Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 60140-h.htm or 60140-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/60140/pg60140-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/60140/60140-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/newpathsthrougho00slatuoft
Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
NEW PATHS THROUGH OLD PALESTINE
[Illustration:
Instead of the soft-footed camels, the motor truck stood at the gates
of the Holy City.]
NEW PATHS THROUGH OLD PALESTINE
by
MARGARET SLATTERY
[Illustration]
Printed in U. S. A.
The Pilgrim Press.
Boston Chicago
Copyright 1921
by
Sidney A. Weston
The Pilgrim Press
Boston
TO
M. R. H.
THE UNDERSTANDING COMPANION
OF THE PILGRIMAGE
A WORD ABOUT THE NEW PATHS
From our earliest childhood when at Christmas time we gazed with intense
interest at the Wise-men on their gaily caparisoned camels, those great
awkward ships of the desert have been associated in our minds with
Palestine. The Child held close in Mary’s arms as she sat upon the
donkey while Joseph urged it on through the day and the night in the
hurried flight into Egypt has made that faithful little beast a part of
Palestine.
We saw both the donkeys with loaded panniers driven along by wandering
Arabs and the strings of camels, soft-footed, heads held proudly high,
moving off over the yellow sands up to the hills. But we sat in a modern
train, with comfortable leather seats, and a madly puffing engine
dragged us over the wind-blown sands up through the hills of Judea to
the little modern station just without the walls of Jerusalem. Once when
we stopped at old Lydda we heard a rushing, whirring sound over our
heads. It grew louder and, as we searched the sky, a plane swept out
from the soft clouds into the clear blue, came down nearer, nearer to
earth, rose again, and passed out of sight. It had come from the City of
Zion: it would go into Egypt.
The Wilderness, the Dead Sea and the forty long years of wandering, the
victories over the Philistines, the waters of Jordan parted for the
passing of the hosts of Jehovah, the tumbling walls of Jericho, the
spots where “the arm of the Lord prevailed”: with these we had long been
familiar. They were associated in our minds with tents, with much
cattle, with slow beasts of burden, with men, women, and children who
moved leisurely in times of peace and fled in wild confusion in times of
war.
The Wilderness, the Dead Sea, the Jordan, and Jericho we saw. A motor
car driven by the son of an Arab chief took us over and past them all in
less than a day!
Old Palestine still lies between the great desert and the seas. The
women still grind the corn, stand gossiping about the well, and wrap
their babies in swaddling clothes. The shepherds wander through the bare
hills with their sheep and lead them, when spring comes, to the green
pastures and the still waters. But there are _New Paths Through Old
Palestine_. They cross age-worn desert-ways, go down into the shadows of
deep valleys, climb hoary mountains, follow Elijah’s chariot through
great spaces of the sky. The new paths bring new days fraught with
possibilities. In time they _may_ bring a new Palestine: not the mystic
land of the Zionists but the promised land of which the prophets and
poets of Israel sang. Old Palestine died in nineteen-fourteen with the
rest of the world that was and will never be again. New Palestine is
born. What its future shall be depends upon the souls of those who
follow the new paths. They may lead only to temporary triumph, to the
selfish goals of the kingdoms of men: they _may_ lead to the Kingdom of
God.
[Illustration:
Margaret Slattery.]
NOVEMBER 1, 1921.
“_Ah no! that sacred land
Where fell the wearied feet of the lone Christ
Robs not the soul of faith._”
—_Richard Watson Gilder._
CONTENTS
PAGE
I GO UP TO JERUSALEM 3
I GO OVER TO BETHLEHEM 21
I GO DOWN TO JERICHO 39
I GO TO BETHANY 61
I GO OUT TO THE MOUNT OF OLIVES 79
I GO TO THE GARDEN 97
I GO DOWN INTO EGYPT 113
I GO UP TO JERUSALEM
_Our feet are standing
Within thy gates, O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, that art builded
As a city that is compact together.—
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Peace be within thy walls,
And prosperity within thy palaces._
_Praise Jehovah, O Jerusalem;
Praise thy God, O Zion,
For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates;
He hath blessed thy children within thee.
He maketh peace in thy borders._
—_Psalms 122, 147._
I GO UP TO JERUSALEM
There was a moon that night. Now it was half hidden by soft clouds, now
clear, brilliant, white against a velvet sky. We stood crowded close to
the heavy ropes stretched across the bridge, which had swung open to
permit one boat after another to pass. We were at Kantara on the Suez.
Across the canal was the train dimly lighted, standing on the tracks
that seemed half buried in the soft, yellow, desert sand. We waited
impatiently. Nearly three hours had passed since the train from Port
Said had left us there to attend to baggage and troublesome passports,
and to eat a meager supper from boxes brought with us from the Port.
Now a Japanese boat passed slowly along the canal; then a smaller craft
with cargo, flying the Dutch flag; a British boat brilliantly lighted,
its passengers, many of them in uniform, dancing on deck. The canal is
so narrow that great ships must creep slowly and carefully along, with
no place for miles where one boat may pass another. It is a miracle,
this Suez Canal, and the story of its building a most fascinating tale.
