The Brookhaven leader., 1890-11-13

shone from the heavens.
Although these Solomonic gardens are
In ruins, there are now growing there
flowers that are to DO found nowhere
else in the Holy Land. How do l ac-
count for that? Solomon sent out his
ships and robbed the gardens of the
| whole earth for flowers and planted
those exotics here. and these particular
flowers are direct descendants Of the
foreign plants he supported. Mr.. Me-
shullum, a Christian Israelite, on the
very site of these royal gardens, has in
| our day, by putting in his spade, dem
onstrated that the ground is only wait
ing for the right call to yield as much
luxuriance and splendor eighteen hun
dred years after Christ, as it yielded
Solomon one thousand years before
Christ. SO all Palestine is waiting to
become the richest scene Of horticult-
ure, arboriculture and agriculture.
AS / look upon this great aqueduct Of
Palestine, wondrous specimen Of
ancient masonry, about seven feet high,
two feet wide, sometimes tunneling the
solid rock and then rolling it's waters
through stoneware pipes, an aqueduct
| doing its work ten miles before it gets
to those three reservoirs, and then gath
ering their wealth of refreshment and
pouring 1t on to the mighty city OF Je-
rusalem and filling the brazen sea
Of her temple, and the bath
rooms Of her palaces, and the
great pools Of Sloan, and Heze-
Gioh 10 I I'D hot
ury has no monopoly Of the worlds
wonders, and that the conceited age in
| which we live had better take in some
Of the sails Of its pride when it remem-
bers that it is hard work in later ages
to get masonry that will last fifty years,
to say nothing of the three thousand,
and no modern machinery could lift
blocks of stone like some of those
standing high up in the walls of
Baalbec, and that the art OF printing
claimed for recent ages was practiced by
the Chinese fourteen hundred years ago,
and that our midnight lightning OK
press rail train was foreseen by the
Prophet Nahum, when in the Bible he
wrote. "The chariots shall rage in the
streets, they shall josHe one against
another in the brcadways, they shall
seem like torches, they shall run like
lightnings," and our electric telegraph
was forseen by Job, when in the Bible
he wrote: "Canst thou send lightnings
that they may go and say unto thee:
''Here we are?"
What is that talking by the light
nings, but the electric telegraph! do
not know but that the electric forces
now being year by year more thorough
ly harnessed may have been employed
in ages extinct, and that the lightnings
all up and down the sky have beenrun-
ming around like lost hounds to find
their former master.
We are on this December afternoon
on the way to the cradle of Him who
called Himself greater than Solomon.
We are coming upon the chief cradle of
all the world, not lined with satin, but
strewn with straw, Enot sheltered by
palace, but covered by a barn, not
presided over by Princess, but hovered
over by peasant girl; yet cradle the
canopy of which is angelic wings, and
the lullaby Of which is the first Christ
mas carol ever sung, and from which all
the events of the future have and muss
take date as being b. c. or A. D.-be.
fore Christ or after Christ All eternity
past occupied in getting ready for this
cradle, and all eternity to come to be
employed in celebrating its conse-
quences.
/ said to the tourist companies plan
ming our Oriental journey: PUT US in
Bethlehem in December, the place and
the month of our Lords BIRTH" and we
had our wish. / am the only man who
has ever attempted to tell how Beth
lehem looked at the season Jesus was
born. Tourists and writer's are there in
February, or March, or April, when the
valleys are an embroidered sheet OF wild
flowers, and anemones, and ranunculus
are flushed as though from attempting
to climb the sleeps, and lark and bull
finch are flooding the air with bird Or
chestra. But was there in December
a winter month, the barren beach be-
tween the two oceans of redolence. l
was told | must not 60 there at that
season, told so before / started, told so
in Egypt; the books told me so; all trav-
elers that consulted about it told me
So But l was determined to see
Rotblehem the same month in which
Jesus arrived, and nothing could dis
suade me. Was not right in wanting
to know how the Holy Land looked
when Jesus came to it? He did not land
amid flowers and song. When the an
pels chanted on tho famous birthnight,
all the fields of Palestine were silent
The glowing skies were answered by
gray rocks. AS Bethlehem stood against
a bleak wintry sky, l climbed up to
it. as through bleak, wintry sky Je-
sus descended upon it. His way down
was from warmth to chill. from bloom
IN barrenness, from everlasting June to
a sterile December. If were going to
Palestine as a botanist, and to study the
fora of the land, would go in March,
but / went as a minister OF Christ to
studv Jesus. and so went in December.
7 wanted to see how the worlds front
door looked when tho heavenly stranger
entered it.
The town of Bethlehem, to my sur
nr;se. is in the shape of horseshoe,
the houses extending clear on to the
nronps of the horseshoe. The whole
scene more rough and rude than can
be imagined. Verify, Christ did not
choose a soft, genial place in which TO
he born. The gate through which our
lord entered this world was q
cota of rock, hard, cold gate.