The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-12-11

so,ne of W hich are of stone. It has, | inner walls and a citadel and was thanked with strong towers. The heart
 of the city was about 1200 feet long and 525 feet wide.
 | The Houses of old Jericho | Many of the houses have been un-
 earth ed have walked through streets | which were In use when Moses and | the Israelites were wandering in the | wilderness. and have tramped up and down staircases of clay which were built hundreds of years before Christ.
 In one building, which is supposed to have been made 2700 years ago, there
 was found an uncovered courtyard. | The house seems to have been aban
 doned during 8 fire and for some req | son or other 1t was left in better condition than most of the others. It contained red sandstone mill for meal grinding and water vessels of various i shapes. It had plates and jugs and also lamps and iron vessels with han dies of deer horn.
 | In Eoing through the ruins I tramped over bushels of pottery broken in pieces.
 saw water jars clipped and cracked. | They had clay corks as big as tomato,
 with a hole through the center There
 are hundreds of these corks lying on the ground. There are also stone mortars
 which were used for grain grinding, and | tae remains of amphorage, or huge jars
 with necks and side handles. which were buried in the earth and kept to hold wine | Or grain. The most of tho pottery is covered with white glaze. and some of l it has vertical stripes of yellow painted upon 1t.
 As to the buildings, the stone walls are | built without angles, the cracks being | filed in with smaller stones. The work | vas done with tools of bronze, and that some of it dates back beyond history.
 The heart of the city is on an egg | shaped. plateau just above the plain of the Jordan. So far about sSo00 has been | expended on the work.
 A Magnificent City
 | It Is difficult in wandering through these f-uins of mud, brick and rough stone to realize that Jericho was a magnificent | city. The one of Joshua was not so in our sense of the word, although it covered | | large area and was thickly populated. There are no remnants of great marble columns, and it is said that that Jericho had disappeared long before Christ can,e | and that another had taken it's place sit ugted in this same Jordan valley. The | Jericho of Christ had theatre. a circus | and university. It ranked with Jerusa- l lem as one of the important places in Pal | estine. It was surrounded by trrigate1 gardens, and was known as the city O. raIrns. It had grown up In Roman times, and Mark Antony thought so much of 1t that he gave it as a present to Cleopatra who collected quite a revenue from the balsam groves near there which furnished lie gum of commerce. Gotten was raised fere at that time, and this region was
 then a. winter resort for Jerusalem. Herod | the Great had palaces in Jericho, and it is said that he died here, although he was buried somewhere near Hebr' n.
 "a Int o11 Sa xror f,1f s'ho, and here He healed the blind He did not stay in the city, but dwelt out
 side in the house of Zaccheus. who was collector of taxes for the Roman gov e, nment, and therefore not popular with the Jews. refer to Zaccheus the dwarf He was so short he feared he would not be able to see the Christ, over the heads of the crowd, and, as you remember from the verse in the old primer;
 "zaccheus he -N Did climb tree,
 His Lord to see" a
 City of Joshua and Rahab These old ruins represent not the city of Christ's time, but the one of Joshua and Rahab. You remember Rahab, the | fair lady who was not so good as she should be, who lived upon the walls of Jericho. and who hid Joshua's spies un- der the stalks of flax. which she had stored up on her roof. She told them of
 the terror which prevailed in the city over the possible invasion of Joshua. and
 made them promise to save her when
 Jericho was taken. The spies arranged
 with her that she should tie some red
 thread to the bars of her window when
 her house would be spared. She then
 let them down by cord through the window, and they escaped and reported to Joshua. That was good days work for Rahab. The promise of the spies
 was carried out by. the Tsraelites, and
 Rahab was not only preserved, but she
 married enc of the princes of Judah. a
 man named Salmon. and thereby became
 one of the most famous women of the ancestral tree Of the Israelites, She was