Its banks are scarred by the battles of the great war. Barbed wire, old
dugouts, the remains of hastily constructed forts reminded us of the
desperate struggle made by the Allies to protect it against the enemy in
the air and under the water. Had any one of their many attempts
successfully closed the canal, the war would have had a very different
ending.
We had just spent nineteen and one-half hours coming through the canal
at the slow speed permitted by law—five miles an hour. Even then our
boat twice grazed the retaining wall. In a single year over three
thousand boats passed through the locks, crept along through the canal,
then hurried to far ports, east or west.
As the fifth boat swung lazily past, a sigh of relief went up from the
crowd pressed against the ropes. A moment and the great bridge moved
back into place and we were given the signal to cross. It was a weird
group that hurried along in the moonlight—a party of Americans, a group
of British officers, some Australian soldiers, Jews from Russia
clutching their permits to enter the land of promise, Egyptians,
Syrians, Arabs in native dress. There were but few women. Our porter
found us seats close to the window in one of the compartments. We were
sorry for this later, as the fine sand sifted in and covered clothing
and baggage. No sleeping-car was possible, so we made ourselves as
comfortable as we could with bags for pillows and heavy coats for
blankets. We were most grateful for this railroad from Kantara to
Jerusalem, realizing that before the war we would have been compelled to
make the inconvenient and dangerous landing in the small boats at Jaffa.
We made our way slowly through the night across the desert that
stretched as far as the eye could reach in the moonlight and slipped
away into blackness when the moon had set. What it had cost the men who
had laid those ties in that wilderness of sand, under the scorching rays
of a pitiless sun, no history of war can adequately relate. How often in
those days, as we looked reverently at old battlegrounds, we searched
for words with which to describe the miracles performed by the
engineering corps of the fighting armies!
With the morning light, we began to see signs of life on the desert.
Great masses of cacti, in clumps as tall as trees, with stems as thick
as a man’s body, were growing but a few feet from our windows. Here,
during the war, the enemy had hidden their machine guns, a refuge from
which they might safely do their deadly work, practically certain that
they could not be captured. Many a brave soldier of the Allies gave up
his life in agony, caught in the cactus hedge to which the rush of
battle had driven him, and many an heroic rescue of a comrade held by
the cruel thorns took place on that desert plain. When the cactus growth
cleared and the desert was unbroken we stared in amazement at what
seemed to be a line of dark earth—a road made in the shifting sand. When
we got nearer we found it to be strips of chicken wire. This wire was
the solution of a problem that at first threatened to tie up all the
plans of Headquarters, for the heavy artillery and the loaded motor
lorries, sinking deep into the sand, made progress impossible. The wire
road was the result of the ingenuity of some of the men in the ranks. As
the fine and coarse net used alternately pressed down upon the sand it
gave the resistance that enabled the great guns and loads of supplies to
pass over places otherwise uncrossable. When they had passed, soldiers
rolled up the wire, loaded it on the camels to be used again over some
hard stretch ahead. The war over, it lay there rusting in the sand.
Again and again, as one crossed the battlefields of Palestine, he saw
evidences of the triumph of man’s mind over earth’s obstacles. Nothing
was too ordinary, too commonplace, too insignificant to be used to
further the success of the great cause. For fresh supplies of food and
water, for “heavies” with which to batter down the defenses of the
enemy, the army was for a time dependent upon temporary tracks of
chicken wire laid in a waste of moving sand!
Against the horizon we could see the slow moving train of camels. A
group of Arabs on horseback halted to watch us pass. We were in
Palestine, that land of small distances and great deeds.
“I cannot believe that I am in Palestine,” said the young daughter of a
British officer who was to see her father for the first time in four
years. “I have not been able to think of it as a real land. I know, in a
way, that Moses and Joshua fought here. But think of father’s fighting
here, too!” The girl had expressed the thought of hundreds of others who
have studied the Bible stories, become familiar with the difficult
names, drawn maps and located the cities of Moses and of Paul, marked
the journeyings of Christ, but to whom the land has never been a real
land and its records, shrouded in vague mystery, have never seemed a
part of the earth. But now we knew it to be real. We began to comprehend
“the wilderness and the solitary place.”
It is only about the size of my own state of Massachusetts, I told
myself again and again. Its greatest length is but one hundred eighty
miles and it is nowhere more than fifty-five miles wide. If I had the
railways and engines of home I could cross it in less than two hours. I
could travel its entire length easily in five or six. But the present
train, with its light engine, on a roadbed hastily made, parts of it
finished under fire from enemy guns, moves slowly. We are stopping at
Gaza.
Once Gaza was the largest city of the old country of the Philistines. I
can almost see Samson, strong and powerful, coming down over the hill
called today Samson’s Ridge, bearing the great city gates upon his
shoulders while men stood aghast. I can see him too, blinded and
powerless, walking the treadmill of his enemies. As I look out over the
desert road, I remember the Ethiopian struggling to find the meaning of
the words of the prophet Isaiah and young Philip running by his chariot,
eagerly responding to the invitation to sit with him and explain the
prophecy. Riding along through the dust, I can hear him talking with the
ruler about Jesus and what He had taught of God and man; and,
half-astonished at the quick response, I can hear the Ethiopian, as they
came near to a place with water, saying, “Behold, here is water, what
doth hinder me to be baptized?” But I am brought back suddenly from the
long past. Men in British uniform are on the platform of the little
station. They follow the mail bag eagerly, joking each other in clear
English accents about the probable contents.
