The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1903-07-15
From Abroad.
LETTER NO. XXI.
JERICHO, March II, 1903

JERICHO AND JORDAN NO. 3.

JERICHO, March IL, 1913.
Dear Judge: Where l crossed in
boat the Jordan is about $50 feet
wide and fifteen feet deep. 1t is
an exhilerating retreat from the
dust and heat of sunburnt plain,
for weary pilgrim seeking rest
and cool, refreshing shade on the
swift and eddying waters. Its
evergreen belt of jungle, and trees
whose overhanging branches are
washed by the hurrying stream, the
sudden bends in its serpentine
course, the swish OF its swirling
eddies smashing against the tor
tuous banks, the incessant play of
color through the variegated
walls of verdure and upon the
brown and turbid waters, are some
of the features that lend romantic
charm to stay upon its restless
bosom. The sycamore-fig whose
horizonal limbs attracted little
Zaccheus, the freed shaken with
the wind Matt. 1l:O, growing
twelve feet tall in dense, extensive
brakes amongst poplars, willows,
tamarisks, acacias and gorgeous
oleanders, and multitudes of bril-
liant flowers, are some varieties of
vegetation that adorn this strange
landscape that lies a thousand feet
below the ocean level. In this deep
trench of 65 miles from Galilee to
the Dead Sea, the busy Jordan
winds it's way 100 miles and pours
its fresh, cool waters into that
crystal sea of salt.
This is the famed baptismal
river. In this eccentric stream,
the like of which no other land has
ever known, Naaman, the Syrian
warrior washed away his deadly
leprosy. Elisha said to him: GO
battle seven times in Jordan"
When his fit of indignant rage sub
sided, he meekly "went down and
dipped himself seven times in Jor-
dan, according to the saying of the
man of God; and his flesh came
again like unto the flesh of little
child - Kings 8: IA.
Hither the great forerunner,
John the Baptist, summoned "Jeru-
salem and all Judea, and all the
region round Jordan, and they were
baptized by him in the river Jor-
dan, confessing their sins"-Matt.
3: So. But the deathless fame of
this river rests upon the fact that
Jesus himself was here baptized
and, under the opened heavens and
descending Spirit, was declared to
be the Son of God.
"And Jesus, when he was bap-
tiled, went up straightway from
the water: and 10, the heavens
were opened unto him, and he saw
the Spirit of God descending as a
dove, :and coming upon him; and
10, voice out of the heavens, say
ing, This is my beloved Son, in
whom l am well pleased. Matt.
B. II. From that day Jordan has
been as sacred to the Christian as a
mothers grave, and myriads year
lv seek hantism in its ccaSccratod
waters.
The setting sun has spread over
me the sbadowy mantel of Quaran-
tania. / turn to look again upon
the desolation of those demoniac
peaks and rifted rocks, where the
battle Of Satan with our gentle,
loving Christ ragged for forty days
and nights. Facing again the
east, fantasy recalls to those noun
tain monuments OF Moses the van
ished form of one, who, in a far off
age, fought and lost on the heights
over against Jericho. The real
field of strife was the soul of a
gigantic man where greed and con-
science struggled for mastery-and
greed won. This piteous and ma
jestic man was the most noted and
eloquent preacher of his century.
All the churches wanted him, ex-