The intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1887-1891, 1890-11-15

generally he walked. How much h q
q only those know who have gone
over the distance traversed by Christ
We are accustomed to read that Beth
any is two miles from Jerusalem. Well.
any ma a ordinary health Dan walk
tH> M<ies &lfi>rnk fatigue
than me man ont OF q
! <65o1 akausflon. it is
oYsf fhe n 1T 0iives and you must
eli4tuD s1hf the rolling stones and
descend 8nbre excrtlon is necessary to
keep you from falling PROSTATE.
Likewise IL seemed q small thing that
Christ walked from Jerusalem to Naza-
reth. But 1t will take four days OF hard
horseback riding, sometimes on a trot
and sometimes on a gallop. to do 1t this
week. The way is mountainous in the
extreme. So all up and down and acros
and recrossing Palestine, Jesus walked.
Ahab rode. David rode. Solomon rode.
Herod rode. Antony rode. But Jesus
walked. With swollen ankles, and sore
muscles OF tho legs, and bruised heel,
and stiff joints, and painting lungs, and
faint head, along the roads and where
there were no roads at all, Jesus walked.
We rode down through the valley and
then up on Mount Scopus and, as our
dragoman tells us that this is the last
opportunity we shall have of looking at
Jerusalem, we urn our horses head to-
ward the city and take a long. sad and
thrilling look at the religious capital OF
plane [. This is the most impress
sive view of the most tremendous city
OF all time.
Our last lookl Farewell, Mount Zion,
Mount Moriah, Mount of Olives, Mount
Cavalry! Will we never see them again?
Never. Our last look, like our first look,
an agitation of the body, mind and soul,
indescribable.
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, q husband
and wife, proposing to lodge in the
street because no shelter is offered
them and invites thom to come and
spend the night in his home. During
the night the ~rufians of the Dor
hood conspired together and surround
ed the house and left the woman
dead on the doorstep, and the hus-
band, to rally in revenge the twelve
tribes, cut the corpse of the woman into
twelve parts and sent a twelfth of it to
each tribe, and the fury of the nation
was reused, and a peremptory demand
was made for the surrender of the as
sassins and tho demand refused, in one
day 20, 900 people were left dead on the
field, and the nex day 1s, 900. Where
ever our horse to-day plants his feet, in
those ancient times q corpse lay, and
the roads were crossed by red rivulets
Of carnage.
Now we pass OF to where soveny youths
were put to death and their bodies glib
beted or hung in chains, not for any
thing they had themselves done, but as
. reparation for what their father and
grandfather, Saul, had done. Burial
was denied these youths from May until
November. Rizpah, the mother of two
Of these dead boys, appoints herself as
sentinel to guard the seven corpses from
0Oah Va Ehh0ls hAd bOObu VI WILL hlu
paw OF lion. She pitches a black tent
on the rock close by the gibbets.
Rizpah by day sits on the ground in
front of her tent, and when a v~ulture
begins to lower out of the MONDAY sky
seeking its prey among the gibbets,
Rizpah rises, her long hair flying in the
wind, and, swinging her arms widely
about Shoes away the bird OF prey I'M
til 1t retreats to its eyrie. At night she
rests under the shadow of her tent, and
sometimes falls into a drowsiness or
half sleep But the step of a jackaI
among the dry leaves or the painting of
o hyena her, and with the fury
Of q maniac she rushes out upon the
rock, crying: "Awayi Awayr' and then
examining the gibbets to see that they
still keep their burdens, returns again
to her emit till some swooping wing
from the midnight sky or some growl-
ing monster on the rock again wakes
her.
A mother watching her dead children
through May, June, July, August, Sep.
tsmber and October! What IL vigil
Painters have tried TO put upon canvas
the scene and they succeeded in sketch
ing the hawks in the sky and the
panthers crawling out from the Jungle,
but they fail to give the wanness, the
earnestness, the supernatural courage,
the infinite s~elf-sacrifce of Rizpah, the
A mother in the quiet home,
watch ng by tho casket of a dead child
for one night exerts the artist to his ut
most, but who is sufficient to put upon
q mother for six months of mid
guarding her whole family, dead
and gibbeted upon the mountains?
Do you know what that scene by our
roadside in Palestine makes me think
OF? 10 is no unusual cena. Right here
in these three cities by the American
sea coast there are a thousand cases
this moment worse than that. Mothers
watching boys that the rum saloon,
that annex of hell. has gibbetted in a
living death. Boys hung in chains of
habit they can not break. The
father may go to sleep after waiting
until twelve o'clock at night for
the ruined boy to come home and
1t up may say: Mother,
come to bed; there's no use sit
ting up any longer" But mother
will not go to bed. 1t is one o'clock in
the morning. 1t is half-past ono. 1t is
two o'clock. 1t is half-past two when he
comes staggering through the hall. Do
you say hat young mar is yet aliveP
No; ne is dead Dead to his fathers
e%ntreaties. Dead to his mothers pray
ers Dead to the family altar where he
was reared. Dad to all the noble am
billions that once inspired him. Twice
dead. Only a corpse of what he once
was. Gibbetted before God and man and
angels and devils. Chained in a death
that will not loosen its cold grasp. His
father is asleep his brothers are asleep,