The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1910-12-25
Over the Nuts and Wine
BY FRANCES coURTEMAY BAYLOR

princes, chiefs, settled family life
and law and order: drank honey,
worked in copper, fought swords and
knives and bows. and, mark the genius
OF the King OF Races when they wor-
SHIPPED, looking UP at the sky. They
have been looking up at 1t ever since,
getting higher and higher approach
TO the zenith. the Trinity. the Christs
Kingdom, as they leave a low-vaulted
past: the faith, worship and works Of
iChristendom.
The East is as truly the cradle of
the, Light, physical spiritual. mental
race, and It's fine flower. the Aryan
4 tribes These have waged wars, have
built magnhcently. have colonized
4 tnarYelously, haze conquered earth and
sea and Gnow) sky. and overcome. yes
enjoyed triumphing over. every opsta-
cie IN the path of progress; unlike
the Chinese, who have been petrifed
In grooves dreaded all originality and
nave nay never known what freedom meant
Yet at heart the Aryan has always
been suprenely interested in relig
ion-he has looked UP and out and in
BY the law of his nature he could
i not dwell on earth. however prosper
/ ously: live, die. like "the beasts that
/ perish IT is royal race, and we
! nave right TO feel proud of its royal
achievements. To this day we have
among US Mohammed's intellectual
Dent and spiritual rejection of mean
IDEALS: Gautama's serene grasp of the
distractions on which all the realities
OF life are founded; Ioroaster's passion
Tor beautiful verities and divine con-
ceptions of God. as not material nor
animal. but flaming, yet benefcent
spirit Hannah More in one of her
letters to Sir w. Pepys, gives an ac-
count of visit made TO her by two
distinguished Persian pundits She
says: When they saw the urn in my
garden TO the memory of Locke they
were all energy. curiosity. spirit They
exclaimed In rapture, What. Locke.
/ the Notwithstanding They went to
church, TO Bible meetings: they read
/ the Scriptures tmpartially with pro-
I found interest. particularly admiring
Job and Isaiah; they visited hospitals.
! houses of correction, charities to see
(, how FAR the principle Of lChristienity
/ mad been carried out; in the most adj
vanced material civilization of Eu-
rope and its highest and most polished
/ society. this most Interested them
Thief Aryan thirst for righteousness
/ and the counsels of perfection showed
mat they were among their kindred.
1 Tor all the distance between England
The Holy Land.
Gcikie has emphasized the contrast
| between the influences which have most
powerfully affected the world. and the
tcentres from which they came. He
says: Greece. the mother of phiioso-
/ ply and art for all time. is not quite
! half the size OF Scotland. Rome, thu
mighty mistress of the then known
estine. the birthplace of our Lord, the
! cradle of revela ton, is about the sizo
OF Wales, From Dan on the north to
Beersheba on the south is distance
of only l39 miles, and the paltry
breadth of twenty miles. from the coas,
| 70 Jordan on the north. increases slow
| ~ 10 only forty miles between the
shore OF the Mediterranean at Gaza
and the Dead Sea on the south Yet
| for ali that. Palestine because of Its
position, seemed what it became the
centre of, the earth, for on the extreme
western limit Of Asia it looked east
ward towards the mighty empires and
great religions of vast continent, and
| westward, over the, Mediterranean to
/ Europe. 1t was the connecting link
between Europe and Africa. and knew
the Egyptian civilization and had the
| uHnumbered ages of the East behind
1t. Yet it's position is no less strik-
| ing towards other lands than its iso-
lation. Separated from Asia by the
| broad, impossible desert, 1t was saved
from becoming a purely Eastern coun-
try, either IN religion or in the politi-
cal decay and retrogression which have
sooner or later marked all Eastern
states. Shut in by strip of desert
| from Egypt, 1t was kept In great part
from the gross immortality and grosser
| ido,atry of that land, and Its western
| coasts were washed by the great sea,
/ which for ages was as much mys-
! our ancestors before the era of CO.
! lumbus. There could have been M
land so perfectly adapted CAS- sep
arate nation for the holy purpose of
God. from among all the earth was
| necessary to become the depositary
/ (the power house) of divine truth, and
| TO send out the future missionaries of
the world. Nor did its especial fitness
! as a centre of heavenly light amongst
men pass away till the whole scheme
of revelation had been completed, and
| the Mediterranean had become the
| highway of the nations and facilitated
! and nations of the populous West, by
/ the easy path of its wide waters Our
| blessed Lord called Himself 1.-The Door,
the Way and i was not until after
! His birth that the message and the
| messengers issued. from the seclusion
| of ages and poured ont the glory SUI
preme Of God through the whole world.
| Nor has 1t yet reached all it's ends and
| showed to all flesh the incarnation of
| the Saviour of Observation-Disclosures
| God with u.s. fully.
The Jew had for long ages been
trained in religious knowledge and
admission Of the Eight that lighteth
| every man." he was eminently fitted
| for the task, or rather privilege, of
| doing SO, for his land and people from
the earliest ages had been thrown in
contact with an immense number of
| other peoples and empires Into it had
\ flowed wave after wave of the ma
| tons, who coveted the rich valleys
| OF the Nile, Just as in modern tines
the Assyrian, Persian, Chadean, Greek,
Roman and Turk have done were
drought into contact with the Jew, and
| the Jew with them, a most important
| and significant fact, for when the
advent OF the Saviour of the world came
He was surrounded by representatives
of a large proportion Of the tribes and
nations of the earth, not by Jews
only-the holy Inscription on His cross
Twas in Greek. Latin and Hebrew,
| showing his relation to all hui
: mainly. The civilization, the litera-
1 ture, the sacred writings of the Jews,
/ We're perfectly familiar to widely
scattered nations, THE Old Testa-
/ ment," as ST. Chrysostom said, ''strucls
/ its religious roots in Palestine; 1t bios
somed in the New, the world over"
and unlike the sacred books of other
nations which suited them only. carr