The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1890-11-13

through StoncWare pipes, an aQueduct
DONG Its work ten miles before it gets
TO those three reservoirs, and then
gathering their wealth of refreshment
anu pouring it on to the mighty city of
Jerusstlem AID filling the brazen sea of
palaces, and the great pools of Sloan
and Hezekiah, and Bethesda, find that
our century has no monopoly of the
worlds wonders, and that the conceit-
ed age In which we live had better take
IN some of the sails Of its pride when
1t remembers that it is hard work in
later ages to get masonry that will last
iltty 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 the art OF printing claim
ca for recent ages was practiced by the
ChlneSe fourteen hundred years ago,
and that our midnight lightning ex-
press rail train was foreseen by the
prophet Nahum, when In the Bible he
wrote, "The chariots shall rage in the
streets, they shall jostle one against an
other in the broad ways, they shall
seem like torches, they shall run like
lightning" and our electric telegraph
was foreseen by Job, when in the Bible
ne wrote, "Canst thou send lightnings
that they may 60 and say unto thee,
Here we are p" What IS that talking
Ivy the lightnings but the ectric tele-
graph? l do not know but that the
more thoroughly harnessed may have
been employed in ages extinct, and that
the lightnjngs all up and down the
sky have been running around like
lost hounds to find their former master.
Embalment was more thorough
art three thousand years ago than TO-
day. Dentistry, that we suppose ono
OF the important arts discovered in
recent centuries, is proven to be four
thousand years old by the filled teeth
OF the mummles In the museums at
caro-, Egypt, and artificial teeth on
gold plates found by BelZoni in the
t0mbS of departed nations. We have
| been taught that Harvey discovered the
| circulation of the blood so late as the
seventeenth century. Oh, no! Solomon
announces it in Ecclesiastes, where first
haYlng shown that he understood the
spinal cord, silver colored as it is. and
that it relaXes in old age-"the silver
cord be loosed,' goes on to compare the
heart to a pitcher at a we'll for the
three canals of the heart do receive the
blood like a pitcher" or the pitcher be
broken at the fountain" What is that
Dut the circulation of the blood, found
out twenty-Six hundred years before
Harvey was born? After many cen
turies of exploration and calculation
astronomy finds out that the world is
round. Why, Isaiah knew it was round
thousands Of years before when in the
Bible he said: "The Lord sitteth upon
the circle Of the earth" Scientists
tolled on for centuries and found out
reiractlon or that the rays of light when
touching the earth were not straight,
but bent or curved. Why, Job knew
that when ages before in the Bible he
wrote OF the light: 'It is turned as
clay to the seal"
BETHLEHEM OFJUDEA.
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
or all the world, not lined with satin,
put StreWn with straw; not sheltered
by 4 palace, but covered by a barn: not
presided over by princess, but hoyered
over by a peasant girl; yet a cradle the
canopy or 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 past and all the
| events of the future have and must
take date AS being B. C. or A. DIE
fore Christ or after Christ. All eterni-
ty past occupied in getting ready for
this cradle, and all eternity to come to
be employed in celebrating its conse-
QuCnCeS.
said to the tourist companies plan.
nning our oriental journey, "Put us in
bethlehem in December, the place and
the month Of our Lords BIRTH" and we
had our wish. l am the only man who
has ever attempted to tell how Bethle-
hem looked at the season Jesus was
born. Tourists and writers are there
IN February, or March, or April, when
tne valleys are an embroidered sheet
OF wild flowers, and anemones and
ranunlng to climb the steps, and lark
and bullinch are flooding the air with
bird orchestra. But | was there in
December, Il winter month. the barren
beach between the two oceans of redol-
ence. was told | must not go there
| at that season, told SO before | started,
told SO in Egypt; the books told me so:
| all travellers that | consulted about it
told me so. But l was determined to
see Bethlehem the sam me month in which
Jesus arrived, and nothing could dis
suade me. Was | not right in wanting
to know how the Holy Land looked
Wnen Jesus came to it? He did not
land amid flowers and song. When
the angels chanted on the famous
Dlrth-night all the fields Of Palestine
were silent. The glowing skies were
answer ed by gray rocks. AS Bethle-
mem STOOD against Il bleak wintry sky I
climbed up to it, as through a bleak
GMgincry SKY Jesus descended upon it.
His way down was from warmth to-
chill, from bloom to barrenness, from
everlasting j June to u sterile December
II l were going to Palestine as a botan.
lst and to study the flora of the land 1
would go in March; but l went as a
minister of Christ to study Jesus and
so went in December. l wanted to
| see how the worlds front door looked
when the heavenly stranger entered it.
The town Of Bethlehem, to my sur
plise, Is in tho shape of u horseshoe,
the houses extending clear into the
prongs Of the horseshoe, the whole
scene more rough and rude than can be
imagined. Verify, Christ did not
choose soft, genial place in which to
be born. The gate through which our
/ Ttf nr to Il II