew, xvii: 2.
THE SEA OF GALILEE 33
origin, very hot springs some of them, with
a temperature of one hundred and thirty de-
grees, which rise from the bottom of the
lake. The water is said to be at a temperature
of about sixty-eight at the surface, and at a
depth of sixty-five feet has fallen less than ten
degrees, owing to these warm sources of sup-
ply. The fish are still famous and abundant,
some of them of the same varieties that are
found in the Nile. How this happens is one
of the many problems this wonderful country
presents!
The boats are still there, the fishermen's
boats that our Lord used for His pulpit, and in
which He found refuge in the crowded days of
His ministry. They are heavily built, and clumsy,
between thirty and forty feet long, looking like
overgrown rowboats, as one first sees them.
There is a short, stout mast in the bow of each
boat, which can be unshipped by a couple of men
at a moment's notice, and across this mast the
lateen sail is rigged. We had the happiness of
being in a boat under both conditions : when it
was simply a rowboat, and each man stood to
his oar and swung backward and forward with a
low chant; and then again when a stiff breeze
was blowing, and the waves dashed against the
34 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
side of the boat and flung their spray high up
against the sail. One could see that it would be
dangerous to try to cross the lake at such a time,
and we hugged the shore and kept close to the
protecting hills of the western bank. The lake
is so narrow and the mountains so high that when
the wind blows from the north it sweeps down
through a ravine and lashes the waves into a wild
fury. We had sunshine and a mild sky with our
strong breeze, and so had only the delight and
joy of the rapid motion; but when the thunders
roll and "He commandeth and raiseth a stormy
wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof," then
indeed one could see how terrible would be the
fury of the lake in the wrath of the elements.
Did the Psalmist have this lake in mind when
he wrote the earthquake Psalm, the ii4th:
" Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the
Lord, which turneth the rock into a standing
water, the flint into a fountain of waters "?
The Jordan enters at the north, having its
sources on the slopes of Mt. Hermon, but run-
ning through a low marshy plain, on which wild
boar are abundant. It enters a turbid, muddy
stream, polluting the limpid waters of the lake
for some distance ; and it leaves it clear as crys-
tal, a rushing torrent at the southern end.
THE SEA OF GALILEE 35
One cannot understand the Gospel till one
knows something of this beautiful Sea of Galilee.
For here that blessed life was lived; on these
shores words were said which have governed the
world. It was when He saw Peter and Andrew
casting a net into the sea that Jesus called them to
become fishers of men. The sons of Zebedee
lived here, and left the ship and their father to
follow Him. 1 Bethsaida, Magdala, and Caper-
naum are all upon its shores. The people pressed
about Him as they press upon strangers to this
day. As I sat sketching on the shore, a troop of
released school-children came thronging about
me, not standing quietly behind to watch the
work, as many California children have done,
but pressing close, so that I could see nothing
but eager, childish faces, and the tiny puppy
which one little fellow held up within a yard of
me in his anxiety to have the little dog included
in the sketch. The people must have crowded
Jesus in just that way when "there was gathered
unto him a great multitude, so that he entered
into a ship, and sat in the sea; and the whole
multitude was by the sea on the land." 2 And then
He taught them of the Kingdom of Heaven.
These waters heard the parable of the sower,
1 Matthew, iv : 1 9, 2 1 . a Mark, iv : I .
3 6 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
and of the grain of mustard seed ; " and with
many such parables spake he the Word unto
them," St. Mark says. 1 After the long hours
of teaching, when the even was come, "they
took him even as he was,"* and crossed the
lake.
"And there arose a great storm of wind, and
the waves beat into the ship so that it was now
full." " Carest thou not that we perish?" they
cried, awaking Him from sleep; and it was these
waters that heard and obeyed the "Peace, be
still!" 3
The nights of preparation were spent upon
the borders of this lake. He went into a moun-
tain, we are told, "and continued all night in
prayer to God." What vigils it has seen ! After
the feeding of the five thousand upon its banks,
Jesus "constrained his disciples to get into a
ship and to go before him unto the other side,
while he sent the multitude away"; and then
" he went up into a mountain apart to pray : and
when the evening was come he was there alone."
Then St. Matthew describes the storm, how the
ship was " in the midst of the sea, tossed with
the waves, for the wind was contrary. And in the
1 Mark, iv : 33. a Mark, iv : 36.
3 Mark, iv : 37-39-
THE SEA OF GALILEE 37
fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them,
walking on the sea." One can picture their fright
and astonishment as they " cried out for fear,"
and the assurance which that blessed voice
brought them straightway: " Be of good cheer;
it is I ; be not afraid." '
And it was here after the resurrection Jesus
had the meeting with Peter, Peter who had
denied Him, who, when he saw Him standing
on the Plain of Gennesaret, "girt his fisher's
coat about him, and cast himself into the sea," 3
to hasten to Him. Here that searching question
was three times repeated : " Lovest thou me ? "
And Peter answered with tears, " Lord, thou
knowest all things, thou knowest that I love
thee." And the blessed voice replied in tones
that must have pierced the heart, "Feed my
sheep." 3 Truly these mountains and this water
have heard words which have moved the world.
Men have come and gone, but the lake lies em-
bosomed in its hills, serene, with emerald and
amethyst lights gleaming in its depths. In peace
and in storm it is His lake, the background
of the Gospel history, a part of His human
life, whose limpid waters still hold the echoes
1 Matthew, iv : 22, 27. * John, xxi : 7.
3 John, xxi : 17.
38 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
of that voice which says to every troubled soul,
"Peace, be still."
Let us pray :
Our Heavenly Father, we come to Thee to
have our tempests stilled; to hear Thy voice
brooding upon the waters. In silence and in
worship we come. Do Thou look into the depths
of our souls ; may they be limpid and pure, for
Thy Spirit to penetrate. May we open our
hearts, O Lord, that they may reflect something
of Thy glory. Touch us each with a sense of
Thy presence ; renew us with the streams of Thy
grace, and bathe us in Thine ineffable light. For
Jesus' sake. AMEN.
CAPERNAUM
CAPERNAUM
I STOOD among the heaps of broken stones
Once capital and pillar, on the floor
Of the centurions' synagogue; the door
Through which the Master and His chosen ones
Must oft have passed is here ; and here the groans
Of sick folk sounded, as diseased and sore
Men brought them to the street to lay before
That blessed Presence, Who could still all moans.
This was His home, the blue lake's diadem ;
Here was the ruler's daughter raised ; here came
The woman who but touched His garment's hem.
Now desolation reigns ; the sun beats down
Upon the remnants of that ancient town
Which lives but in the glory of His name.
IV
CAPERNAUM
I am the living bread which came down from heaven ; if any
man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. JOHN, vi : 51.
THIS most profound and mystical of all the
discourses of our blessed Lord we have all re-
garded with reverent awe. It is as if He wrested
language from its purpose, and to enforce His
meaning used so startling a metaphor that it
seized and horrified His hearers. And then
when they questioned, and could not under-
stand, one can think of Him almost scornfully
exclaiming, "The flesh profiteth nothing; it is
the spirit which quickeneth ; the words which
I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are
life." '
The devout of all Christian centuries have
found their inspiration and sustainment in this
discourse. Divines and theologians have sought
to explain it. It touches upon the deepest mys-
teries, the very springs and sources of life; upon
1 John, vi : 63.
42 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
the union of this mortal and immortality, of
this human with the divine.
The place where such words were said must
have a peculiar sacredness. We are so held by
the power of the discourse that its circumstances
of time and place escape us. " These things said
he in the synagogue, as he taught in Caper-
naum." * Let us consider the setting of this pre-
cious jewel of truth.
It was a beautiful day when we set out from
Tiberias, in a great fishing-boat, for the north-
ern end of the Lake of Galilee, to visit the site
of the ancient town to which Jesus came, after
they had led Him to the brow of the Hill of
Nazareth the place of His bringing-up
and had thrust Him out of the city. Then He
walked over these Galilean hills and came down
to the borders of the lake itself. It is a veri-
table paradise in springtime. There is a famous
passage from Josephus, which is often quoted:
"One may call this place the 'ambition of na-
ture,' " he says, "when it forces those plants that
are natural enemies one to another to agree
together, it is a happy combination of the sea-
sons, as if every one of them had a claim in this
country ; for it not only nourishes different sorts
1 John, vi : 59.
THE SEA OF GALILEE, SHOWING ANCIENT FORTIFICATIONS
CAPERNAUM 43
of autumnal fruits beyond man's expectation,
but preserves them also a great while. It sup-
plies man with the principal fruits, with grapes
and figs continually during ten months of the
year, and the rest of the fruits as they become
ripe together through the whole year. For be-
sides the good temperature of the air, it is also
watered by a most fertile fountain. The people
of the country call it Capharnum."
As one rows north on the waters of the lake
from Tiberias, the western border retreats, mak-
ing a bay forming the body of a lute, which is
one derivation of the name of the lake. Kinnor
is the ancient name of the musical instrument,
and the name Gennesaret is supposed to have
been a corruption of Kinneret, derived from
this name. The shape of the lake certainly sug-
gests a resemblance.
Just around the promontory which marks the
swell of this silver lute lying among its hills is
the Valley of Doves, a narrow passage between
hills leading immediately up to the Horns of
Hattin, the Mount of Beatitudes, which
on the lake side descends steeply to the water.
Here it was that our Saviour could seek the soli-
tude that His soul craved in His busy days of
ministry, and go into a desert place to pray.
44 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
At the foot of these hills stretches the Plain
of Gennesaret, the plain which Josephus de-
scribes, and which in his day must have been
the very garden of the world. It is still culti-
vated, but only in part and in small orchards,
and its melons and figs and grapes are famous
throughout the Eastern country. It presents to
the eye a waste appearance, uncared-for, as one
passes its shores in the toiling boat.
Magdala comes into view, a tiny hamlet with
scarce a dozen houses, just at the edge of this
great plain. A little farther on, the fountain
which Josephus speaks of is still seen, "the
round spring" where the extraordinary fish,
which Josephus also mentions, is still found.
This is the coracinus of Josephus (called the
bar bur by the Arabs), which emits a sound.
The water rushes to the lake, a clear stream
from the broken aqueduct, which long ago was
built to conduct it into the town. A little to
the north of the spring is Khan Minyeh, just an
accumulation of ruins, which by some travellers
has been considered the site of Capernaum ; and
still going northward, crossing the western bay,
one comes to the ruins of Tell Hum. The
only habitable building in sight is the roof of
the little house in which the Franciscan monk
CAPERNAUM 45
lives, who has charge of the ruins. A large part
of the ancient city is roughly enclosed in a wall
built of fragments of its own grandeur. One
climbs over blocks of stone, and in and out of
curious little by-paths, and knocks at a closed
gate. The sweet-faced friar, in his brown gown
and rope-girdle, opens the door, and one stands
in what must have been the heart of that ancient
town.
Here is the synagogue of beautiful white lime-
stone, broken and scattered, lying in ruined frag-
ments on the ground ! Corinthian capitals half-
buried in the sand, and bits of exquisite Roman
carving, are heaped in masses of confusion. One
climbs over and around pieces of white marble,
and finally comes to a paved marble space, the
original floor of the synagogue, with the bases
of pillars standing right and left. This was the
centurion's synagogue, this was the place of
that wonderful discourse. Here Jesus boldly
proclaimed, "I am that bread of life. Your
fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and
are dead. This is the bread which cometh down
from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and
not die."