For eight months in nineteen hundred and seventeen, Gaza became again
the center of a great battle area. We could see the remains of the
Turkish trenches, dug deep into the earth and protected by great masses
of wire or by sand bags made from the gay colored hangings and curtains
taken from the houses of its people. But in spite of all their careful
preparations and their gallant defence, Gaza fell into the hands of the
British troops whose splendid officers and men had braved heat, terrible
thirst, sand-storms, deadly fire that robbed them of hundreds of their
comrades, that they might take this important post on the road that was
to lead them through untold suffering up to Jerusalem, as it had led
other armies of days long ago. The British Tommies read their Bibles in
their spare time these days. They read over again the battles of
Israelites and Philistines which they had found very stupid when they
were boys in Sunday schools but which are exceedingly interesting to
them now. As they fought, step by step, for possession of that same
land, they asked themselves if, battling against a foe to whom the
desert was home, on trackless wastes whose every spring and rock was
known, they could ever win. Never for a moment did they hesitate in
their answer, but many a brave young officer and many a hardy soldier of
Australia or New Zealand must have had misgivings as he looked at the
cactus hedge, miles deep, or out over the still, barren, hopeless desert
hills.
We left Gaza to climb slowly up to Lydda, now called Ludd, where we were
obliged to change cars. On all sides were signs of the fighting of two
years before, and now and then white crosses or Turkish graves reminded
us of the terrible price youth has paid throughout the long centuries of
history to make this land holy indeed.
As we climbed up into the hills, it began to rain, the air was fresh and
cool, the vineyards here and there on the hillsides brought great relief
after the glare of the sands through which we had been passing for so
many hours. Our first glimpse of Jerusalem was in the soft mist through
which the sun was attempting to shine. The walls looked high and
forbidding, the whole city, from its point of vantage crowning the
hilltops, seemed to look down upon us as though we were but very little
things, little and unimportant, come to gaze, without half understanding
what we should see, upon all man has dreamed and suffered in his reach
for God and happiness.
A thrill of anticipation had passed up and down the corridor of the
train. Not a person sat in his compartment. Corridor windows were opened
and eager faces crowded about them. The face of the young girl who was
to see her father after the four years of separation was flushed with
excitement, but the face of her mother was pale and there were tears in
her eyes. She had given her two sons—one in France and one in
Mesopotamia—to the world’s great effort to preserve its freedom. I shall
never forget the light in the eyes of two thin, haggard, long-bearded
Hebrews, looking out from the windows, then turning to speak with each
other in Russian words that, though unintelligible to us, seemed to be
on fire with passion. Their gestures were expressive of emotion that
could not be restrained. Long before the train stopped they were at the
door.
The faces of young British officers on leave, coming up for the first
time to see the city for whose delivery they had prepared the way down
on the dry parched plain, were keen with interest; no detail of the
approach escaped them. The residents accustomed to the journeyings from
the Port to the city looked at us all with mild curiosity and kind
tolerance.
From the station, the horses dragged us up through gray mud that flew
about us in showers, covering carriage, baggage, and robes,—there was no
escape from it. From the mist the walls of the “city of cities” emerged,
clear, strong, unbroken, no mark of battle upon them. As we went through
the great gate, the sun, breaking through the mist, flooded with light,
for a few moments, the narrow street and brightened the faces of the
crowd of people of every nation that poured ceaselessly in and out. We
stopped before the hotel that during the war had served as the Red
Crescent Hospital. Lunch was waiting and we sat down with the Mohammedan
in his red fez, the Bedouin in his long, beautiful, gay-colored coat,
the French officer and the British officer on leave, Jewish business
men, the Greek and the Syrian—the world, it seemed to us as we listened
to the various languages. All orders for food were given in French, and
in French men of different nations spoke with each other in courteous
greeting.
We were in Jerusalem. Here Samuel sat; here at the gate was David’s
tower; King Solomon once lived over there on the hill in his glittering
palace and by his wealth and wisdom made himself famous throughout the
world, and here he lost his wisdom as has many another in the courts of
the women. Herod and Pilate looked out over these hills; the Crusader
stormed the walls and the Turk brought terror and slavery with his
sword. Twenty-three times in its history Jerusalem has been captured. It
has been pillaged, plundered, burned, utterly destroyed, rebuilt only to
be plundered again. Yet here it stood. Upon what unspeakable sorrow the
stars of Palestine have looked down! We gazed from our balcony out over
the low buildings of solid rock, out through the break in the wall made
that the Kaiser, on his visit to the Holy Place, might enter in great
pomp and glory with his impressive army of followers, the break redeemed
by the simplicity of the entrance of the victorious General Allenby into
the city that he had conquered without the destruction of a single
building or a foot of wall and accepted, when surrendered, as a sacred
trust placed once more in the hands of Christians. It may be that the
white crosses in long rows, out on the hillside, guarding the graves of
soldiers from every part of the British Empire, young, very young, will
continue to remind these latest conquerors of the tremendous cost of the
victory that left the city unharmed and help them govern the land with
an unselfishness of purpose that will measure up to the high standard of
their victory.
