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
 
 A 000669070 5