Here is the marble pavement on which those
1 John, vi : 48-50.
46 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
blessed feet stood. The synagogue is not very
large, only seventy-five feet long and fifty-
seven feet broad ; a simple rectangular building,
but it was beautifully decorated within and
without, and built of white limestone. At the
entrance are four broad low steps leading down
to the level of the street. This was the street of
"His own city." It was here that the people
thronged Him on His way to the house of
Jairus, whose little daughter lay sick of a fever;
and here the woman came who " said within her-
self, If I may but touch his garment I shall be
whole." 1 In these streets the two blind men
followed Him, crying, "Thou son of David,
have mercy on us." 2 It was here that the trib-
ute money was demanded, and Jesus said to
Peter, "Then are the children free. Notwith-
standing, lest we should offend them, go thou
to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the
fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast
opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of
money; that take, and give unto them for me
and thee." 3 The house of Peter was near by,
where his wife's mother lay sick of a fever.
Here many mighty works were done, and here
1 Matthew, ix : 21. 2 Matthew, ix : 27.
3 Matthew, xvii : 27.
CAPERNAUM 47
most precious words were said. The synagogue
is in ruins ; there is no roof, not even a broken
arch. What bases of pillars remain are hardly
more than three feet high. It is absolute de-
struction and desolation, and yet the blue sky
arches it as no temple built with hands was
ever arched.
We stayed long and reverently in those sacred
precincts, and then wandered out to the green
spring turf strewn with flowers, and sat in silence
and contemplation.
The borders of the Sea of Galilee, Lamartine
tells us, "seem to have borne cities instead of
trees and forests." In the time of Christ these
shores teemed with life. Villages of large popu-
lation some authorities say as many as ten
thousand in each village clothed the western
hills. Capernaum was the garrison town, with its
Roman soldiery quartered upon it, the chief
city of a district where there were many impor-
tant places. It was on the high road from Damas-
cus. Trains of laden camels from the East came
to it ; the active life of the world poured along
these verdant hillsides. The critics tell us that
Galilee was too busy a place for the blighting
following of the law which the Pharisees insisted
on, and that therefore the Messianic hope burned
48 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
brighter in this free mountain country than in
other parts of Judea.
And to this populous land, full of life, of en-
ergy, He came, and lived by the seaside there,
in "His own city." The contrast between that
time and this is overwhelming. The prophecy
is literally fulfilled: "And thou, Capernaum,
which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought
down to hell ; for if the mighty works which had
been done in thee had been done in Sodom,
it would have remained until this day." I The
words of Isaiah come to mind also. It is "a
possession for the bittern . . . and I will sweep
it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord
of hosts." a It knew not the day of its visita-
tion, and lies a scattered waste of ruin beside
the placid lake.
But amid all this destruction the figure of
the centurion rises in dignity, and dominates
his synagogue. "For he loveth our nation,"
his neighbors said of him. He understood the
power of authority, when he besought Jesus to
"speak the word only "that his servant might
be healed; and of him the Master said, " I have
not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." 3
1 Matthew, xi : 23. a Isaiah, xiv : 23.
3 Luke, vii : 9.
CAPERNAUM 49
The row back to Tiberias was one x>f the un-
forgettable experiences of a lifetime. The sun
was setting behind the western hills, and Mt.
Hermon at the head of the lake changed its
snow-white dome to one of rose and purple, and
finally became a ghostly mountain in the dim
evening light, faintly illuminated by a crescent
moon. Time disappears ; there is no first nor
last, the daily miracle is the same as it was
hundreds of years ago. Such a scene those
blessed eyes must have looked upon; such
beauty refreshed His spirit. In beholding it one
comes near to the sources of life itself; one
realizes as never before the everlastingness of
the invisible, and learns anew that "the flesh
profiteth nothing"; that the words of Jesus,
"they are spirit, and they are life." " If any man
eat of this bread, he shall live forever."
Let us fray :
Our Heavenly Father, Grant unto us that we
may know the day of our visitation ; that we may
have the eyes to see, and the ears to hear, what
Thou wouldst have us see and hear. Thou dost
still speak words of wonder to us. Help us to
see that the externals profit nothing; to get at
the heart of the meaning Thou wouldst have us
50 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
understand. While we rejoice in all the beauty
about us, may it carry to each one of us a deeper
sense of the truth that is beauty, of the union
with Thee that is Life. So may all loveliness
truly minister to the unending life ; so may all
life take on a continuity, because it is rooted,
grounded, built, in Thee.
Give us that bread which came down from
heaven, we beseech Thee, for Jesus' sake. AMEN.
THE PLAIN OF SHARON
"IF GOD SO CLOTHE THE GRASS"
HE must have known this lily of the field
In all the glory of its crimson dress ;
This purple iris in its loveliness,
This cyclamen, its leaves a silver shield,
This mignonette, this orchid, all appealed
In beauty to Him, each was an express
Image of joy, which mutely did confess
His care, Who in the grass His love revealed.
And when upon the hills of Galilee
He spent the watches of the night in prayer,
When solemn stars in silence looked to see
The conflict of the wide world in one soul,
True man, true God, Who should redeem the whole,
With dawn adoring flowers were also there.
THE PLAIN OF SHARON
And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the Valley of
Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that
have sought me. ISAIAH, Ixv : 10.
THE Plain of Sharon extends from Mt.Carmel
on the north the Carmel that juts out into the
sea, with its long, low-lying headland to Joppa
on the south, and from the Mediterranean on the
west to the foot-hills on the east. It is a lovely
upland plain, never rising to any great height
above the sea, but with undulating, parklike
scenery. The historians tell us that at one time
it must have borne a wonderful growth of oaks,
the oak that looks like the California live oak,
with its evergreen leaves. A few scattered groups
of trees remain, but the luxuriant forests which
must at one time have covered the country are
gone. There are softly swelling low hills, and
three brooks, rivers, as they were called in the
Eastern phraseology, but to our Western eyes
hardly more than good-sized rivulets.
In First Chronicles, where the various " heads
54 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
of departments " one might almost call them
are mentioned, we are told who was over the
vineyards, with a second overseer for the increase
of the vineyards for the wine-cellars ; and over
the olive trees there was a tree-warden, and over
the oil which came from the olives was Joash;
"And over the herds that fed in Sharon was Shitrai
the Sharonite." x The camels had their overseers
and the flocks their special guardians. These all
follow the other officers of David's household,
where the first mention is of the "sons of Asaph,
andofHeman . . . who should prophesy with
harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals."' 1 Then
follow the names of the choir, those who were
to prophesy with the harp and give thanks and
praise to the Lord. The actual number of the
choir is given : "So the number of them, with
their brethren that were instructed in the songs
of the Lord, even all that were cunning, was two
hundred fourscore and eight." 3
The singers are mentioned in the very first
place, and then follow all the officers of David's
household. These chapters in First Chronicles
are interesting reading, setting forth as they do
the life of the time. Among the officers of the
1 i Chron. xxvii : 29. 2 i Chron. xxv : I .
3 i Chron. xxv : 7.
THE PLAIN OF SHARON 55
household come the husbandmen for the Plain
of Sharon, which was the great pasture for the
flocks and the herds. From here came the wool
from which the cloth was spun for the clothing
of the people.
We were to have two days upon the Plain of
Sharon, and it was in the freshness of its spring-
time beauty. The commentators have had a con-
troversy on the "rose of Sharon." One of the
great Germans (Delitzsch) holds that it was a
papyrus which blooms in the autumn; but most
of the commentators agree in thinking that it was
the colchicum,or some kindred species of crocus,
though the Jewish rabbis believe it to be the nar-
cissus. It might easily be any one of the beau-
tifully colored flowers which grow upon that
plain. Three distinct varieties of anemones are
there : the splendid great scarlet anemone, like
that of the Italian hills; a smaller sister, with a
red more like a poppy ; and a third kind even
smaller yet, but all of a glowing color which
gleams in the sunlight and makes one smile with
joy. Different varieties of narcissus bloom in the
spring, and lovely brodias. The whole ground
is a carpet of varied tapestry. The springtime
green is always a wonder, it seems impossible
that any color can be so brilliant ; and in Pales-
56 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
tine, with its beautiful sunshine on the rolling
ground of the Plain of Sharon, the fields stretch
out a garden of beauty. It looks now as if it
had once been more fully cultivated, and in-
deed the whole of Palestine has a somewhat
deserted look. But as we started out from Haifa
for our two days' drive south, with the soft low
sky, which seemed to bring out the colors with
greater beauty than ever, to the right and left
lay the new olive plantations which have been
planted by the German colonists, and every-
where were signs of returning fertility, respond-
ing to the new cultivation.
Instead of keeping the road close to the shore,
we turned inland a little, and went up through
a charming rolling country, past villages and
over the brooks which I have mentioned. Near
the villages were the wells, to which the whole
town came. Most curious wells they are, unlike
any that I had ever seen before. There is no
roof or covering of any kind, just a wall of
stone masonry, enclosing a space hardly ever
more than eight feet square, and an entrance on
one side. One goes down a narrow flight of stone
steps of ladder-like steepness, and sometimes
makes a turn before coming to the water, which
lies quietly some twenty feet or more below the
THE PLAIN OF SHARON 57
surface. Here people come with their water-jars
on their heads, and descend into the wells. One
remembers how the daughters of the priest of
Midian went out to water their flocks, and the
strife which was at the well, when " the shep-
herds came and drove them away : but Moses
stood up and helped them, and watered their
flock." x They probably descended just as these
women did, and brought the water up and filled
the troughs for the flocks to drink. Abraham's
servant met Rebecca at the well, and said, " Let
me, I pray thee, drink a little water of thy pitcher.
And she said, Drink, my lord : and she hasted
and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and
gave him drink." 2 It all lives before one again;
it might happen to-day, as one sees the wo-
men in their loosely flowing garments, with the
heavy water-jars gracefully poised upon their
heads.
All along the plain public work was going on
in the way of mending the roads, and groups of
children and girls were carrying stones, each
just one individual stone, six or eight inches in
diameter perhaps ; a roughly hewn block, and
carrying it upon their heads. Many of the little
girls eight or ten years old had babies strapped
Exodus, ii: 17. a Genesis, xxiv : 17, 18.
58 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
upon their backs, the small heads looking over
their shoulders. If they were thus encumbered,
they generally carried the stone in their arms ;
but all day long the babies would be strapped to
these children, while they went on with their
work, bringing stones one by one to mend the
road. They seemed to be a happy and cheerful
lot of little people ; but one could not think that
their task was a very suitable one, especially for
the little older sisters who were doing duty as
mothers. They laughed and chatted gayly and
came running about us, and seemed to be quite
delighted to have their photographs taken and
to have a small handful of sweets distributed to
them.
