Sharp County record., 1890-12-04
AMONG THE BED0UINS.
Rev. T. Dewitt Talmage Among
the Children of tho Desert.
Tent Life In Northern Palestine and the
Historic Incidents 1t Recalled-A
Land Where Customs Dc
Not Change.

! by Rev. Il. DeWltt lalmage IN Drooh-
lyn and New York City. Tho text was:
Forasmueh as thou knowest how We are
to encamp in the wilderness, Numbers, X,
81.
Night after night we have slept in
tent in Palestine. There are large vii
lages of Bedouins without house, and
for three thousand years the people of
those places have lived in black tents,
made out of dyed skins, and when the
winds and storms wore out and tore
loose these coverings, others of the
same kind took their places. Noah
lived in tent; Abraham in tent
Jacob pitched his tent on mountain.
Isaac pitched his tent in the valley.
Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. In
O tent the woman Jael nailed Sisera,
the General, to the ground, first
having given him sour milk called
'1eben" as soporifc TO make him
soundly sleep, that being the effect OF
such nutrition, as modern travellers can
testify. Tho Syrian army in q tent.
The ancient battle-shout was: "To
your tents 0 Israeli" Paul was a tent
maker. Indeed, Isaiah, magnifcently
poetic, indicates that all the human
race live under blue tent when he
says that God 'stretcheth out the
heavens as q curtain and spreadeth
them out as tent to dwell in," and
Hezekiah compares death to jhe strik-
ing of a tent, saying: "My age is re-
moved from me as q shepherds tent"
! am glad to say that for the most
part Palestine is clear of beasts Of prey.
The leopards, which jeremiah says can
not change their spots, have all disap-
pearod, and the lions that once were
common all through this land and used
by all the prophets for illustrations of
cruelty and wrath, have retreated be-
fore the discharges OF gunpowder OF
which they have an indescribable fear.
But for the most part Palestine is what
it originally was. With the one excep-
ton of a wire thread reaching from
Joppa to Jerusalem and from Jerusalem
to Nazareth and from Nazareth to
Tiberias and from Tiborias to Damas-
Gus, that one nerve of civilization tho
telegraphic wire (for we found ourselves
only a few minutes off from Brooklyn
and New York while standing by Lake
Gallee), with that one exception, Pales-
tine is Just as it always was.
Nothing surprised me 81 much as the
persistence of every thing. A sheep or
horse falls dead and, though the sky
may one minute before be flear of all
wings, in five minutes aft4 the skies
are black with aagles cawihg, scream
ing, plunging, fighting fore room, Con
tending fbr largest morsels, of the ex-
tinct quadruped' All, now understand
the force Of Christ's illustration when
He said: "Wheresoever ths carcass is
there will tho eaglos, 90 gathered to-
gether." Tho longevity Of those eagles
Is ,wciterlu]. They live fifty or sixty,
and sometimes hundred years.
All, that explains what David
meant when he says: "Thy youth is
renewed like the eagles" l saw q
shepherd with the folds Of his coat far
bent outward and wondered what was
contained in that amplitude of apparel,
and | said to the dragoman: "What has
the shepherd got under his coatP" And
the dragoman said; at is very young
lamb he is carrying; 1t is too young and
too weak and too cold to keep up with
the flock" At that moment saw the
lamb put its head out from tho shop
herds bosom, and said; "Thero it is
now Isaiah's description of the Gender
ness of God-Ilo shall gather tho lambs
with His arm and carry them in His
bosom"
Passing by village home n the
Holy Land about noon, i saw great
crowd in and around private house,
and l said to tho dragoman: David,
what is going on there?" He said:
"Somebody has recently died there,
and their neighbors go in for sever al
days after to sit down and weep with
tho bereayed.' There it is, said,, the
old scriptural custom: "And many OF
the Jews came to Martha and Mary to
comfort them concerning their brother u
EARLY in tho morning, passing by a
cemetery in tho Holy Land, l saw
among tho graves about fifty women
dressed in black, and they were crying:
"Oh, my clildw "0h, my husbandr'
"Oh, my fatherw "Oh, my motherv'
Our dragomon told rs that every morn.
ing very early for tbreo mornings after
u burial tho women 90 TO tho sopulcher,
and after that ovory week very early
for year AS ! saw this group Just
after daybrcak, said There IL Is
again, the same old custom referred to
in Luke, tho evangelist, whore ho says:
"Cortain women which wore carly at
tho sepulchor,'
But hero we found ourselves at ia.
cob's we'll, the most famous woll in his.
tory, most distinguished for two things,
because 1t belonged to tho old patri-
arch after whom It was named, and for
tho wonderful things which Christ said,
seated on this woll curb, to tho Sama-
ritan woman We dismount from our
horses In adrizsling rain, and our drago.
man climbing up to tho we'll over tho
eliprory stones stumblos and frightens
us all by nearly falling into It. lmoas.
/ il... ,.t.l .i hn ,.,1