After lunch we found that dark clouds had gathered low over the hills,
and before we could leave our room the rain came. We studied the map of
the city, searched out the location of its sacred places, read over
again the words of poet and prophet describing the days of its great
glory, when from Mount Zion king and shepherd could look over at Mount
Moriah where the smoke of the sacrifice from the temple of Jehovah
ascended to heaven.
Late in the afternoon the rising wind scattered the clouds and the sun
set in a blaze of glory. We stood just outside the gate on the city wall
looking down across the valley over toward Bethlehem. The hills, deep
purple, reached up on every side to touch the sky. Their bare rocky
slopes became soft as velvet in the fading light.
A young British private, leaning against a part of the parapet, took out
a khaki Testament and turned the leaves slowly. He seemed to find what
he wanted and read, following the lines with his finger. Then he closed
the book, put it back in his pocket and turned, half apologetically to a
companion not in uniform.
“We fought out there,” he said, “the 53rd division. We fought around the
very hills where the angels sang about Peace on earth.”
A moment of silence and the other spoke: “Yonder is the road He must
have climbed when He came up to Jerusalem.”
“I’ll take you over it tomorrow,” was the answer. “We’ll see all the
places where He used to go. It makes the story in the Book very plain.”
They moved away. Reluctantly, in the face of coming darkness, we left
the great wall and joined the group of Arabs who, with camels and
donkeys, were passing in and out of the gate. As we climbed the long
stairs to our room, we remembered that tomorrow would be Sunday at home.
In thousands of churches all over the world, trusting little children,
strong, courageous youth, men and women bearing heavy burdens, the old,
the sick, the missionaries would read the story of what He did and said
centuries before, in and about Jerusalem—the story that, despite the
limitations of those who have told it, has changed the world and that
must continue to change it until it shall become what He prayed it might
be—the kingdom of God upon the earth. Tomorrow we, like the young
soldier in khaki, would begin our journeys to “all the places where He
used to go.” And we hoped that for us, too, the sacred spots would “make
the story in the Book very plain.”
In a long procession with torches the worshipers of the Greek church,
chanting an evensong for their feast day, passed beneath our balcony. A
torch lighted up the cross held high over the heads of the marchers. Out
over the hills of Bethlehem, hidden now by the night, bright stars were
shining. We fell upon our knees and worshiped Him.
I GO OVER TO BETHLEHEM
_There was a baby born in Bethlehem.
I know they say
That this and that’s in doubt, and, for the rest
That learned men who surely should know best
Explain how myths crept in, and followers’ tales confused the truth._
_I know—but anyway
There was a baby born in Bethlehem
Who lived and grew and loved and healed and taught
And died—but not to me.
When Christmas comes I see Him still arise,
The gentle, the compassionate, the wise,
Wiping Earth’s tears away, stilling her strife;
Calling, “My path is Peace; My way is Life!”_
—_Author Unknown._
I GO OVER TO BETHLEHEM
It was clear and cold. The hills of Moab were deep blue. They seemed
very near. In a low carriage that bore every mark of long service, drawn
by two thin dark horses and driven by an Arab in a dull brown Bedouin
coat, with the long, heavy head-dress falling over his shoulders and
protecting him from rain or sun, we drove out through the gate. Dark
eyes watched us curiously. The horses at first were swift of foot and
the carriage lurched and rolled down the steep grade of the valley of
Hinnom, past the former German colony, over the new bridge; then, losing
their enthusiasm, they climbed slowly. On a hillside the sheep were
feeding, but how they could find enough to sustain life on those bare
rocky slopes is hard to understand. Now we passed a flock following the
shepherd in his vari-colored coat down a steep incline and through a
valley which in the rainy season would be a rushing stream. We could
hear the lambs call, and now and then the shepherd’s reprimand to a
straying sheep. Over there were the fields of Boaz. How beautiful they
must have looked when the heavy sheaves of wheat were yellow in the sun.
The land of Moab seemed such a short distance away as we who had been
half-way round the world thought of distance, but to loyal, faithful,
loving Ruth those desert plains, rounded hills, and deep valleys meant
distance enough to separate her forever from the home and kindred she
must leave behind. The brave words came back to us: “Whither thou goest,
I will go; thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.” She
deserved the happiness she won out there in the fields as she followed
the reapers. As if agreeing with our unspoken thoughts our guide turned
and looked down at us. “Boaz, the owner of the field, married Ruth, the
Moabite girl. She was very beautiful,” he said.
The wind was bleak on the hilltop as it was that night centuries ago and
we were glad when we reached the protection of the low stone houses of
the village of Bethlehem. Such a tiny village! Nothing was left of the
glory of that other day when the busy tax-gatherers checked up the names
of the people and the keeper of the Inn hurried about trying in vain to
find room for his guests, when officers of the army in resplendent
uniform and civil officers proud and haughty made every Jewish pilgrim
conscious of the power of great Rome.