Toward the late afternoon we came into a
country even more rolling and parklike ; the
day began to lower, and the sweet spring rain
came on, not a heavy, drenching rain, but gen-
tle showers, and we were glad to reach our
resting place in Zimmerim. This is one of the
Jewish colonies, established by Baron Roths-
child, under the auspices of the Society for the
Recolonization of Palestine. It was just before
the Passover time, and the whole town had
given up its ordinary business and was prepar-
ing for the great feast. We went to the syna-
THE PLAIN OF SHARON 59
gogue, a good modern building, put up by
Baron Rothschild, which seemed strangely
out of place in the associations of the country
which carry one so far back. Shewbread was
being baked, and some was given us. The little
inn was full of people coming and going, but
our dragoman calmly seized upon the pub-
lic parlor, and served us himself with our even-
ing meal. Here we were in the very heart of
the Plain of Sharon, the emblem of all fer-
tility, the name which typifies loveliness. The
writer of the Song of Songs was certainly a
great lover of nature ; and though his work is
too universal to be claimed by any one section
of the country, yet it perhaps more nearly de-
scribes the Plain of Sharon in its physical fea-
tures than any other part of Palestine.
The second day took us out of the hill coun-
try back toward the sea; and in mid-afternoon,
with glorious sunshine bringing out the sapphire
blue of the Mediterranean, we reached the an-
cient port of Joppa. But the two days' drive
over the lovely country had brought home to
us as nothing else could the extent of the land.
Distances in the Bible are mentioned by a man's
day's walk, and the forty-four miles which we
had come would perhaps be divided into more
60 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
than two days. The country, as I have said be-
fore, is a small country, a country the extent of
which one can easily grasp, and yet a country
which combines within its borders almost every
variety of physical feature and of climate. The
Plain of Sharon has the advantage of the sea,
and can never be as dry and desolate as the Jor-
dan valley. Indeed, when the prophet wishes to
speak of destruction he declares that "Sharon
is like a wilderness." 1
None of the most sacred associations cluster
about it; we do not know that our Lord ever
walked its length. His journeys that we know
of are to Jerusalem, and were through the Jor-
dan valley. But from the Hill of Nazareth He
could have seen the sea as He looked toward
the south. In the farther distance, the edge of
this plain must have been visible, and the devout
of all ages have taken that lovely verse from the
Song of Songs and have applied it to Him:
" I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the
Valley." 2
Jesus was a good husbandman. He knew the
various kinds of soil: the stony places with no
deepness of earth; the thorns which spring up and
choke the seed; and the good soil, all were
Isaiah, xxxiii : 9. * The Song of Solomon, ii : I .
THE PLAIN OF SHARON 61
known to Him. Here on the plain is growing
the mustard seed he spoke of, 1 and the grass is
full of flowers. He was the first naturalist of the
great teachers. The great men of Greece rea-
soned in abstract terms, were purely ethical.
Jesus called our attention to the beauty of the
world about us : "Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow; they toil not, neither do they
spin : and yet I say unto you, that even Solo-
mon in all his glory was not arrayed like one
of these." 3
To cross this plain was a fit preparation for
the more sacred scenes which followed. Jesus
speaks of Himself constantly as the good shep-
herd, and uses pastoral similes of Himself. This
was the great sheepfold; here the flocks were
led by their shepherds. Our blessed Lord con-
stantly spoke of sheep, of the ninety and nine,
and the one lost sheep. "Feed my sheep" was
the charge to Peter. So to live upon these up-
land pastures for even a couple of days, sitting
on the ground for our mid-day meal, gathering
the flowers of David's sheepcotes, gives a new
meaning to the words of Christ: "I am the
good shepherd ; the good shepherd giveth his life
for the sheep."
1 Matthew, xiv 132. Matthew, vi : 28, 29.
62 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
Let us pray :
O Thou Who dost watch over Israel, Who
dost not slumber nor sleep, we give Thee
thanks for the beauty of Thy visible world, for
the springing of the flowers, for the softness
of the grass. Thou dost prepare the meadows
for the cattle, and herbs for the service of man.
The whole earth is full of Thy goodness. May
it be ours, O Lord, to look beyond the exter-
nal, to rejoice in beauty because it is a part of
Thine own ineffable perfection. As a well of
water in a thirsty land, so may the thought
of Thy love be to us, to refresh, to sustain, to
make alive. Quicken our hearts and minds, we
beseech Thee, by the inspiration of Thy Holy
Spirit, that we may follow the Good Shepherd,
and go in and out, and find pasture. AMEN.
JOPPA
*
JOPPA
THE ships of Hiram sailed these seas so blue,
And brought from Lebanon the goodly store
Of cedar for the Temple wall and floor.
And to these jagged rocks of blackest hue
Andromeda was chained ; here Perseus slew
The dragon. From this port with laboring oar
The ships of Tarshish fleeing Jonah bore;
The waters teem with sacrifice and rue.
The prophet Moses from Mount Pisgah's height
Beheld this sea, e'er yet he fell on sleep ;
And David sang of all its tragic might,
Of that Leviathan with giant play
And stormy wind the Lord alone can stay,
And wild, tempestuous wonders of the deep.
VI
JOPPA
And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth
into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know
that for my sake this great tempest is upon you. JONAH,
i: 12.
JONAH was flying from a duty, was in a
state of open disobedience. But is there not
something fine in his acknowledgment of re-
sponsibility, and taking the consequences of his
revolt? It shows how such a man came to be
chosen for a special message, and why he was
preserved to carry it out.
The Biblical critics frankly admit that the
book of Jonah is simply an edifying tale, a
tale which shows the futility of trying to escape
from the voice of the Lord, and which sets forth
the gentleness of God. " Doest thou well to be
angry?" the Divine voice asks the prophet
sitting beside his withered vine, and wishing he
was dead, because the mercy of the Lord had
spared Nineveh, " that great city, wherein are
more than sixscore thousand persons that can-
66 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
not discern between their right hand and their
left hand, and also much cattle." '
The short story of the prophet contains a
lovely song, or psalm, a sea song:
" For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the
seas ;
And the floods compassed me about :
All thy billows and thy waves passed over me.
The waters compassed me about, even to the soul :
The depths closed me round about,
The weeds were wrapped about my head.
I went down to the bottoms of the mountains ;
The earth with her bars was about me forever :
Yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord
my God."*
It is strange to find in the Biblical writings so
few references to the sea. The iO4th Psalm,
of " this great and wide sea," and the descrip-
tion of a storm in the loyth are the most
famous passages. David was a hill man; his
own country was of an inland character. The
people of Israel had few if any vessels. It was
Hiram, King of Tyre, who sent timber for
the temple. " I will do all thy desire," King
Hiram said to Solomon, "concerning timber
of cedar, and concerning timber of fir. My ser-
1 Jonah, iv : 1 1. * Jonah, ii : 3-7.
JOPPA 67
vants shall bring them down from Lebanon
unto the sea; and I will convey them by sea
in floats unto the place thou shalt appoint
me." x This was on the Mediterranean, of course,
and in all probability it was to Joppa that the
timber came, for Joppa is the nearest port to
Jerusalem, only some forty miles away. The
name of the city is derived from Japheh, mean-
ing beautiful, and it is mentioned as a Canaanite
port on tablets which still exist and date from
the fifteenth century B.C. The harbor is only a
semblance of a harbor ; great reefs guard its en-
trance, and the sea dashes over them with fury,
making an entry often impossible.
Beside these Biblical associations of an early
day, Joppa was localized as the scene of one of
the most beautiful of the Greek myths. It was
to these rocks that Andromeda was chained,
and here Perseus came and killed the dragon.
In the time of Pliny the chains were still shown !
All the charming old tales are being explained
by modern scholarship, and we are told that the
story of Perseus and Andromeda had its base
in a lunar eclipse, the dragon being the Earth-
shadow. But it is interesting to note that both
in the Biblical story, and in the classical one,
1 i Kings, v : 8, 9.
68 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
there is a monster. Is it not more freely inter-
preted by saying that there has always been
the conflict between good and evil, between
the raging of the sea and the safety of land?
Isaiah speaks of it: " In that day the Lord with
his sore and great and strong sword shall punish
leviathan . . . that crooked serpent; and he
shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." x This is
supposed to have been written seven hundred
years before Christ. Had Isaiah heard of Per-
seus' monster, a devouring evil creature, to
whom the best and fairest had to be sacrificed?
These ancient associations cluster round that
seaside city, and we found ourselves one fair
spring morning in a very garden of the Lord.
Oranges hung thick amid their shining darksome
leaves, the golden apples of the Hesperides;
oleander trees stood about, vineyards stretched
toward the hills. The blue sea lapped its pebbly
beach, as if no breath of storm could ever disturb
it. The streets are narrow and most picturesque,
with people from every nation under heaven
thronging them. In true Oriental fashion, cook-
ing and various household economies were going
on in broad daylight in the open, and we threaded
our way through many distracting interests : past
1 Isaiah, xxvii : I .
HOUSE OF SIMON THE TANNER
JOPPA 69
supercilious camels and ambling donkeys and
persuasive sweetmeat-sellers, to a little square
house overlooking the harbor, halfway up the
hillside upon which the city is built. Tradition
calls this the house of Simon the tanner. Here
it was that Peter was lodging, when Cornelius
the centurion had the word: "And now send
men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose
surname is Peter." Here it was that the vision
came to Peter, and that he was shaken from his
stronghold of Judaism. "What God hath
cleansed, that call not thou common." l
Whether we believe that this was the very
house or not, the place was near here, and there
could hardly be a more impressive one to bring
home the lesson of the universality of the Father-
hood of God. It is a place steeped in ancient
tradition, tradition which we have been taught
to call heathen, but which denoted a firm belief
in the triumph of good over evil; a port of en-
try, almost the only one in Palestine, where men
of all nations congregated even more than at this
day. It was the very place to enforce such a les-
son. "God hath showed me that I should not
call any man common or unclean," the Apostle
humbly declares. 2
1 Acts, x : 5,15. * Acts, x : 28.
yo A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
Dragons seem to have belonged in that partic-
ular part of the country, for Lydda is only a few
miles away, and it was in Lydda that St. George
slew the dragon, and became the patron saint of
England. In Lydda St. Peter was staying when
that holy woman who was full of good works
died in Joppa. " And forasmuch as Lydda was
nigh to Joppa and the disciples heard that Peter
was there, they sent unto him two men desiring
that he would not delay to come to them." l
How graphic the scene is, the widows who
stood about weeping, and showing the coats and
garments Dorcas had made for them, and their
joy when she was "presented unto them alive"!
It was in Joppa that St. Peter tarried many
days, days of preparation for his after ministry.
It is a place of old and new. Jonah Andro-
meda St. Peter Dorcas ! Two prophets :
one of the old dispensation, announcing wrath
and judgment to come; one of the new, declar-
ing, " Of a truth I perceive that God is no re-
specter of persons : but in every nation he that
feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is ac-
cepted with him." 2 Two women: one, the type
of maiden purity delivered to the powers of evil
as a sacrifice; the other, the woman who was
1 Acts, ix : 38. 2 Acts, x : 34, 35.
JOPPA 71
"full of good works and alms deeds which she
did."
And there the city stands around which these
lovely stories cluster. The sea then "wrought
and was tempestuous," as it does to this day.
The eye of imagination may still see leviathan
playing in the waters, and King Hiram's trans-
ports threading their way into the rock-bound
harbor. We still have our dragons, Perseus
and St. George have not exterminated them all.
The world is waiting for Andromeda, and still
more for the active Dorcas. Under Syrian skies,
or in a western world, the call is the same, a
call to service, to high living, to wage war on the
powers of evil. " Thou shalt tread upon the lion
and adder, the young lion and the dragon shalt
thou trample under feet."
