The Brookhaven leader., 1890-11-20
A NIGHT AT BETHEL.
DR.. Talmage's Seventh Discourse of
the Holy Land Series.
A Last Look at Jerusalem and Exit
Therefrom Through the Damascus
Gate-A Night at Bethel and
the Story it Recalls.

tho north.-Ezekiel will, s.:
At one o'clock on a December after
noon, through Damascus gate, we are
passing out OF Jerusalem for journey
homeward. Hol for Bethel with its
stairs, the bottom step of which was a
stone pillow, and Jacobs we'll with its
immortal collaquy, and Nazareth with
its Divine boy in his fathers carpenter
shop, and the most glorious lake that
ever rippled or flashed:
Blue Galilee, sweet Galilee.
The lake whercJesus loved to be;
and Damascus with its crooked street
called Straight, and hundred places
charged and surcharged with apostolic,
evangelistic, prophetic, patriarchal,
kingly and Christly "reminiscences.
In travelling along the roads of Pales-
tine, / am impressed as 1 could not
otherwise have been, with the fact that
Christ for the most part went afoot
We find Him occasionally on boat,
and once riding in triumphal process
sion, as it is sometimes called, although
| it seems to me that the hosannas Of the
crowd could not have made a ride on a
/ stubborn unimpressive and funny Great
| ure like that which pattered with Him
| into Jerusalem, very much of triumph.
| But we are made to understand that gen.
orally He walked. How much that
means only those know who have gone
over the distance traversed by Christ. We
are accustomed to read that Bethany is
| two miles from Jerusalem, Well,
any man in ordinary health can walk
| two miles without fatigue. But not
more than one man out of a thousand
can walk from Bethany to Jerusalem
| without exhaustion. it is over the
Mount of Olives, and you must climb up
among the rolling stones and descend
where exertion is necessary to keep
| you from falling PROSTATE. i, who am
accustomed to walk fifteen or twenty
miles without lassitude, tried part of
| this road over the Mount of Olives, and
confess would not want to try it often,
such demand does it make upon ones
physical energies Yet Christ walked
| it twice a day-in the morning from
Bethany to Jerusalem, and in the even
| ing from Jerusalem to Bethany.
Likewise it seemed a small thing
that Christ walked from Jerusalem to
| Nazareth. But it will take US four days
of hard horseback riding, sometimes on
3 trot and sometime on gallop, to
| Gus in the extreme. To those who went
up to the Tip-Top House on Mount
| Washington, before the railroad was
laid, will say that this journey from
| Jerusalem to Nazareth is like seven
such American journeys. So, up and
down and across and recrossing Pal
estine, Jesus walked. Ahab rode,
David rode, Solomon rode, Herod rode,
Antony rode. But Jesus walked. With
swollen ankles, and sore muscles of the
legs, and bruised heel, ard stiff joints,
and painting lungs, and faint head,
| along the roads, and where there were
no roads at all, Jesus walked.
We tried to get a new horse other
| than that on which we had ridden on
the Journey to the Dead Sea, for he had
| faults which our close acquaintanceship
had developed. But after some expert
menting with other quadrupeds of that
species, and finding all horses, like
their riders have faults, we concluded
to choose a saddle on that beast whose
faults we were most prepared to pity or
resist. We rode down through the val
| ley and then up on Mount Scopus and,
as our dragoman tells us that this is the
| last opportunity we shall have of look
| ing at Jerusalem, we turn our horses
head towards the city and take long,
sad and thrilling look at the religious
capital of our planet This is the
most impressive view Of the most
tremendous city of all time. On
Ind around this hill the armies
of the Crusaders at the first sight of the
city threw themselves on their faces in
worship. Here most of the besieged
armies encamped the night before open
ing their volleys of death against Jeru-
salem. Our last look! Farewell,
Mount Zion, Mount Moriah, Mount of
Olives, Mount Calvary! Will We never
see them again? Never. The world is
SO large and time is so short, and there
are so many things we have never seen
1T all, that we can not afford to dupli-
cate visits or see any thing more than
once. Farewell. yonder thrones of gray
rock, and the three thousand years of
architecture and battle-fields Fare
we'll, sacred, saguinary. triumphant
humiliated Jerusalem! Across this val
ley of the Kedron with my right hand
throw thee kiss Of valedictory. Our
last look. like our first look, an agita-
tion of body, mind and soul, indescrib-
| able.
And now, like Ezekiel in my text
lift up mine eyes the way toward the
north. Near here was one of the worst
tragedies of the ages mentioned in the
Bible. A hospitable old man coming
home at eventide from his work in the
fields finds two strangers. a husband
and wife, proposing to lodge in the
street because no shelter is offered
| them, and invites them to come in and
spend the night in his home. During
| the night the rufians of the neigh bor-
hood conspired together and surrounded
the house, and left the woman dead on
the doorstep and the husband, to
rally in revenge the twelve tribes, cut
the corpse of the woman into twelve
parts, and sent twelfth of 1t to each
| tribe, and the fury Of the nation was
reused, and q peremptory demand was
made for the surrender Of the assassins
and the demand refused. In one day
twenty thousand people were left dead
on the field, and the pext day eighteer
thousand. Wherever our horse to-day
plants his foot in those ancient times {
corpse lay, and the roads were crossed