Nothing remains of the old inn or khan which was crowded on that night
to its very gates. Thankful indeed must both Joseph and Mary have been
for the protection of the cave with its great manger hewn out of the
rock. Over that spot to which they went so gratefully for shelter now
stands the Church of the Nativity. It is a simple beautiful church, but
the shrines within are garish indeed.
By General Allenby’s command, the high forbidding walls of stone that
have so long divided the interior and marred its beauty have been taken
down. The walls had formerly separated the church into sections claimed
by the various faiths. The nave of the church belongs to the Greeks, one
transept to the Coptic Christians, the other to the Armenians. The
Romanists have built a church and monastery close beside the little
church of the Nativity, but worshipers could only reach the grotto to
kneel at the manger of stone through a devious, difficult underground
path. When the Turks captured Palestine they compelled the Armenians to
open a passage through their wall that the Romanists might enter. As we
stepped into the church we heard the chanting of their choir, and soon
through the door in the Armenian transept came priests and altar boys in
the rich robes of the church to say mass. We stood aside until they had
passed and only the echo of their voices could be heard floating up from
the cave below.
Ever since the coming of the Turks, Christmas and Easter services have
been marred by desperate quarreling and bloodshed. At each service
Turkish soldiers were on guard and swords and guns punished offenders
but were unable to prevent the paying of old scores by Armenian and
Romanist, Copt and Greek. The British general was exceedingly anxious
that no such quarrels should mar the celebration of the first Christmas
and Easter after the return of the holy places into the hands of
Christians, to be theirs no matter what their creeds might be. In many
languages, he made his appeal to the people. The American Colony of
Jerusalem was asked to be present at the services to help quiet any
trouble-makers, but they did not wish to assume the responsibility.
Therefore certain individual members of the Red Cross Commission
answered the General’s appeal, and were present all day at the services,
quietly warning any of the rougher element who, as in the past days,
attempted to start trouble by taunting words. Not a British soldier was
present. The Commission members, wise, alert, and friendly, did their
work well and the day passed in dignified impressive worship for the
first time since the Turks took the Holy City. The General expressed his
gratitude in most cordial notes of thanks to the men who had so
successfully endeavored to carry out his wishes.
We waited until the mass was over and then, with our lighted candles,
went down into the shadowy grotto. Myth and legend, superstitions weird
and fantastic have gathered about all the sacred places. While these
things mean little to the modern Christian, he is bound to respect the
reverent belief in them held by many of his comrades in the faith. With
confidence the guide tells of the hundreds of years the fire in the
hidden place has burned, not once going out, just as it has burned in
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. If, as one kneels and
prays, holding his taper close to the opening, it is lighted by the
unseen holy fire, rich blessings will come to him and those he loves.
I shall never forget the thin, tired, sorrow-marked face of an Armenian
woman whose taper, as she knelt murmuring prayers, suddenly caught the
sacred flame. It was transformed. She went up the shadowy steps in a
transport of joy. Nor shall I soon forget the face of a Russian woman as
she swayed back and forth on her knees in an agony of prayer. When at
last she rose she could not stand and a kindly attendant steadied her.
He spoke to her in Russian and they talked softly for a moment. She was
in Jerusalem on a pilgrimage when the war broke out. Her husband, her
son, and a son-in-law were in the Russian army. Of them she had had no
word. She had received a month since confirmation of the news of the
death of her two daughters in prison. She could not go back to her home
in the hot-bed of Bolshevism. She took a taper from the hand of a priest
and went toward the place of the holy fire.
[Illustration:
_Copyright, Underwood & Underwood_
“’Twas a humble birthplace, but oh, how much God gave to us that day!”]
I was glad when we were in the fresh crisp air again, wandering through
the streets of the little village, stopping for a few moments for coffee
with a Syrian shopkeeper who wanted to sell us olive-wood beads with a
beautiful carved cross as pendant. His son, a boy of twelve, spoke
English. The father brought him out proudly. He attended a Quaker school
for boys over in Ramallah and was having a holiday. The souvenirs
offered for our inspection were poor tawdry things, but the faces of the
salesmen were so eager that we could not disappoint them. Visitors had
been exceedingly rare during the years of the war and curious friendly
eyes followed us hopefully everywhere. There had been great excitement
in the village that morning. An Indian prince who was a Christian had
visited the church, had left a gift for the priests, had made purchases
in all the little shops—his taper had been lighted by the holy fire.
We were just about to go back to our carriage when, turning the corner
abruptly, we were face to face with the young Britisher and his friend
who had stood on the wall with us in the sunset the night before. He was
pointing out over the hills. We smiled our recognition and asked if we
too might hear of the coming of the army to Bethlehem.
“There is not much to tell,” he said, in the way of those who have
risked all in battle. He told us a little about the difficulty of the
fighting in the Judean Hills, the gigantic task of feeding the army and
supplying it with water, the intense sufferings of the men in the cold
drizzling rain and the chilling wind on the hills. Wrapping our own
coats tightly about us, we could understand something of what they must
have endured lying out on the bare unprotected hillsides as they did
those nights before the city of Jerusalem was captured. After a moment
he pointed out to us the hill Beit Jabor two miles northwest of
Bethlehem won by the Welsh Division troops and opening the door for the
entrance into Bethlehem, showed us the great house just south of
Bethlehem where the Turks had seven mountain guns turned upon the road
over which the troops must pass. But a thick heavy impenetrable fog
settled down and, taking the risk, the heavy guns of the British passed
up the road within easy reach of the enemy had they known. “Whenever a
fog settled down like that, to our advantage, the boys would say, ‘the
Lord sent a great fog,’ or ‘the Lord hath covered the moon with a
cloud’; but when rain or moonlight favored the enemy they said nothing.”
He smiled. “The war is over,” he said, “yet it seems as if at any moment
this silence might be interrupted by the booming of a gun.” “God
forbid!” said our guide fervently. “We have had enough of guns.” We
echoed his words heartily as we said a warm word of appreciation of what
British arms had done and went back to our carriage.
Two miles or more outside the village we looked down upon the place of
Rachel’s tomb. There have been few more beautiful stories of devoted
service for love than that of Jacob who had “loved Rachel” and laid her
there with a breaking heart. The simple, homely record of the joys and
sorrows of every-day life written in the Book that is so full of human
interest seems very real indeed as one looks into the faces of men and
women about him, almost any one of whom might have played the part of
hero or heroine without change of costume on a stage with scenery set. A
little further down the long hill we stopped while the guide pointed to
the place where the shepherds had watched their flocks. It was a plain
lying close between the higher hills. Even on a chilly night it would be
a sheltered spot and, huddled dose together with the fire blazing near
and the watchman at the gate of the fold, shepherds and sheep would be
safe and warm. So they lay that night when the dark sky was suddenly
flooded with light and voices sang over the awestruck hills of Judea.
We looked back at the little spot on the hill that was Bethlehem, where
that night was born the baby who turned the world upside down—the baby
who inspired the world’s best art, its finest literature, its greatest
music,—there in that little town with its stone houses, its irregular
streets, its simple people struggling with poverty! There was Bethlehem,
the city of David, the shepherd boy of the hills, strongest and best of
all the sons of Jesse, born to be a king and through his long line of
descendants at last to give to the world the King of kings.
When we stopped at the desk for our keys and to ask for a fire in the
little square stove in our room the clerk, in hesitating, careful
English, said, “You have found it cold out on the hills. You have seen
Bethlehem. It is a small place, Bethlehem. There is little there that a
man may do. Many travelers are disappointed by Bethlehem.”
“That depends upon how much one sees when he looks at Bethlehem,” I
thought. For me it held no disappointment.
That night in the great hall, around the stove that could not warm it,
men talked of the future of Palestine. A good friend, who understood
many languages and spoke Arabic fluently, interpreted much of the talk
for us. The present population of Palestine, Jews, Christians and
Mohammedans, is not even a million! Jews and Christians together number
perhaps less than one-third. The Mohammedans make up most of the
population and are found in every city and village. Arabic is the
language of the people, but in Jerusalem and in Jaffa most European
languages are freely spoken. The people who live in the towns are called
Madaniyeh, the villagers are the Fellaheen, and those who live in tents,
whom we called Bedouin, are Arabs. Despite its rocky, unpromising
hillsides and its deserts, Palestine is an agricultural country and that
must be its future, the men told each other. Wheat and barley, maize and
lentils, figs, watermelons, grapes, pomegranates, mulberries, apricots,
tomatoes, oranges, and olives could be easily raised. We heard glowing
descriptions of the Jaffa oranges and some sent later to our room
fulfilled all that had been said of them. There was much talk of the day
when the cultivation of raisins and the manufacture of olive oil would
make men rich; talk of the bananas that could be made to grow in large
quantities at Jericho and of the date palms that would make Gaza prosper
once more. There must be new plows, new machinery of many sorts. They
talked of the Zionist movement, but the talk was cut short by an Arab
who would not hear of it and, as some faces darkened and voices grew
louder, our friend rose and took us to our room. Sometimes in these days
a friendly talk about Palestine’s future ends in hot words and even
blows. The Arab does not want Palestine to be passed over into the hands
of the Jews. Many of the Jerusalem Jews express no pleasure whatever
over an influx of their brothers from many lands. The problems of
Palestine today are very grave and only great wisdom, unselfishness and
patience will solve them.
After trying in vain to warm ourselves over our small wood stove we put
on our heavy coats and stepped out upon our little balcony. There was no
moon. Save for a light over the Jaffa gate and soft rays from the
windows of our hotel, Jerusalem was dark. The narrow little street at
our left was black. The stars were clear, sparkling, very near. One star
seemed larger and brighter than all the rest. As if unconscious of my
presence my friend sang softly:
“O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth,
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.”
We hurried to our beds with their gay colored hangings and lay buried
under blankets and rugs for warmth. For a long time, gazing out into the
darkness, I could see the star.