Let us pray :
Thou knowest, O Lord, the dragons we each
one have to fight, of self-indulgence, of eva-
sion, of fear. Thou who alone canst give cour-
age, come to each of us, we pray Thee, to arm
us with Thine own invisible might. Make us
strong to overcome, and send us forth prepared
for Thy service in whatever way Thou shalt
require : in ways of sacrifice, or ways of construe-
72 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
tive work, ready to do, or to bear, as Thou shalt
appoint. All the doing, all the bearing is for
Thee, dear Lord. Fit us then for Thy work, we
beseech Thee. We ask it for Christ's sake.
AMEN.
BETHLEHEM
A MOUNTAIN town, with dark red soil of clay ;
Far in the East uprises Pisgah's height
From which the dying Moses had a sight
Of all the promised land. The ancient way
Winds up the stony hillside; children play
Beneath old olives, ruddy children, bright
With sparkling eyes; and camels in their might
Stalk proudly, bearing loads with trappings gay.
A land of pasture ; here the Shepherd's Psalm
Takes on new meaning; here is David's well,
With flocks of sheep and goats, and rural calm.
And in this cave, which sheltered once King Saul,
This hidden place, was born the Lord of all,
Incarnate, God with us, Emmanuel.
VII
BETHLEHEM
And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least
among the princes of Juda : for out of thee shall come a
Governor that shall rule my people Israel. MATTHEW,
ii:6.
AT this season of the year the thoughts of
the whole Christian world turn to the little town
of Bethlehem, in that far-off Syrian land from
which the light shone "which lighteth every man
that cometh into the world." z There had been
lights; there had been portents ; but all the lights
and all the portents lead up to and culminate in
this one true light in Whom was life, " and the
life was the light of men." 2
It is only a few months ago since we ap-
proached it with reverent feet, a little town, set
on its olive-crowned hill, the great olive trees
growing in ordered ranks, rising one above an-
other up the terraced hillside. The earth is red,
with streaks of crimson, and the soft gray-green
of the ancient olives throws purple shadows upon
1 John, 1:9. a John, i : 4.
76 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
it in the brilliancy of the Syrian sun. From far
down the plain one can see it. " I will lift up mine
eyes unto the hills," King David wrote, "from
whence cometh my help." ' One rides out of
Jerusalem toward the south, through the Valley
of Hinnom, and then the road begins to ascend
by a long, gentle slope.
One of the earliest mentions of Bethlehem is
of Jacob's journey to it, with Rachel, from Bethel,
when Benjamin was born. "And Rachel died,
and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is
Beth-lehem." 2 Her tomb is passed close to the
modern road, which winds up and up, always as-
cending. It was early springtime, and the hus-
bandmen had been trimming the olive trees.
Camels laden with enormous loads of the soft
gray twigs, looking like moving haystacks, with
a head and four spindling legs, moved slowly
up the incline. The vine was putting forth her
leaf, and the bare branches of the twisted fig trees
were budding. Higher and higher we rose, al-
ways approaching the town perched upon its hill-
top like a mediaeval fortress. What associations
it awoke !
The inhabitants of Bethlehem, we are told,
have always been people of beauty. David was
1 Psalm cxxi : I . * Genesis, xxxv : 1 6-20.
BETHLEHEM 77
the type of them all, " ruddy, and withal of a
beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to." *
The country round about is fruitful. Bethlehem-
Ephratah is the Hebrew term expressive of the
fertility of the region. One must remember the
wildness of the Jordan valley and the great de-
serted plain of the Dead Sea, to appreciate fully
the beauty and fertility of such a hill as the
Hill of Bethlehem. Mt. Pisgah from beyond
Jordan commands it; Moses could have looked
from that height to this hill. Here Benjamin was
born ; and this is the city of Naomi, to which she
returned when Ruth followed her mother-in-law,
saying, " Whither thou goest I will go." 3 It was
in this gate that, in fulfilment of the Mosaic
law, Boaz, her kinsman, offered her to a still
nearer kinsman, and upon his refusal took her
himself to wife. It was thus that she became the
great-grandmother of David, and the ancestress
of our Blessed Lord Himself. 3 In this town was
the sepulchre of David ; here he and many of his
descendants found their last resting-place. It
well may be called the City of David.
Bethlehem has always been looked to with
veneration as the dwelling-place of kings. Micah
1 i Samuel, xvi : 12. * Ruth, i : 16.
3 Ruth, iv : 13-17.
78 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
the Prophet, seven hundred years before Christ,
wrote the passage St. Matthew quotes : " But
thou, Bethlehem-Ephratah, though thou be little
among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee
shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler
in Israel ; whose goings forth have been from of
old, from everlasting. . . . And he shall stand
and feed in the strength of the Lord, in the
majesty of the name of the Lord his God ; and
they shall abide : for now shall he be great unto
the ends of the earth." '
We climbed slowly up the winding road and
entered the little walled city, looking like a medi-
jeval Italian town. About eight thousand people
live in it, in square solid houses, built on terraces,
with narrow slippery streets running steeply up
the hillside. At the eastern end of the town,
close to the entrance, is the Church of the Na-
tivity. It was built by the Crusaders in the style
of their own home churches, with long, low walls.
With the three convents which adjoin it, it
makes a huge pile of buildings, like a fortress,
forming a hollow square, the grim outer walls
facing all corners. The nave of this great church,
now bare and desolate, is the basilica built by
Constantine in 330. Baldwin I was crowned
1 Micah, v : 2-4.
BETHLEHEM 79
here, and Edward IV brought English oak to
renew the roof. The church has four rows of
marble columns, each a single stone with a Co-
rinthian capital. On some of the shafts are cut
the shields of crusaders; and the mosaics on the
walls were executed in the twelfth century. The
nave of the old basilica belongs to all Christians;
and the three adjacent convents are those of the
Latin, Greek, and Armenian churches. But this
great building serves only for a portal to the holy
of holies, as the entrance to the shrine to which
all worshipers come. One treads with reverence
its ancient pavement, back of the choir, and then
descends a long, narrow flight of steps cut in the
rock. The church has been dark compared to
the outer sunshine ; but here real darkness reigns,
lit by twinkling lamps. The way leads down
some twenty feet below the choir to one of the
subterranean caverns common in the country.
The walls have been mostly covered with fres-
coes and decorations, and the place is lighted
with perpetual burning lamps; but the roof
retains its natural appearance, and the cleavage
of the rock is seen. It is a spacious rock-cham-
ber, some thirty-three feet long, and eleven feet
wide, and at its very end there is a tiny recess
opening out of it, a little side alcove, where
8o A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
one could secure absolute privacy. Here the sil-
ver star is let into the floor. This all tradition
points to as the place over which the heavenly
star rested when the Star of our Life had his
birth.
It is very quiet and serene in that underground
chamber; the few visitors who come, stand or
kneel in silent adoration; there is no sound of
worship, no hymn of praise; each soul in its own
solitary fashion makes its own obeisance. And
one sees how natural it all was. The story says,
"Because there was no room for them in the
inn." These subterranean caverns are common
all through the country. You will remember
how David was in hiding in one of them. Would
it not be beautiful to think that it might be this
very one into which Saul went, " when he came
to the sheepcotes by the way where was a cave,"
and David cut off the skirt of his garment and
showed it to him afterward, in token that he had
had his life in his hands ? These were places
which would very easily be used for the shelter
of cattle; this one probably had its natural en-
trance, before the church was built over it, and in
the primitive days the ox and the ass were a part
of a man's household. You will remember how
1 I Samuel, xxiv : 3.
BETHLEHEM 81
the Prophet Nathan speaks of the lamb which lay
in the poor man's bosom " and was unto him as
a daughter." ' Without the helpful labor of the
household beasts the stony soil would not yield
its increase, and the habitation of the cattle was
of concern to their owners. In the country, peo-
ple still live in tents close to their animals, and
in the towns and villages, the houses were not
of any great dimensions in those ancient days,
or, in Syria, of great elegance.
One thinks of a stable in our more civilized
land as a place of the outcast ; but this wonder-
ful natural cavern was warm and sheltered and
furnished every requirement for a secluded
and restful place. Every Christmas season the
thoughts of all Christian people turn toward this
new beginning in this dim and unknown spot,
unknown then, perhaps best known of any
place in all the Christian world, if not in its ac-
tual physical features, yet as the manger in which
that blessed infant was laid so many hundreds
of years ago.
A little distance to the south of the Church of
the Nativity, not more than fifteen minutes' walk,
is the shepherds' field, a field now enclosed
with high walls. A grotto is also there, where the
1 2 Samuel, xii : 3.
82 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
shepherds were supposed to have been resting
that wonderful night when the angel appeared
with "good tidings of great joy." And one looks
from its mouth toward the East, from out of
which the star came. That also is a holy grotto,
but our thoughts go back to the grotto at Beth-
lehem, where there are still more traditions which
should be dear to the Christian heart. Here St.
Jerome lived and worked ; here he made the fa-
mous translation of the Scriptures into Latin,
the Vulgate, as it is called. Here he gathered his
disciples about him and lived his life in the very
place where that blessed Life began on earth.
The ancient Egyptians had a beautiful myth
about the sun. In the morning he is called Har-
machis; at mid-day, in his strength, he is Ra;
at evening he is Turn, who is slain by darkness.
But the victory of Darkness over Light is
short-lived : at dawn the god of day is recreated
and shines again in his glory. The world has al-
ways longed for light ; " more light " was not only
Goethe's dying cry, but has been the cry of every
earnest soul. The primal Light, the uncreated
Splendor, has lured men to a life-long search.
The prophecy of the fulfilment of that hope
runs through all the ancient writings of the world.
" But unto you that fear my name shall the sun
BETHLEHEM 83
of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings."
" O that salvation were come out of Zion," sings
the Psalmist. "O that I knew where I might
find him, that I might come even to his seat !" f
was the cry of the writer of that wonderful poem
we call the book of Job, thirty-five hundred
years ago. It is the eternal cry of the soul, and
here in this tiny cavern, in the warm darkness
of the shrouded day, "the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,
full of grace and truth." 2 The Divine in the Hu-
man, the Human in the Divine ! The power of
love revealed as never before, "for unto us is
born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour,
which is Christ the Lord."
Let us pray :
Thou who art Light, and the Author of
Light, eternal, uncreated, we Thy children come
to Thee to rejoice and give thanks that Thou hast
manifested Thyself, that Thou didst send Thy
son as a little child. We open our hearts to re-
ceive Him; may He be born in us, we pray Thee,
not in afar country, not in ancient time,
but here and now incarnate Thy Love in each
1 Job, xxiii 13. 3 John, i : 14.
84 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
one of us. May we be like Him, for we shall see
Him as He is: and as we come with kings and
shepherds, with pilgrims and children to sing
Thy praise, may it mean life to us, fullness of
life that comes from Thee, fullness of love in
pouring out our hearts before Thee. Accept our
offering of praise, we beseech Thee, for Christ's
sake. AMEN.
*
JERICHO
JERICHO
THIS plain made bright with streaks of crimson clay
And sprinkled o'er with grains of golden sand
The vestige of a long forgotten strand
Once saw the host of Israel as it lay
With pikes and trumpets in war's fierce array.
