The Monmouth inquirer., 1890-12-04

In FaleBtlne, Wnetner ne Walks Lne Deacn
of this lake or sails as We now do these
waters Side by side are the two great
characters of this lake region, Jesus and
Herod Antipas. And did any age pro-
duce any such antipodes, any such anti
theses, any such oppositesl Kindness
and cruelty, holiness and filth, generosity
and meanness, self-sacrifice and selfish
ness, the supernal and the internal, mid
noon and midnight. The father Of this
Herod Antipas was genius ut assassin
alton. He could manufacture more
reasons for putting people out Of this life
than any man In all history. He sends
for Hyrcanus to come from Babylon to
Jerusalem to be made high priest, and
slays him. He has his brother-in-law
while in bathing with him drowned by
the king attendants. He Stays his wife
and his wife's mother and two OF his sons
and his uncle, and filled volume Of
atrocities, the last chapter Of which was
the massacre of all the babies at Bethle-
hem. With such father as Herod the
Great you are not surprised that this
Herod Antipas, whose palace stood on
the banks of this lake we now sail, was
combination of wolf, reptile and hyena |;
while the Christ who walked yonder banks
and sailed these waters was SO
good that almost every rood Of
this scenery is associated with some
wise word or some kindly deed, and all
literature and all art and all earth and all
heaven are put to the utmost effort in
trying to express how grand and glorious
End lovely he was and is and Is to be.
The Christly and Herodic characters as
different as the two lakes we visit, and
not far apart Galilee and the Dead sea
the one flower banked and the other
bituminous and blasted the one lowered
over by the mercy of Christ, the other
blasted by the wrath of God the one
full of finny tribes sporting in the clear
depths, the other forever lifeless; the
waters Of the one sweet and pleasant to
the taste, the other bitter and sharp and
disgusting. Awful Dead sea! Glorious
GenneSaret +.
We will not attempt to cross to the
eastern side of the lake, as had thought
to do, for these regions are inhabited by
thieving and murderous race, and one
must go thoroughly armed, and as /
never shot any one and havo no ambition
to be shot, / said Let us stay by the
western shore" But we look over to
the hills OF Gadara, ON the other side,
down which two thousand swine after
being possessed by the devil ran into the
lake, ard bringing down on Christ for
permitting it the wrath of all the
stock raisers of that country because
of this running of the pork business.
You see that Satan is spirit of bad
taste. Why did he not say: Let me go
into those birds, whole fiocks of which
fly over Galilee?" No; that would have
been too high. "Why not let me go In
to the sheep which wander over these
hills?" No; that would have been too
gentle. Rather let me go into these
swine. l want to be with the denizens
OF the mire. want to be with the in
habitants of the filth Great Is mud!
prefer bristles to wings. would rather
root than fly. / like snout better than
wing"
Infidelity SCOTS at the idea that those
swine should have run into the lake. But
it was quite natural that under the heat
and burning of that demoniac possession
they would start for the water to get
cooled off. Would that all the swine thus
possessed had plunged to the same
drowning, for this day the descendants
OF some of those porcine creatures retain
the demons, and as the devils were cast
out Of man into them they now afdict
the human race with the devils OF
scrofula, that confes from eating the
unclean meat The healthiest poo
pie on earth are the Israelites, because
they follow the bill OF fare which God In
the book of Leviticus gave to the human
race, and our splendid French DR.. Pas
teur and our glorious German DR.. Koch
may go on with their good work Of kill
ing parasites In the human system; but
until the world corrects Its diet, and goes
back to the divine regulation at the be-
ginning. the human race will cAntinue to
be possessed OF the devils Of microbe
and parasite.
did not mean to cross over to tho
eastern side of Lake Galilee even In die
cussion. Pull away, ye Arab oarsmenl
And we come along the shore near by
which stand great precIpices Of brown
and red and gray limestone crowned by
basalt, in the sides of which are vast
caverns, sometimes the hiding place oi
bandits, and sometimes the home Of hon.
est shepherds, and sometimes the dwell
Ing place OF pigeons and vultures and
eagles. During one Of Herod's wars his
enemies hid In these mountain caverns
and the sides were too steep for Herod'a
army to descend, and the attempt to climb
In the face of armed men would have
called down determination. So Herod had
great cages of wood, iron bound, made
and filled them with soldiers and let
them down from the top of the preci.
pices until they gave signal that they
were level with the caverns, and ther
from these cages they stepped out to the
mouth OF the caverns, and having sci
enough Of grass and wood on fire to All
the caverns with smoke and strangula-
ton, the hidden people would como forth
to die; and if not coming voluntarily
Herod's men would pull them out with
long iron hooks, and Josephus says thai
one father, rather than submit to the at.
faokfney army Hun0 hia wife and aaveu