O little town of Bethlehem! Small indeed—but spreading over all the
earth. Only a few days before in America millions of children had heard
its story, hugged their precious gifts, and thought of the angels and
the shepherds. Thousands of parents, forgetting the pressure of dull
gray days, filled with problems of food, clothing and shelter had smiled
upon their own children and thought tenderly of the Child, and many men
and women without a child to love remembered the days of their own
childhood and greeted each other with “Merry Christmas.” Small
indeed—but I had heard the children of Japan with beaming faces sing its
story; I had heard the youth of China with strong, beautifully serious
faces tell of white gifts to be given in the name of the Child who found
His way into the world out there on the hilltop of Judea; in India I had
heard the story told by a girl whose face shone in the telling, as rows
and rows of little dark faces looked up at her. I knew that in the sands
of African deserts, in the snows of Arctic lands, in the farthermost
islands of the sea, they had heard of Bethlehem. A long line of familiar
words surged through my mind—democracy, freedom, liberty, justice for
all, the brotherhood of man, love—as women may say it in Christian
lands: ... how many of them were also born with Him that night in
Bethlehem!
No, “thou Bethlehem in the land of Judah art not the least among the
princes of Judah, for out of thee shall come a ruler ... and his name
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.”
The wounded, hungry, puzzled world—the memory of the sufferings I had
looked upon pressed hard upon me. I closed my eyes to pray that men may
have the courage so to love and the faith so to act that the Prince may
soon come into the possession of His kingdom.
When I opened my eyes, low over the hills against the blackness of the
sky the star was still shining.
I GO DOWN TO JERICHO
“_He passed by on the other side._”
_That ‘other side’ is trodden smooth
And worn by footsteps passing all the day;
Where lie the bruised ones faint and torn
Is seldom more than an untrodden way.
Our selfish hearts are for our feet the guide,
They lead us by upon the other side._
—_Author Unknown._
I GO DOWN TO JERICHO
An interested group surrounded us that morning at nine o’clock as the
car which was to take us down to the Dead Sea and the Jordan drew up to
the door of the hotel. I call it a car by courtesy. It had seen hard
service. It had a battered running board, a mudguard with many dents, a
front seat bending in the middle to the breaking point, no windshield
and no horn. We protested, but our guide said it was the best that could
be had.
“It is the engine that is important,” he said, “the engine and the brake
both are good. As for the horn, no fear—he is a horn with his mouth.” He
was a most successful human horn as we found when we passed through the
gate into the traffic outside the wall. Our guide was not an enthusiast
on the subject of motor vehicles. As we swept around the hairpin curves
he was restless. “The Arab is not the temperament for a driver of cars,”
he said seriously, “he is the temperament for a horse.” And again after
a pause, “It is well to go to Jericho in a carriage. The inn near
Elijah’s Spring is a good place for a rest, and three days—it is a good
time for the trip.”
There was little traffic passing after we turned onto the long
hill—donkeys with panniers loaded with products to be exchanged in the
markets of Jerusalem, a boy driving a few sheep slowly up the steep
hill, a lone Arab on his horse. The air was still, crisp, and very
clear. We were exceedingly thankful for the road built by the Turks in
excellent fashion for the visit of the Kaiser twenty-three years before
and carefully repaired by the British troops for military service. We
passed the rest house built that William Hohenzollern might refresh
himself before approaching the Holy City. Lower and lower into the
valley we went. The road now had a thin covering of soft gray mud.
Suddenly, turning to avoid a huge rock that had rolled down the hillside
into the road, the car skidded. A second and the light machine had
crashed into the retaining wall of rock and cement. The axle bent, the
front wheels turned at an angle, we were thrown back and forth in our
shaky seat. The car stopped. We heard the sickening thud of the rocks as
they fell to the dry bed of the stream below. Then we climbed down
carefully over the loosened mass of cement. “Thank God we are to live!”
said the guide reverently. The driver was trying to turn the wheels
back. He pushed the car into the road. The engine would still run but
the axle looked hopeless. The guide spoke again—“As I have said, a
carriage is better for Jericho.” After all our effort, we had failed to
impress him with the fact that for us to give three days to the trip was
impossible. “Of old,” he continued, “they fell here among the thieves.
We have fallen among the rocks.” We could not help smiling at his look
of dismay as he walked around the car again and again. He was so proud
of his record of over thirty years as guide to whose care was due the
fact that no serious mishaps had ever befallen any of his people. We
were so grateful that we were not lying down there among the jagged
rocks in the dry bed of the stream that our present difficulty seemed
slight indeed. We were midway between Jerusalem and Jericho. If no help
came we could walk in either direction twelve and a half miles though
the prospect was not tempting. While we were discussing it we heard a
rumbling, then a horn. It was a British hospital car taking an officer
down to Jericho. It was pay day for the soldiers and he was late. The
driver of his car felt sure that with a little help the axle might be
repaired enough to enable our driver to crawl back to Jerusalem, but the
steering gear had been damaged and it would be an uncertain venture. A
lorrie was on its way to Jerusalem and was to wait at the Good Samaritan
Inn to give a message to the officer. He would leave instructions for
them to help our driver back to the city and he could get aid for us.