Now in the grass the solemn wild storks stand ;
A pensive silence broods upon the land
Unbroken by the shout which won that day.
Zacchaeus lived here, who desired to see
When Christ came down the Jordan wilderness,
And one born blind cried out exceedingly.
I too am blind, my Lord ; O give me sight,
Illume my mind, Thou very Light of Light ;
I cannot let Thee go, until Thou bless.
VIII
JERICHO
So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trum-
pets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound
of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout,
that the wall fell down flat. So that the people went up into
the city, every man straight before him, and they took the
city. JOSHUA, vi : 20.
JERICHO, the city of the plain, Jericho, the
fragrant, Jericho, the city of palm trees,
these all are names which her lovers delighted
to give her. It lies at the entrance of that great
ravine, a sharp cafion cut in the mountains by
some vast convulsion, leading from the plain of
Jordan up into that wilderness in which our
blessed Lord sought solitude, which has its sum-
mit in the mountains about Jerusalem. This is
the Valley of Achor, the vale of trouble. The
most famous of the traditions of Jericho is the
falling of the walls when the host of Israel
went in to possess the land. To this city the
spies came, and were let down in a basket out-
side the walls by Rahab. And Joshua burnt it
"with fire and all that was therein," and saved
88 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
only Rahab and all her father's house, "because
she hid the messengers which Joshua sent to spy
out Jericho." " Cursed be the man before the
Lord that riseth up and buildeth this city Jeri-
cho ; he shall lay the foundation thereof in his
first born, and in his youngest son shall he set
up the gates of it." ' But in spite of this doom,
five hundred years later, in the days of Ahab,
"did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho," and
incur the penalty. 2
It was to the new Jericho, not yet a hundred
years old, that Elijah and his servant Elisha
came together.
"And the sons of the prophets that were at
Jericho came to Elisha, and said unto him,
Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy
master from thy head this day? And he an-
swered, Yes, I know it ; hold ye your peace." 3
It was to Jericho that the prophet returned after
Elijah had been taken from him, and here he
pretended to let himself be comforted by the
eager search of the fifty strong men, sons of the
prophets, who went over Jordan to search for
his Master. But it must have been a real com-
fort to him to heal the waters of the city. Ac-
1 Joshua, vi : 25, 26. 2 i Kings, xvi : 34.
3 2 Kings, ii : 5.
JERICHO 89
cording to the ancient story the men came to
him, saying, "The situation of this city is plea-
sant as my lord seeth : but the water is naught,
and the ground barren." Then Elisha had a
new cruse brought to him, and put salt in it,
and cast it into the spring. "Thus saith the
Lord," he cried, "I have healed these waters;
there shall not be from thence any more death
or barren land." 1 And there the great fountain
is to this day, a basin catching a plenteous stream
of pure limpid water, which gushes from the
ground. In the old days sugar-cane grew here,
and palm trees were planted. " I was exalted as
a rose plant in Jericho," the prophet sings.
A land of fruitfulness and plenty it must have
been.
But we have tenderer association with the
city. "And they came to Jericho," we are told
of that last journey to celebrate the passover in
Jerusalem. From his own city of Capernaum on
the Lake of Galilee, Jesus and his disciples would
very probably have started in the boat of Zebe-
dee, or one of their fisher friends, and landed at
the southern end of the lake. Then would come
the wild torrent of the Jordan, a mountain stream
rushing down through its own gorge to the salt
1 2 Kings, ii : 19-22.
90 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
sea of the plain, a distance of sixty miles, during
which it falls six hundred feet. Along the west-
ern bank of this stream the company of disciples
would journey, walking by day, and resting un-
der the stars by night, for we must remember
it was literally true that he "had not where to
lay his head." It would grow warmer as they
proceeded, an almost semi-tropical vegetation,
with fig trees, and olives, clothing the spurs of
the hills. " And they came to Jericho." It was
here that blind Bartimaeus cried so much the
more, when they told him to hold his peace,
"Thou Son of David, have mercy on me ! " ' Then
came one of the contrasts with which the life of
Jesus abounded. He saw Zacchaeus in his syca-
more tree, waiting for aglimpse of him, and called
to him to come down, "for to-day I must abide
at thy house." 2
In the time of the Roman Empire Jericho was
a famous city. H erod built a splendid palace there
overlooking the Dead Sea, with a lovely view
of Mt. Pisgah. It was a city of such importance
that Antony gave it to Cleopatra, a worthy
present for a queen.
Full of such remembrances, with our Bibles
for guide-books, one lovely spring day we came
1 Mark, x : 48. * Luke, xix : 5.
JERICHO 91
to the ancient town. Mt. Pisgah shone serene
upon us, all the long descent from Jerusalem.
The yellow sands of the great plain in which the
sapphire of the Dead Sea is the mystic jewel
stretched about us. Tall grasses stood, dry and
sere, and moved gently in the soft air. Close
by, a great white stork took his ease, one leg
curled up under his wing, as with an indolent
gaze he watched our approach. He hardly raised
himself above the golden rushes, as he slowly
flapped his great wings and flew to a little dis-
tance. Bands of pilgrims were returning from the
Jordan, carrying their shoes in their hands; for
is not this sacred ground? It was on this very
plain that the Angel, the captain of the Lord's
host, said to Joshua, " Loose thy shoe from off
thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is
holy." x Many of the pilgrims had great flowing
white garments stretched over their shoulders,
drying in the sun. These were the baptismal robes
in which they had been immersed in the waters
of Jordan, which would become their shrouds.
The sun was sinking low in the western sky.
Lovely purple clouds were gathering upon the
Mountains of Moab, when at last we turned to
the little town, with its low square houses, a tiny
1 Joshua, v : 15.
92 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
narrow street on which they are built, with one
or two cross streets, comprising the whole city.
Herod's castle from its hill in the distance dom-
inated it, now a heap of scattered stones. The
fountain keeps its everlasting freshness, and
gushes forth as it has done for hundreds of years.
It is a little way from the modern town, the
ancient Jericho must have been far larger. Here
the women come with their water-jars, the fir-
kins of the New Testament, the same sort of
jars as were used at the marriage at Cana.
The day we were there, and the night, was one
full of beauty. Pomegranates and oleanders were
beginning to bloom. Our rooms at the comfort-
able little inn faced the rising sun. Just opposite
us, the host of Israel had crossed the Jordan
coming from the east, and Elijah crossed it from
the west. John the Baptist preached the King-
dom of God close by. Here our Saviour Him-
self came. It is not one of the most sacred places,
but a place full of association, full of reposeful
beauty, full of charm. And the two incidents
which are recorded as taking place here embody
the whole of the teaching of our Lord. It was
in the house of Zacchaeus, according to St. Luke,
that Jesus added the parable of the talents. And
it was here that He declared plainly that He
THE DEAD SEA, AND KUIXS OF HEROD'S CASTLE
od's castle
>d it, now a he:
fountain keeps its e^
gushes forth
It is a little way from the mod
ancient Jericho must have been far largr
the women come with their
kin Testamenf rt of
"
the hos* ;el had crossed the J
ling from the east, and 1
God cl
self came. I :
but a place
beauty, full of
:h are r.
;le of th ng of our Lx>rc
lie house of Zac
(
JERICHO 93
was " come to seek and to save that which was
lost." '
And may we not take comfort in the persist-
ence of blind Bartimaeus? His neighbors told
him to hold his peace; they rebuked him openly,
and he cried so much the more. "What wilt
thou that I shall do unto thee ? " Jesus asked,
when He had stopped the whole onward press-
ing crowd which opened up to have the blind
man brought to Him. And the man had his
answer ready, no vague, general blessing, but
one specific definite thing : " Lord, that I may
receive my sight," 2 he said. Is not that the cry
of every earnest soul ?
Moses from Mt. Pisgah close by Jericho had
his vision of the promised land. The blind man
had the answer to his prayer: "Thy faith hath
saved thee," the blessed voice replied.
Oh, in an age of doubt and question, an
age when the workings of God are seen to be
in orderly sequences, till sometimes natural law
is put in the very place of God Himself, let
us pray for that faith which goes behind order,
behind method, to the very heart of divinity !
" To him that hath shall be given," Jesus said in
this very city. If we are children of God, surely
1 Luke, xix : 10. a Luke, xviii : 41.
94 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
He Himself must long to fulfil our aspirations
which are emanations of Himself!
Let us pray :
Lord give us our sight, we beseech Thee.
Thou hast placed us in a world of beauty and
of wonder, Thou hast given us all things richly
to enjoy. But beyond all the externals, O Lord,
beyond the joy of the senses, give us some
blessed vision of Thyself. Come to each of us
to-day, at this very hour, and abide with us, as
did Thy Son in that ancient city. May we wel-
come Thee gladly, opening our very hearts to
receive Thee. AMEN.
THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA
*
THE JORDAN
THIS is the mystic place, this turbid stream
Swift flowing toward the Salt Sea of the Plain
Between its banks of rushes and of cane;
This is the river of the Prophet's dream.
From Pisgah's lofty heights he saw its gleam,
When with his eager dying eyes astrain
He looked upon the Promised Land in vain,
And this flood marked its eastern verge extreme.
And more, for here was the Forerunner sent,
The voice from out the wilderness : " Prepare,
Make straight a highway for our God, repent ! "
And here He came ; and baptism being ended
The heavens opened, and the Dove descended,
O humble stream, canst thou such glory bear ?
IX
THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA
These waters shall come thither : for they shall be healed ;
and everything shall live whither the river cometh. EZEKIEL,
xlvii : 9.
EZEKIEL was the strong as his name signifies.
He was of a priestly family, and with many
others was taken to Babylon in the captivity of
Israel. There he lived, about six hundred years
before Christ, and there he warned, and de-
nounced, and scourged the people with his terrible
words ; and then came the actual destruction of
Jerusalem, and he was dumb. He might well
have said, " By the rivers of Babylon there we
sat down, yea we wept, when we remembered
Zion," though that hymn is supposed to have
been written toward the end of the captivity.
" Son of man," he delighted to call himself, and
from his grief he rose to consolation. A new
country he saw in his mind, a new temple
from which the worship of Jehovah should be
preached, a sanctuary which should extend
its blessings, not only to the Jews, but to aliens
9 8 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
who should be born in the country, and become
worshipers of the God of Israel. He planned a
state in -which religion was to be honored; he
set bounds to the lands of the temple; the whole
ritual of service he delighted to elaborate. So
it would be when the captivity was ended, he
fondly pictured. And from the sanctuary he saw
a great river flowing, ankle-deep, and knee-deep,
and to the loins, and then a mighty river which
could not be passed over, rushing toward that
salt sea of the plain, that desert place in the fer-
tile land, so bare, so arid, that no living plant
could grow there, and no fish live in its waters.
"And by the river upon the bank thereof, on
this side and on that side shall grow all trees for
meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the
fruit thereof be consumed." *
It is as if the prophet is describing a new Jor-
dan, not a Jordan lost in the desert, but one
which shall bring healing to the bitter waters.
