Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-10-20
The GAZETTE FORT WORTH TEXAS MONDAY OCTOBER 90

tnroO or SUCH atmospheric pulsgtiou,
Music! 1t sounded at the laying of ore
alton 8 cornerstone when the mcruiua
stars sang together. Music. It will be
the last reverberation, when the arch.
angel s trumpet shall wake the dead
Musioi Let its full power be now tested tc
comfort aud bless and arouse and save
While our evening meal is being pre-.
pared In the tents, we walk out for a mo-
ment to the "fountaIn of Efisha,' the
one into which the prophet threw the
salt, because the waters were poisonous
and 8ftter, and loi they became sweet
add healthy; and ever since, with gurgle
aud laughter, they have rushed down
the hill, aud leaped from the rocks, the
only cheerful object in all that region
being these waters.
Now on this plain of Jericho the sun
is setting, making the mountains look
like balustrsdes and battlements of am
Der and maroon and gold; and the moon f,
just above the crests, seems TO he q
window of heaven through which i'm
mortals might be looking down upon the
scene. Three Arabs as watchman sit
beside the campfire at the door of my
tent. their low conversation in a strange
language all night long soothing rather
sAHn Oil
that night never to be forgotten, that
dream amid the complete ruins of Jeri-
chic. Its past grandeur returned, and l
saw the city as 1t YVES when Mark Antony
gave it 10 Cleopatra and Herod bought it
from bar. And heard the hoofs of its
swift steeds, and the rumbling of it's
chariots and the shouts of excited spec
tators In its amphitheatre.
h 10 4
groves of palm and balsam; cold stone
warmed with soulptured foliage; hard
pillars cut into soft lace; niads and
Odysseys in granite; basaIt jet as the
night, mounted by carbuncls fla ming as
the morning; upholstery dyed as though
dipped in the
BLOOD OF BATTLE FIELDS;
robes encrusted with diamond; mosaics
white as seafoam flashed on by auroras;
gayeties which the sun saw by day,
rivaled by revels the moon saw by night;
blasphemy built against the sky: ceilings
stellar Us the midnight heavens; grand
eurs turreted, archivolted and intercol-
umnar; wickedness so appalling that es-
tablshed vocabulary fails, and We must
make an adjective and call it Herodic.
The region round about the city walls
seemed to me white with cotton such as
Thenius describes as once growing there,
and sweet with sugar cane, and luscious
with orange and figs and pomegranates,
and redolent with such flora as can only
grow where a tropical sun kisses the
earth. And the hour came back to ms
when in the midst of all that splendor
Herod died, commanding his sister
Salome Immediately after his death to
secure the assassina ton of all the chief
Jews whom he had brought to the city,
and shut up in circus for that purpose,
and the news came to the audience in the
theater as SOME one took the stage, and
announced to the excited multitude:
''Herod is dead! Herod is dead!'
Then In my dream, all the pomp of
Jericho vanished and gloom was added
to gloom, and desolation to desolation,
and woe to woe, until, perhaps the rip
pling waters Of the Fountain of Elisha
suggesting it-as sounds will sometimes
give direction to dream-I thought that
the waters of Christ's salvation and the
fountains "open for sin and unclean-
ness were rolling through that plain
and rolling across that continent, and
rolling round the earth, until on either
side of their banks all
and all the deserts gardens, and all the
novels mansions, aud all the funerals
bridal professions, and all the blood of
war was turned into dahllas, and all the
groans became anthems, and Dante's
Inferno became DaDte's Divins Com
media, and Paradise Lost was submerged
by Paradise Regained and tears became
crystals, and cruel swords came out of
glistening ploughshares, and,
in my dream, at the blast of trumpet
the Frustrated walls of Jericho rose
again. And some one told me that as
these walls IN Joshua's time, at the
trumpets OF doom went down,
now at the sounding trumpet of the Cos
d Liam appeared at the door of my tent,
and l said: "Who are you and from
whence have you come?' and be said,
II am the Samaritan you heard of at
The tavern on the road from Jerusalem
10 Jericho, as taking care of tho man
no fell among thieves, and have just
come from healing the last wound of the
asst unfortunate in all the earth. - And
rose from my pillow in the tent to greet
him, and my dream broke, and realized
t was only dream, but dream which
hall become glorious reality as surely
Is God is true and Christ's gospel is the
world catholicon. 'Glory be to the |
Father, and to the Son and to the Holy |
Ghost, s it was in he beginning, is
low. ann ever shatsbe, world without
md. Amsnsas