News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1890-11-06


had three offerings, and is as pure as
when the clouds rained it, wonderful
specimens of masonry are THESE thfee
reservoirs The white cement fasten-
ing the blocks of stone together Is now
inst as when the trowels three thousand
wears ago smoothed the layers. The
highest reservoir is $50 feet by ~; the
second. 423 feet by 100, and the lowest
reservoir, $50 feet by 100 and deep
enough and wide enough and mighty
enough to float an ocean steamer.
On that December morning we saw
the waters rolling down from reservoir
to reservoir, and can well understand
how in this neighborhood the imperial
gardens were one great blossom, and
/ the orchard one great basket OF fruit,
and that Solomon in his palace, writing
the song of songs and Ecclesiastes, may
/ have been drawing illustrations from
what he had seen that very morning IN
| the royaI gardens when he alluded to
melons and mandrakes and apricots
and grapes and pomegranates and 1lgs
and spiken and cinnamon and calamus
and campfire and "apple trees among
! the trees of the wood, and the almond
tree as fiourishing, and to myrrh and
frankincense, and represented Christ as
''gone down into his gardens, and the
/ beds of spices to feed in the gardens,
and to gather lilies" and to ''eyes like
| fish pools" and to the voice of the
turtle dove as heard in the land. l
| think it was when Solomon was show
| ing the Queen of Sheba through these
gardens that the Bible says of her:
There remained no more spirit in her. ="
She gave it up.
But all this splendor did not make
| Solomon happy. One day, after get
/ ting back from his morning ride, and
before the horses had yet been cooled
/ off and rubbed down by the royal
| equerry, Solomon wrote the memora-
bic words following my text, like a
/ dirge played after a grand march, ''Be-
! hold all was vanity and vexation of
| spirit, and there was no profit under
/ the sum-" In other words, 1T don't
pay" Would God that we might all
| learn the lesson that this world cannot
produce happiness! AT Marseilles there
! is q castellated house on high ground,
crowned with all that grove and gar
den can do, and the whole place looks
out upon as enchanting a landscape as
the world holds, water and hill clasp
ing hands in perfect bewitchment of
scenery, but the owner of that place is
totally blind and to him all this goes
for nothing, illustrating the truth that
whether one be physically or morally
blind, brilliancy of surrounding cannot
give satisfaction.
But tradition says that when the
wise men of the east" were being
guided by the star on the way to Beth
lehem, they, for a little while lost
sight of that star, and in despair and
exhaustion came to a well to drink,
when looking down into the well they
saw the star reflected in the water, and
that cheered them, and they resumed
their Journey, and | have the notion
that though grandeur and pomp of
surroundings may not afford peace, at
the well of Gods consolation, close by,
you may find happiness, and the
plainest cup at the well of salvation
may hold the brightest star that ever
shone from the heavens.
FOUNTAINS WILL MAKE PALESTINE
BLOOM AGAIN.
Although these Solomonic gardens
are in ruins, there are now growing
there flowers that are to be found no.
where else in the Holy Land. How do
l account for that2 Solomon sent out
his ships and robbed the gardens of the
whole earth for flowers and planted
these exotics here, and these particular
flowers are direct descendants of the
foreign plants he imported. Mr.. Me
shullam, a Christian Israelite, on the
very site of these royal gardens, has in
our day, by putting in his own spade,
demonstrated that the ground is only
waiting for the right call to yield Just
as much luxuriance and splendor eight
cen hundred years after Christ as it
yielded Solomon one thousand years
before Christ. So all Palestine is wait
ticulture, arboriculture and agricult-
ure.
Recent travellers in the Holy Land
speak of the rocky and stony surface
of nearly ali Palestine as an impossible
barrier to the future cultivation of the
soil. But if they had examined mi
nutely the rocks and stones of the
Holy Land they would find that they
are being skeletonized, and are being
melted into the soil and, being for the
most part limestone, they are doing for
that land what the American and En-
glish farmer does when at great ex-
pense and fatigue he draws his wagon
load of lime and scatters it on the
fields for their enrichment
The storms, the winters, the great
midsummer heats of Palestine, by crum-
bling up and dissolving the rocks, are
gradually preparing Palestine and Syria
to yield a product like unto the luxu-
RANT Westchester farms of New York,
and Lancaster county farms of Penn
sylvania, and Somerset county farms
of New Jersey, and the other magnifi-
cent farm fields of Minnesota and Wis
cOnsin, and the opulent orchards of
Maryland and California. Let the
Turk be driven out and the American,
or Englisman, or Scotchman go in and
MOhammedanism withdraw its idolatry,
and pure Christianity build its affairs,
and the irrigation of which SoIomons
pools was only q suggestion will make
all that land from Dan to Beersheba as
fertile and aromatic and Respondent as
on the morning when the king rode out
to his pleasure grounds in chariot so
swift and followed by mounted riders
SO brilliant that it was for speed like a
hurricane followed by cyclone.
WHERE THE ANCIENTs EXCELLED US.
As l look upon this great aqueduct
of Palestine, n wondrous specimen of
ancient masonry, about seven feet
high, two feet wide, sometimes tunnel
ing the solid rock and then rolling
its waters through stoneware pipes an
aqueduct doing its work ten miles be-
fore it gets to those three reservoirs,
and then gathering their wealth of re
freshment and pouring it on to the
mighty city of Jerusalem and filling the
brazen sea of her temple, and the bath
rooms of her 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 conceited age in which
we live had better take in some of the
sails of its pride When il remembers