The river itself, aside from its sacred associations,
is one of the most remarkable in the world. It
begins as a mountain stream, fed from the snows
of Hermon, and, descending to a swampy plain
between the Jordan Hills and the Mountains of
Galilee, forms the Waters of Merom. From this
1 Ezekiel, xlvii : 1 2.
THE DRAGOMAN
JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA 99
lake about ten miles north of the Sea of Galilee,
it emerges to lose itself, a muddy stream, in those
crystal depths. It is only sixty miles in the
straight line it has to run from the Sea of Gali-
lee to the Dead Sea, where it is lost forever; but
in those sixty miles it falls six hundred feet,
and twists and turns, till Lieutenant Lynch, in
following its windings, sailed two hundred miles.
The Sacramento in California that enormous
stream is the only other river which makes
so great a descent in so short a distance.
The road winds on over the scarlet sands,
the most brilliant sands, perhaps, in the whole
world, streaked with crimson and gold, reflect-
ing the sun in a dazzling way, painful to the eyes.
At the edge of the plain are the low bushes and
trees which mark a streak of greenness where the
Jordan enters the Salt Sea. All is silent and des-
olate. Rushes grow upon the plain, and low
bushes around which swarms of tiny insects move
in clouds. A great stork stands motionless upon
the crimson clay ; a silence that can be felt broods
over the deserted plain ; and the sun pours down
his fervent rays. The heat is overpowering. Bare,
arid, pitiless, the sands stretch to the borders of
the turquoise water. I dipped my hand into it,
and tasted the drops. It is indescribably bitter ;
ioo A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
an immense amount of solid matter is held in
solution, we are told. The very wavelets upon the
surface seem to move sluggishly, as if from the
heaviness of the water. It is all weird, and un-
natural; a sea of death and not of life.
It was this sea which the prophet saw changed
by the river flowing from the sanctuary. Its
waters were healed ; fish abounded, and trees with
fruit were to grow beside it. The valley of deso-
lation was to become habitable ground.
In reading this ancient vision, one cannot but
be struck with the likeness it bears to St. John's
spiritual city. The holy stream is there, the river
of the water of life. How precious water is in
those Eastern countries, we can hardly realize.
Nazareth has a single fountain for the whole city;
the wells were often the scenes of fierce conflicts,
as men fought for possession of them. And water
is the literal life-giver, the nourisher of all vege-
tation, the necessity of all living creatures. St.
John has trees bearing all manner of fruits, whose
leaves are for the healing of the nations. Eze-
kiel says quite literally, " whose leaves are for
medicine," for the tinctures, and elixirs, and sim-
ple herb teas with which primitive medicine
abounds.
Both the older and the later seer, in language
JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA 101
of great beauty, look forward, forward to a new
and better time. Ezekiel speaks of actual facts.
There is the desert; there is the Dead Sea; and
his only possible remedy for this blot upon his
beloved country, he conceived to be in a stream
issuing from the Temple of God Himself, from
the very sanctuary of Jehovah. The physical ful-
filment of his vision has not come, but may we
not get a hint from the beauty of that dream as
to a spiritual reality ? Society has its Dead Seas,
the world is full of barren and waste places.
Where there should be abundance and produc-
tion, too often is only stagnation.
We see it in our own country. Too often pub-
lic opinion is indifferent as to great evils, too
often men are treated with contempt and neg-
lect. Whole classes of people and shame to
us that there should be classes are oppressed.
Life becomes sordid, crushing poverty blights,
and men live in desert places of soul and
body.
How is a change to come ? How is a truer life
to be begun? Is it not by new life coming to
these desert places ? Is it not by the refreshing
river, which comes from the very sanctuary of
God ? And what is this river but the life of our
youth, of our young men and maidens, who
102 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
go out from the places of learning, where they
have been nourished not on the dry bones of
knowledge, but on the very bread of life, that
they too may spread life, that they too may bring
refreshing? You are a part of this life-giving
stream. You are to bring healing to the bitter
waters of strife. You are to make the desert blos-
som as the rose, because on your heads are the
blessings of unnumbered years, because you is-
sue forth intent on newness of Life, because you
come from the very sanctuary of God.
All far-seeing spirits, all men who have moved
the world, have been consoled with deep and
holy visions of things to come. There is a noble
dissatisfaction, an undying quest of the soul.
What a moment that was when Isaiah in rapt
ecstasy saw the seraphims, with wings covering
their faces, and crying :
" Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts :
The whole earth is full of his glory."
It is the pure in heart who shall see God. Un-
til some intimation of the blessedness of that sight
is granted us we do not know what life may be.
And every soul before me must have had some
such intimation, dimly apprehended it may
be, or for a momentary glimpse, but some
JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA 103
knowledge of Divine life beyond and above, and
yet including us, we may all have. On the wings
of music it comes to us, that art which angels
use, in which worship finds its highest expres-
sion :
" Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts :
Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory."
It is the New Jerusalem we seek, the new
heaven and the new earth ; and heaven here and
now on earth is our special business. If we can
be a part of that blessed river flowing from the
sanctuary of God, if we can be included in that
life-giving stream, and do its renewing work in
a waiting world, then indeed shall we be blessed,
and our lives be a " pure river of the water of
life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne
of God, and of the Lamb."
Let us pray :
Our Heavenly Father, send Thy life-giving
flood to course through and through our hearts,
we beseech Thee. Thou who dost turn the dry
places into a standing water, send Thy river of re-
freshing to every barren soul, to quicken and
revive that it may bear fruit abundantly. Thou
alone dost know the arid places of our hearts ;
104 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
Thou alone canst penetrate the wilderness of
conflicting desires and clamoring thoughts. Come
with Thy healing streams, dear Lord, to cleanse
and to purify. Establish our souls, we pray Thee,
that we may be wells of water springing up into
everlasting life. AMEN.
*
THE WILDERNESS
*
THE WILDERNESS
UP from the Jordan straight His way He took
To that lone wilderness, where rocks are hurled,
And strewn, and piled, as if the ancient world
In strong convulsion seethed and writhed and shook,
Which heaved the valleys up, and sunk each brook,
And flung the molten rock like ribbons curled
In twists of gray around the mountains whirled :
A grim land, of a fierce, forbidding look.
The wild beasts haunt its barren stony heights,
And wilder visions came to tempt Him there ;
For forty days and forty weary nights,
Alone He faced His mortal self and sin,
Chaos without, and chaos reigned within,
Subdued and conquered by the might of prayer.
X
THE WILDERNESS
And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jor-
dan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. LUKE,
iv : i.
WE are just entering upon one of the most
holy seasons of the year, a season which by con-
sent of many Christian centuries has been set
apart as a time of devout contemplation, of peni-
tence, of prayer. It is a time of preparation, a
time which has its logical fulfilment in Eas-
ter joy, though in reality the forty days in the
wilderness and the day of Resurrection were
separated by three years of full and crowded
life.
Let me try to take you to the actual scene of
the fasting, as it appears in its physical aspects
at the present time.
The Jordan, as you know, is a little river, not
so wide or so fine a stream as the Charles, hardly
larger than our brook as it issues from the lake.
The country is all small. The journeys of our
Lord were measured by days* walks, and those
io8 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
blessed feet trod the whole length of the land,
following the Jordan from its birth on the
slopes of Mt. Hermon to its end in the Dead
Sea.
Just opposite Jericho, a few miles from the
Salt Sea of the Plain, is the traditional place of
baptism. The river bends, making a broad sweep
between its reedy banks, with the low shrubs and
bushes overhanging its muddy waters. The west-
ern shore is trodden into holes and hollows by
pilgrim feet, as they rush to the sacred stream.
Here it was that Elijah wrapped his mantle about
his staff and smote the waters, as he passed over
on that last journey. 1 Here it was that the ark
of the Lord was carried over when the Israelites
went in to possess the land; "in the east border
of Jericho." 2 And here it was that John the
Baptist came preaching to all the world, " Re-
pent, Repent ! " "I have need to be baptized
of thee, and comest thou to me?" he exclaimed
when Jesus came to him. "Suffer it to be so
now," He replied ; and as He came up out of
the water the heavens opened, and the Dove
descended. 3 Did that outward act of devotion
crystallize the sense of His mission which had
1 2 Kings, ii : 8. a Joshua, iv : 19.
3 Matthew, iii : 15, 16.
THE WILDERNESS 109
been growing upon Jesus in the quiet years in
Galilee Pit was after the Voice had spoken, after
the Dove had descended, that we are told,
"immediately the spirit driveth him into the
wilderness." 1 And what a wilderness that is! The
whole of the depressed country of Syria, that
part lying below the sea-level, has something
weird and uncanny about it. There has so evi-
dently been a great convulsion of nature. The
mountains, seamed with twisted masses of ashen-
hued rock, are grim and fantastic in form. Red
clay lies in streaks close beside the cold gray
stone ; short, stubbly grass, dry and hard, grows
scantily upon the barren soil. The brook Cherith
cuts its way through a mighty gorge, winding
over and creeping around masses of stone and
huge boulders. Caves abound, black sinister
holes leading into the mountain, the abode of
wild beasts, or still wilder men. This is that
valley of Achor, that is, the valley of trouble,
into which Joshua took the man who had
"wrought folly in Israel " by retaining some of
the spoils of the fallen city of Jericho, and stoned
him and all his household. It is so terrible a
place that when the prophet Hosea wants to give
the strongest image of blessing, he declares the
1 Mark, i : 12.
no A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
Lord will give Israel "the Valley of Achor for
a door of hope."
Even after the winter rains there is little water
in the brook, and the vegetation is stunted and
starved. While the plain is gay with flowers,
only the thorn and the prickly cactus grow in
this arid soil. The sun beats into this crevice
in the crust of the earth with tropical vehe-
mence; the whole gorge has a sinister and ter-
rible aspect.
It was into this desolate waste that our Saviour
retreated, and for forty days and nights was away
from human companionship. The Evangelists
summarize the temptations which assailed Him
there, the threefold temptation to test His
whole being, body, mind, and spirit. He hun-
gered, we read. There was the cry of the physical,
the need of the body; to which He replied,
" Man shall not live by bread alone." Then
came the temptation of ambition, the keen
strong mind, which could "see the kingdoms
of the world at a glance," must have rejoiced in
the possibility of ruling them, but did not waver
for an instant. "Get thee behind me, Satan,"
He cried. And then came the test of the soul,
put in the most crafty way. Those days had
brought illumination ! The Voice at the baptism
THE HILL OF BLOOD
-c, an<
in f the ca.
orge has
- tci
The
THE WILDERNESS in
had declared, " This is my beloved Son." " If
thou be the son of God, cast thyself down from
hence," came the suggestion. The body, the
mind, and the spirit were tried and tested. Just
how these temptations appealed to Him, we have
only the hint and suggestion. What those long
days of solitude meant, what those nights of
prayer betokened, we know from the after years
of His blessed ministry. From that time of isola-
tion, from that time of absolute seclusion, He
returned " in the power of the Spirit," * to face
the world.
We talk of the happiness of finding ourselves.
Who that has lived at all has not had moments
of blessed illumination, when in a flash a reve-
lation has come, and we see relations, and realize
conditions as never before ? This quiet Lenten
season should bring us some such moments,
should have for each one of us some of the fruits
of solitude. We are each alone in the world,
as alone as if no other person existed. In the
last analysis there is only God and one's self.
