Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1890-10-24

the dead Music! Let us Iull power 10
now tested 70 comfort and bless aud arouse
and save.
While our evening meal is being prepared
in the tents we walk out for a moment 70
the fountain of Elisha, the one into which
the prophet threw the salt because the
waters were poisonous and bitter and lol
thew became sweet and healthy; and ever
since with gurgle and laughter, they have
rushed down the hill and leaped from the
rocks. the only cheerful object in ell that
region being these waters.
Now on this plain of Jericho the sun Is set
ting, making the mountains look like balus-
trades and battiements OF amber and maroon
and gold; and the moon, just above the crests,
seems to be n window of heaven through
which immortals might be looking down up
on the scene. Three Arabs as watchmen sit
beside the camp fire at the door OF
my tent. their low conversation in
a strange language all night long.
soothing rather than an interruption.
| had dream that night never to be for
gotten, that dream amid the complete ruins
Of Jericho. Its past grandeur returned. and
l saw the city as it was when Mark antony
gave it to Cleopatra and Herod bought u
from her. And l heard the hoofs of its swift
steeds and the rumbling Of its chariots and
the shouts of excited spectators in its amphi-
theatre.
And there was white marble amid green
groves of palm and balsam; cold stone
warmed with sculptured foliage; hard pillars
cut into soft lace; Iliads aud Odysseys IN
granite; basalt let as the night mounted 10y
carbuncle flaming as the morning. upholstery
dyed as though dipped in the blood OF battle
fields: robes encruste1 with diamond: mo-
sales white as sea foam flashed on by auroras;
gayeties which the sun saw by day rivaled by
revels the moon saw by night blashphemy
built against the sky; ceilings stellar as the
midnight heavens; grandeurs turreted,
archivolted and intercolumnar; wicke1ness
so appalling that tablished 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 redo
lent with such fora as can only grow where
a tropical sun kisses the earth. And the hour
came back to me when in the midst of all
that splendor Herod died, commanding his
sister Salome Immediately after his death to
secure the assassination 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 theatre as some
one took the stage and announced TO the ex-
cited multitude: "Herod is dead Herod is
deadm
Then in my dream all the pomp OF
Jericho vanished, and gloom was added to
gloom. and desolation 10 desolation. and woe
TO woe, until, perhaps the ripping waters
of the fountain OF Elisha suggesting it-as
sounds will sometimes give direction to a
dream-I thought that the waters Of Christs
salvation and the fountains open for sin
and uncleanness" were rolling through that
plain and across the continent, and rolling
round the earth, until on either side Of their
banks all the thorns became flowers, and
all the deserts gardens AMI all the
novels mansions. and all the tu-
neras bridal process ons, and all the blood Of
war was turned into dahlias and all the
grOans became anthems, and Dante's I'm
fernon bee me Dante's "Divina COmmedia,'
and Paradise Lost" was submerged by
Paradise Regained.' and tears became
CRYSTALS, cruel swords came out OF foundries
glistening ploTshares, and in my dream at
the blast Of a trumpet the Frustrated walls
Of Jericho rose again.
And some one told me that as these walls
in JOshua's time at the sounding trumpets
Of doom went down. now at the sounding
trumpet of the gospel they come up
again. And thought a man appeared at
the door of my tent, and | said, who are
YOU and from whence have you Gomez
and he said, II am the Samaritan you heard
of at the tavern on the road from Jerusalem
to Jericho, as taking care Of the man
who fell among thieves, and / have
Just come from healing the last wound Of the
last unfortunate in all the EARTH And
rose from my pillow in the tent to greet him,
and my dream broke and I realized it was
only dream, but dream which shall be-
come a glorious reality as surely as God Is
true and Christ's gospel is the worlds Ca
tholcon GLORY be to the Father, and to
the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as It was at
the beginning, is now and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen"