The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1882-06-16
PALESTINE.
THE SEA OF GALILEE.
A LECTURE DELIVERED BY REV. L. B

PLATT, AT THE CONGREGATIONAL
CHURCH, JUNE II, 1882.
1t is matter of great disappoint.
ment to many tourists that the Sea
of Galilee is somewhat smaller than
the Atlantic Ocean that it is not so
large in fact as Lake Superior--nor
by any comparison so picturesquely
beautiful as Lake Tahoe in Califor-
MIA. They have kind of feeling
that they have been defrauded--that
altogether too much has been made
out of very small affair. "Why -
they say, "a duck. pond like this
would hardly appear on the map in
America-much less be talked about
and written about for two thousand
years." The State of Michigan alone
has seven thousand five hundred lakes
and hundreds of them whose names
are unknown are just as worthy of
immortality as the Sea Of Galilee.
And in one sense it is true enough.
And in that same sense it is, also,
true that along the shore of the At
lantic there are thousands of granite
promontories of really more impor-
tance than Plymouth Rock and yet
no one ever hears of them or cares
to visit them. Bunker Hill is not
the loftiest mountain in the United
States and Yorktown is not the great
est city, and there are broader rivers
than the Brandywine and deeper val
leys than Valley Forge. But if any
traveller should visit them and then
write about them as they often do of
the Sea of Galilee, ignoring its his
torical associations which alone have
given it name and an abiding inter-
est and dwelling only on its physical
features by unfavorable comparison
should pronounce it a disappoint-
ment and an imposition, we should
say at least that that man was good
deal of fool and we should consid-
er that we had let him off very charit-
ably. Take away the name of Christ
from the Sea of Galilee and as we
might naturally expect there is moth
ing left. A little greenish sheet of
water three miles wide and twelve
miles long--a crazy fishing-boat or
two tossing on the waves, wild Arab
or marauding Circassian riding
along the shore, ruins here and there
of no importance-the old city of
Tiberias with its ragged population
and broken down walls--it isn't worth
going ten miles to see. And yet
people 40 go ten thousand miles to
see it. They haze done so and prob
ably always 7olH, SO long as they be-
lieve that along these shores walked
Jesus of Nazareth, who was the Son
of God. My first impulse after reach
ing the Convent on the edge of the
lake was to have boat ride. l had
often thought that the crowning ex-
perience of our whole journey and
the very topmost moment of all my
life in point of exalted happiness
would be when l should sit in the
stern of fishing-boat on the Sea of
Galilee holding the rudder with one
hand and the sail with the other and
skimming the top of the waves like a
bird set free. In the first place it was
exactly the same style of craft used
by the disciples of Christ. About 20
feet long and s feet across the waist
rubbish, shaped like canal boat on
small scale, with places for rowers
and leg-of-mutton sail. Two Arabs
manned the oars and boy held the
rudder. We hailed them and they
backed up toward the shore. / per-
suaded old Father Lucas, of the Con-
vent, to go with me--with some diff
Guilty, for he was afraid of sea-sick-
ness. They spread piece of carpet
on the deck in the stern and as / sat
upon it reclining on one elbow, it
suddenly occurred to me that this was
the same place where Christ, in
Peters boat, lay down and slept un-
til the disciples awoke him with the
cry, "Save us Lord, or we perish !"
asked the Priest If it we're not so
not