Do not be afraid to realize this. No soul was
ever exactly like ours before, or yet to be. It
is by acknowledging this great and funda-
mental truth that power alone is attained. The
* Luke, iv : 1-14.
ii2 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
old discipline of fasting, to use the ancient words
"mortified the flesh." We may think we are
past that elementary method, but it is good dis-
cipline. Anything which we do from a sense of
duty, like the exercise of any power, strength-
ens that sense. To forego some small pleasure
for forty days for the sake of exercising one's
self in sacrifice, not for the sake of any reward,
or on the basis of accumulating credit in the
celestial accounts, is a good exercise. People will
say that life is full of necessary sacrifice, why
therefore make those that are not required? But
for that very reason it is well to train the will, to
prove to ourselves that we have command over
the body with its constant demands. It is good
to use hardness towards one's self. And at this
season, when so many devout souls are turning
afresh toward the Inner Light, it should be easy
and joyful for each one of us to turn after our
own fashion, not doing our alms before men
to be seen of them, remembering our Lord's in-
junction, " But thou, when thou fastest, anoint
thine head, and wash thy face, that thou appear
not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which
is in secret."
Here in this busy life we cannot lay aside the
daily round of duty, that would be "to be
THE WILDERNESS 113
of a sad countenance," and "appear unto men
to fast." But we can live our days with an ever-
growing sense of living them with our blessed
Lord. He had rocks and stones for His bed,
a cave sheltered Him from the pitiless sun by
day and the chilling wind by night. All the
externals are different, but we can enter into
something of His Spirit. As with devout im-
agination we follow those days of testing, of
temptation in the Wilderness, we may learn to
know ourselves, we may find our places in His
Kingdom. The Lenten season should mean that
to us. We can each take a few moments every
day for the contemplation of divine things. It
is a season of birth and of promise. Already the
springtime radiance is in the air, and from
such a season of devout thought the Day spring
from on High will have its birth in each hum-
ble heart.
Let us pray :
Lord, we would follow in the footsteps of Thy
blessed Son. Thou knowest how the things of
this world appeal to us. Thou knowest the cry
of our physical frames for ease, for comfort.
Thou knowest the call of ambition, which falsely
bids us stoop to gain our ends. Lord, all our
ii 4 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
ends are in Thee. May we undertake nothing
in which we cannot ask Thy companionship, no-
thing that we cannot offer to Thee. As we think
of that temptation in the wilderness, may we rise
above ourselves, and share with our blessed Re-
deemer His fast, that we may also be prepared
for angels to minister to us. AMEN.
*
JERUSALEM THE LAMENT
THE LAMENT
THE long ascent was ended, evening shed
Its softest light, and from Mount Olive's brow
The holy city stood before Him ; how
Fair, with temple crowned and garlanded
With massive walls. The sacrifice is led
Not only in the days of Abraham's vow
To Mount Moriah, but comes here and now
Upon the ass's colt with garments spread.
"Jerusalem," the tender voice laments,
"That stonest those that come to thy release,
The slaughter of the Holy innocents,
The blood of martyrs make thy diadem ;
If thou hadst known, e'en thou, Jerusalem,
The precious things belonging to thy peace."
XI
JERUSALEM THE LAMENT
And when he was come near he beheld the city and wept
over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this
thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! LUKE,
xix : 41, 42.
THE long, hard day's climb up from the plain
of Jericho was ended. The morning blessing of
blind Bartimaeus, rejoicing in his sight, was al-
ready a thing of the past. The way stretched be-
hind, bare and barren, over red-clay paths, with
scanty grass, dry and sear, and bright spring flow-
ers intermingled. Black ravens silently sailed the
mid-air, ready to descend upon any sheep lost
in the deep ravines of the bleak slope. The sun
sank toward the west, still shining upon Mt.
Pisgah, which seemed to rise as the little com-
pany of travelers rose on the mountain slope to-
ward Jerusalem. The plain of Jericho and the
Dead Sea faded into purple haze. Jesus went be-
fore them, we read, "and they were amazed ; and
as they followed they were afraid. And he took
again the twelve and began to tell them what
n8' A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
things should happen unto him." 1 They were
passing through the scenes of his active minis-
try. There by the Jordan John the Baptist's
voice had sounded and the Dove descended. He
had lodged in Jericho, at the foot of that terri-
ble wilderness of the Temptation. " To-day I
must abide at thy house," He had said to Zac-
chaeus in his sycamore tree. 2 Up and up the path
winds, apath still infested with thieves, so that
the modern traveler has a mounted guard. This
was the gorge in which Jesus laid the scene of
the parable of the Good Samaritan, a wild canon
with soil of crimson clay around the black jagged
rocks. A steep and rough way, a weary day's
journey.
Toward the end of the day Bethany is passed,
the village of Martha and Mary. Here Lazarus
lived, and here Jesus had given some foretaste
of His own resurrection. From here St. Luke
says He sent on the disciples for the ass upon
which to finish His journey, that it might be ful-
filled which was spoken by the prophet, "Behold
thy king cometh unto thee : he is just, and hav-
ing salvation ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and
upon a colt the foal of an ass." 3 It was the one
moment of triumph in all those full and crowded
1 Mark, x : 32. * Luke, xix : 5. 3 Zech. ix .-9.
THE MOSQUE OF OMAR
On Mount Moriah, the Site of the Temple
JERUSALEM THE LAMENT 119
years. "The whole multitude of the disciples be-
gan to rejoice and praise God. . . . Blessed be the
King that cometh in the name of the Lord : peace
in heaven, and glory in the highest." l And yet
in the midst of this rejoicing, which must have
touched His heart, "when he was come near he
beheld the city, and wept over it." There was
the Holy of Holies, the great temple crown-
ing the top of Mt. Moriah, built over the place
where Abraham took his son Isaac " into the
land of Moriah," to offer him " upon one of the
mountains which I will tell thee of," the ancient
chronicle says. 2 On the bare rock itself, which
formed and still forms the central portion of the
floor of the temple, behind the secluding veil
was the Ark of the Covenant, with the tables of
the law, and the books of Moses. All that was
most sacred to the devout Jew was within the
walls of that holy temple. It dominated the city,
it was the culmination of all the glory of the
world. Here Jesus Himself was taken as a tiny
infant, and the aged Simeon blessed Him. Here
as a lad He was found, "sitting in the midst of
the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them
questions." 3 To it flocked the devout of all coun-
1 Luke, xix : 37, 38. * Genesis, xxii : ^.
3 Luke, ii : 46.
i2o A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
tries. A list of fifteen nationalities is given in
the book of Acts, of those who came hither, to
learn of the Jewish religion, to study the won-
derful history, to worship the God of Abraham.
From the slopes of Mt. Olivet the city rises built
upon its hills, now looking like a mediaeval
citadel with its massive walls and arched gate-
way. " Beautiful for situation, the joy of the
whole earth, is Mt. Zion, the city of the great
king." But as Jesus came in sight of it, that
spring evening so many years ago, He wept over
it. "If thou hadst known, even thou at least in
this thy day, the things which belong unto thy
peace! " It was the goal of His final journey, the
culmination of His life of service. We are told
that when He was twelve years old He was taken
up to the feast, and for the first time took the
way from Nazareth in the north down the Jor-
dan valley, and up the steep hills to Jerusalem.
It is a distance of less than a hundred miles. A
week's walking journey, even with children in
the party, would easily accomplish it. And here
in the height and maturity of His powers He had
made the journey for the last time, and beheld
the city as a whole, stopping to contemplate it,
before He entered it to be lost in its maze of
tiny thoroughfares, and throngs of eager people.
THE WALL OF WAILING
JERUSALEM THE LAMENT 121
"If thou hadst known the things which belong
unto thy peace !"
Archaeologists tell us that the Jerusalem of
the time of Christ is some twenty or thirty feet
below the surface of the ground. They are find-
ing the ancient pavements, deep hidden in the
earth. Two or three times has the city been ab-
solutely overthrown, not "one stone left upon
another" of its buildings. Solomon's Temple
stood on the very summit of the mountain. No-
thing of that is left. The splendid dome of the
mosque which has taken its place crowns the
" dome of the rock," a portion of the original
summit some sixty feet long by forty feet wide,
which is walled in, directly beneath the massive
vaulting. This is the very summit of Mt. Mo-
riah, regarded by both Jewish and Moslem tra-
dition as the foundation stone of the world. This
is where Abraham brought Isaac for sacrifice.
This is one of the places unchanged in all the
centuries, a bit of everlasting rock. The splendid
dome above it rises to a height of nearly a hundred
feet, and was built in the seventh century. Saladin
restored it in 1 1 89. Some of the pillars which sup-
port it are of the fourth century, and were taken
from Christian churches. Solomon's Temple has
long been gone, not one stone was left upon
122 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
another ; but this fine building, rich in mosaics
and Eastern color, shows the magnificence of its
site. As the temple was built on the top of a
mountain there was not much level space for it,
and so a great terrace was made, a stone-paved
court stretching far out over the natural contour
of the hill. This terrace is supported by stones,
enormous blocks about fifteen feet long, and
three or four feet wide, laid one on top of an-
other, and forming the retaining wall of the vast
platform of the temple. Many of these stones
are inscribed with Hebrew characters. In spring
flowers grow from the crevasses between them,
great masses of mignonette and blue-eyed ve-
ronica. Here onFriday afternoons the Jews come.
It is as near as they are ever allowed to their
Holy Place. This is the Wall of Wailing. In the
soft spring light the dark-robed figures crowd and
press against the precious stones, saluting them
with kisses, and laying hands of blessing upon
them. With a swaying motion in rhythm with
the chanted hymn the men in their long cloaks
and flowing head-dresses move gently to the
sound of the Reader's voice :
" Because of the Palace which is deserted'*
And the people answer,
THE WALL OF WAILING
Showing Hebrew Inscriptions
JERUSALEM THE LAMENT 123
We sit alone and weep.
Because of the Temple which is destroyed
We sit alone and weep.
Because of the walls which are broken down,
We sit alone and weep.
We beseech Thee have mercy on Zion,
And gather together the children of Jerusalem.
Make speed, make speed, O Deliverer of Zion ;
Speak after the heart of Jerusalem."
If thou hadst known, if thou hadst known
the time of thy visitation ! Then, indeed, would
Jerusalem not be a Moslem city, as it is at this
day.
We are just in the season of Mid- Lent, not
only the commemoration of the forty days' fast
in the wilderness, but the days of preparation for
the supreme sacrifice. The older church observed
them as days of special penitence and prayer. Is
it not a time for us each to regard our own life,
as far as possible from the outside, to try to see
it as a whole, as a city that is built on a hill,
to note its bulwarks and foundations ? It is a time
of question and also a time of worship. For the
eyes of the soul are opened by noble worship, by
the devout contemplation of divine things. Our
Saviour wept because the Holy City knew not the
time of its visitation. Now may be our time of
renewal, our time of birth.
124 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
Each soul has its holy city, deep hidden under
the accretions of every-day life. These are the
days consecrated by the devout usage of centu-
ries to make new beginnings, to build afresh,
to seek divine things. Externals should drop
away, and the eternal realities become living and
vital. There are but two, God and one's own
soul.
And the tender voice comes to us, out of the
silence: "If thou hadst known if thou hadst
known the things which belong unto thy peace."
Let us heed it, let us turn with joy to answer,
" Lord, Thou knowest all things ; Thou know-
est that I love Thee ! "
Let us pray :
O Thou who didst weep over the Holy City,
Thou good shepherd who dost search for one
sheep that is gone astray, we come to Thee ask-
ing for Thy care, longing for Thy guidance.