The men in the lorrie which came along according to schedule looked the
car over with the air of expert mechanics. They spent a half hour or
more on it with the help of our driver and then the little Ford turned
and climbed slowly and bravely up the hill, keeping with greatest
difficulty close to the safe side of the road. The lorrie was out of
sight in a few moments flying along to make up for lost time. It would
take word of our trouble and send another car.
[Illustration:
There lay the boat in which one might row across the Jordan to the
land of Moab.]
There was nothing to do but wait and nothing to see but bare hills. We
climbed one great rocky mound only to see more hills with deeper valleys
lying between as far as the eye could reach. They reminded us of the
hills in the most desolate part of the Mormon trail in our own American
desert. The sun rose higher and the heat became almost unbearable. We
drew down our hats, put on our dark glasses and sat on the rocks in the
dry bed of the stream. There was not a sound, not a bird note, no
bleating of sheep. There were caves in the side of the hill. They looked
dark, cool, and inviting, they had sheltered many people good and bad
during the long centuries, but the guide warned us that they were full
of vermin and unclean. There was a tiny boulder half-way up the hill
which made on one side a narrow strip of shade and we made ourselves as
small as possible and sat there.
Noon came and we ate our chicken and hard boiled eggs, French bread,
figs, dates and oranges made ready by the hotel, and drank the water in
our thermos bottles sparingly. A group of Arabs clattered past us over
on the road. One sang a couplet in a clear, ringing voice and the others
joined as in a chorus. They did not see us, or, if they did, made no
sign. “When the Turks ruled Palestine,” said our guide, “we could not
sit here so safe. There was much danger on this road and no man traveled
over it at nightfall.” He told us tales of brigands in league with
Turkish high officials with whom they shared their spoil that would have
made excellent material for certain types of American motion pictures.
Suddenly the simple story that Jesus told to the crowd in answer to the
half-mocking question of the keen Jewish lawyer came vividly before us.
It was in these hills, in the desperate loneliness of them, that the
certain man, stripped of all his goods, beaten and half dead, lay
helpless. He might wait for help for many an hour before out of this
place of emptiness any would come! How could Priest and Levite pass him
by on the other side and leave him in this forsaken spot that their own
journey might be undisturbed? To them he was only a man robbed by the
bandits. He would die as had many another. It was a common thing, and,
inhuman as it seems, they went on to their task of holy worship and to
the seat of judgment.
How keen was the mind of Christ! How quickly and unerringly He put his
finger upon the very center of sin! It was easy to see, coming down the
narrow camel path in the hills, the hated Samaritan with the spirit of
justice, mercy, and brotherhood in his soul. He stopped—the man one
would least expect to stop—and rescued with generous tenderness the
suffering victim of thieves, while the servants of Jehovah and his law
passed by on the other side, doing in that day even as, in all the days
since, the followers of the letter and not of the spirit of the law have
done.
There was only one answer to the question the lawyer had asked of Jesus
and he was forced to give it—“He that showed mercy.” I doubt if any who
had heard the question, “But who is my neighbor?” ever forgot the
answer, or the command that followed it: “Go and do thou likewise.”
I was so lost in a new sense of the significance and sincerity of His
wonderful teaching that I did not see our guide make his way toward the
road. “A car comes,” he called, but we, lacking his desert-trained
senses, heard nothing. Two or three minutes and we could see it coming
rapidly along the white road on the farther hillside. The guide was
overjoyed when he saw the new driver. “Ah!” he said, “this is the man I
wanted. He drives anything that can go. Through the war he drove over
hills with no road—always safe! He speaks English, too.” He examined the
car. It had both windshield and horn. It had an extra tire and seats
that were straight. Hope revived.
“We shall now get quickly back to Jerusalem,” said the guide. “Tomorrow,
perhaps, we shall have the carriage.” “To Jerusalem!” we said. “It is
only one o’clock. With such a driver we can surely get to the Dead Sea
and the Jordan. If it is late we can stay tonight at the Inn near
Elijah’s Spring and go back to Jerusalem in the morning. Our time is
short and we cannot take another whole day.” Jamil looked at the driver.
“They are Americans,” he said, “and when they will go, they will go!”
After a moment he added, “The sun has been very hot. Perhaps for you it
has dried the roads.”
So we climbed the steep grade, ran along a level strip, then a steeper
grade to the Inn of the Good Samaritan where Arab traders and men of the
caravans stop for coffee. There was a tank in the yard where one could
buy gasoline!
The road before us was down grade now, and the driver more than lived up
to his reputation. Once Jamil turned to show us a Mohammedan mosque in
ruins in a desolate spot high up in the hills and again to point out a
tomb. “It is the tomb of Moses by the word of the Mohammedans,” he said;
“but we do not believe it, for no man knoweth where God hath buried him.
He never came into the land so we shall not believe it.”
Neither of us who took it will ever forget that ride through the
Wilderness. There was no road. Two deep ruts here and there marked our
way. We wound through soft ooze turning now into the rut, now out again.
On every side were hillocks of soft gray sand. “This is a good place to
ride the donkey’s back,” said Jamil as we bounced up and down in the
car, but he smiled. We told him we had motored to Germany over the
shell-torn roads fording the bridgeless streams and this seemed very
simple. Three miles of it and we were on a rough road close by the Dead
Sea.