Thou knowest, O Lord, that the path to the
shrine in our hearts is blocked by many petty
cares, a narrow and devious way. Come, we be-
seech Thee, with Thine own cleansing and re-
newing might. Open the way, enlarge our hearts,
fit us for thine indwelling Spirit. We bless Thee
that Thou dost make Thy home with the hum-
JERUSALEM THE LAMENT 125
ble, that Thou dost call us each by name. Sun
of Righteousness, shine upon us. Give us, we
pray Thee, the things that belong unto our peace !
For Christ's sake. AMEN.
JERUSALEM THE TRIUMPH
*
EASTER
TRIUMPHANT morn whose first ray had such might
That Life and Love, which passed beyond the ken
And ministering care of mortal men,
Upon this holy day could reunite!
O blessed sun, which saw the wondrous sight,
The glad re-birth of primal time, as when
The radiant sons of morn in thousands ten
Rejoiced at that great word, Let there be Light.
The first word when the tomb was newly rent
Was to a grieving woman gently saidj
With two sad men He walked, the day far spent,
And how their heavy hearts within them burned
As comforted into the inn they turned.
And He was known to them in breaking bread.
XII
JERUSALEM THE TRIUMPH
Jesus saith unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life.
JOHN, xi : 25.
THE people of Israel have always been distin-
guished by the honor which they paid their
women. Miriam, Moses' sister, is called the
Prophetess, and we have her song of triumph,
when she took a timbrel in her hand and led the
song of rejoicing. Deborah ruled as a judge in
the days when the tribes were settling the whole
country. But it remained to that little group of
women who followed Jesus from Galilee and
ministered to Him, to achieve the supreme hon-
ors of the world. Mary, the mother of James and
Joses ; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's stew-
ard; Salome, who, the commentators think, was
the mother of Zebedee's children, James and
John; Jesus' own mother, who, one of the evan-
gelists declares, stood by the cross of Jesus; and
Mary Magdalene, whom all fourgospels mention
as being there, this group of Jewish women
have received the reverence of Christian centu-
i 3 o A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
ries. Wherever Easter Day is celebrated, the
love and devotion of these women are had in
tender remembrance.
The Jews are peculiar among Eastern nations
in holding women in higher regard than their
neighbors do. No veils hide the women's faces ;
Jewish history abounds in instances of strong and
fine womanhood. Some of the most wonderful
of the conversations of Jesus were held with
women. The conversation with the woman of
Samaria by the well, one cannot miss from the
Gospel story, for it was to her that He declared,
" God is a spirit, and they that worship Him
must worship Him in spirit and in truth." And it
was to her that He spoke of the water " springing
up into everlasting life." 1 It was to Martha that
Jesus spoke those blessed words, of comfort to
every grieving soul, words which are the very
centre and substance of the Easter joy, "I am
the resurrection, and the life." The deepest and
the tenderest of His teachings was first given to a
grieving woman. Is it any wonder that the women
in the crowded Jerusalem streets called down
blessings upon Him, or that the little company
of His own friends came as near as the Roman
soldiers permitted ; and that after the day of pre-
1 John, iv : 14.
THE OBEISANCE
A Father teaching his Son
JERUSALEM THE TRIUMPH 131
paration very early in the morning they came to
the sepulchre with precious spices, to do all they
could to testify to their devotion?
Let me try to picture the place to you as I saw it.
It must be greatly changed by this time, with-
out doubt. Jerusalem itself is not the same city;
it has been conquered and razed to the ground
and rebuilt by Roman and Crusader and Turk;
but the country itself must retain something of
its primitive features. The Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, as we see it at present inside the walls
of Jerusalem, was built by the Crusaders in 1 103,
but includes the older chapels which were rebuilt
in 1037 on the sites of the earlier chapels which
Constantine had erected as early as 335. Con-
stantine's first buildings were destroyed by the
Persians and rebuilt, and again in the tenth cen-
tury were partly destroyed by fire, and ruined
by the Moslems in the eleventh. The present
church as it stands was built by the Crusaders,
and Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin I are both
buried within its walls.
The centre of this vast group of buildings,
which belong to the Latins, Greeks, Armenians,
and Copts, is a little shrine, which is built over
what has for centuries been considered the Holy
Sepulchre. This lies within a small chapel only
132 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
twenty-six feet long by eighteen feet broad,
under the very middle of the rotunda. There is
avestibule to the east called the Angel's Chapel,
in the centre of which is a part of a stone said to
be the stone which was rolled away from the
mouth of the tomb. This rotunda is common
to all the Christian sects, and opening into it are
the various other churches and chapels, the
Chapel of the Copts, the Chapel of the Syrians,
the great Greek Church and the Latin Church.
Underneath these churches are other chapels,
the Armenian Chapel of St. Helena, which dates
from the seventh century; and farther down is
the Chapel of the Finding of the Cross. The
legend is a touching one, for the Empress be-
lieved that she was divinely directed to this spot,
and she herself watched the digging, until three
crosses, with the nails, the crown of thorns, and
the superscription were found. It remained, then,
to identify the true cross, and this was done by
taking the three crosses to the bedside of a holy
woman who was dying. The story is that, as soon
as the real cross touched her, she was immediately
restored.
It is a vast collection of buildings, rich with
all that wealth and devotion can bring to beau-
tify and to decorate ; precious marbles of price
JERUSALEM THE TRIUMPH 133
abound, hanging lamps are perpetually burning
before all the holy places, and to this wonderful
church from the very earliest time thousands of
pilgrims have come believing that they saw the
very place where our Lord was laid in the grave.
Easter Day is the greatest festival, and the
church is thronged ; but Turkish soldiers stand
all about the central shrine, a slouching, un-
kempt crowd of little men, with dark faces and
sharp, bright, roving eyes. They are to keep
peace among the rival sects of Christians. Shame
on us that it should be so ! Mass is celebrated
early in the Roman Church, and the Archbishop
of Jerusalem, with his attending clergy and aco-
lytes, all robed in gorgeous brocade and scar-
let, make a solemn procession around the Holy
Sepulchre, swinging censers and chanting the
ancient hymns of the church. There are many
devout pilgrims to whom this is a real act of wor-
ship; but the presence of the soldiery seemed
to me so incongruous as almost to rob the ser-
vice of any true significance. It was more like a
wonderful pageant.
The Greek Church celebrates its Easter Day
later, as they still use the old calendar, and con-
flicts between the two branches of the church
have not been unknown. During the procession
i*
i 3 4 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
no women are allowed on the floor of the great
building. We looked down from a little gallery
that one has to reach by a tiny dark stairway.
It is roofed in, with arched openings like the
front of an opera box, and the whole thing seemed
like a great performance. One almost forgot
the religious significance in the close, incense-
scented atmosphere ; and in the enormous build-
ing crowded with every nationality there did
not seem much of the renewal of life and the
recognition of the oneness of life that is the great
message of Easter Day. One longed for air and
sunshine and spring uprising, and it was a com-
fort to be told that of late years the best scholars
are of opinion that this place within the walls was
probably not the site of that garden tomb which
gave its shelter to that Blessed Body. "Where-
fore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the peo-
ple with his own blood, suffered without the
gate," 1 the writer of Hebrews declares. This
site must always have been within the limits of
the city, according to the archaeologists, and it is,
therefore, outside the gates of the city that the
devout imagination of modern scholars has dis-
covered the real place of suffering to which the
pilgrim must go.
1 Hebrews, xiii : 12.
JERUSALEM THE TRIUMPH 135
This is a hill fitly called" Golgotha," the place
of the skull. It is easy to form the great cracks
which seam its precipitous banks into a death's-
head. A wide cavern marks the place of the nos-
trils, a gaping mouth is there, and the sightless
eyes look from two hollows near the top. The
Garden of Gethsemane is near its foot. There
are the olives a thousand years old at least,
close descendants of those that sheltered the
agony and heard the prayer. Their enormous
twisted trunks stand gnarled and gray in the
spring sunshine, with the shimmering silver leaves
still fresh and lace-like about them. The ground
is covered with a tiny crucifer, a cross-flower
blooming in pale violet, and turning pure white,
a carpet of tinted snow. A gentle-faced Francis-
can a follower of that sweet St. Francis who,
according to the ancient legend, received the stig-
mata himself tends the garden, and when one
rises from one's knees he offers of his treasures
to the devout visitor. Here lay the three weary
Galileans, devoted to their Master, but worn with
the grief and excitement of the day,and here under
just such great olive trees came the reproachful
voice to them, "Could ye not watch with me
one hour?" 1 And after the trial was over it is
1 Matthew, xxvi : 40.
136 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
to this hill one must believe that He was brought.
"And he bearing his cross went forth into a place
called the place of a skull, which is called in the
Hebrew Golgotha." ' " Now in the place where he
was crucified there was a garden," St. John tells us,
and " a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet
laid." 2 It is all here, still an open place outside
the walls, and the rock-hewn tomb is still intact.
What a morning that was those centuries ago,
when the women who had watched it all came,
eager for the last loving service they could ren-
der! "While it was yet dark," "Very early in
the morning," the accounts say. And the stone
was rolled away, and the Life was living ! Those
beautiful words had taken on meaning : " I am
the resurrection, and the life," He had said to
a sorrowful woman, grieving for her brother's
death, beside his tomb. And now some echo of
them must have sounded in these women's ears
as in perplexity they paused with their task unful-
filled. "And they remembered his words," St.
Luke tells us, as the Angel asked them, "Why
seek ye the living among the dead?" It was
Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, the wife of
Chuza, Herod's steward, and Mary the mother
of James, "and other women that were with
1 John, xix : 17. * John, xix : 41.
i
-
***
IX THE GARDEN OF GETIISEMANE
JERUSALEM THE TRIUMPH 137
them," ' to whom these first Easter tidings were
given. The men could not believe them : "Their
words seemed to them as idle tales."
It must always be one of the glories of wo-
manhood that truth can appeal in a direct and
concrete form to her mind; that there is a higher
and purer form of apprehension than any process
of reasoning. The power of love gives this men-
tal clearness; and so to this company of women
came the new revelation of the unity of life, of
the oneness of the life that now is, and the life
to come. This is the Easter Message, this is the
Easter Joy. As our blessed Lord lived a man's
life, so He died a man's death, and so He entered
into a man's fruition. He was the well-beloved
Son, and He was the Son of Man. Under these
Syrian skies, here on the outskirts of Jerusalem,
with the same Paschal moon watching in the
heavens, and the same sun shrouding its light by
day, that drama of the world took place, and the
most magnificent utterance of any human lips was
fulfilled, " I am the resurrection, and the life."
Let us pray :
O Lord give us the eyes of faith, we beseech
Thee, that turning from grief, and the things of
1 Luke, xxiv : 10.
138 A BRIEF PILGRIMAGE
this world we may see Jesus. He was wounded for
our transgressions, the chastisement of our peace
is upon Him. May it not be in vain for us, dear
Lord. He, having tasted death for all men, alone
can bring us life. May we take it with thanks-
giving, living with new fullness, with new glad-
ness, because of our blessed Master's triumph.
Make us one with Him, in the joy of this Easter
Day, knowing that whosoever liveth and believ-
eth in Him shall never die. AMEN.
(Clje Rtticrsibe
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
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