The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-03

| bathing with its Hood Of Orlential glory
 lonely pile of stones in the little village of Bethany.
 These stones were the remnants of
 the home of Martha and Mary anu.
 with the single exception of tomb, constitute the last vestige of a spot l that might be called the Village of
 Tears" for here it was that the shortest verse in holy writ says Jesus wept l It may savor of the sacriligous to as- sociate sentiments of earthly love with the Master, yet I can but think that | next to his mother Christ entertained
 for Mary a passion more full of tender
 ness than he accorded any other wom-
 an. It was to Bethany that He and His disciples were wont to retire after pass
 ing the heat of the day in Jerusalem.
 and rest in the cool of the evening | meath the shades of the pleasant hill
 town, and in the Bible Ne will note that
 it was not until after our Savior had sent martha for her sister and that Mary had come into His presence that | He shed tears of sorrow. | The suns of 20 centuries had bathed those stones with gold, the rains of 200o years had beat upon them, the winds of 200 decades had swept over them. an1 l the snows of seasons innumerable had | robed them In virginal mantle, yet there they were before me, and as I stood by them that April morning sensed the presense of those two gentle women of Bethany, the one bent on the discharge of domestic cares, ths
 other filling the house with the odor of ointment as she appointed her gues- with spikenard and wiped His feet with her hair; l felt the innuence of the inn press with which the Divine vicinage
 must have imbued those stones and l almost heard the echo of the words,
 Let her alone; against the day of my
 burying hath she kept this"
 Then I quilted the sacred debris and visited the tomb of Lazarus. which I | entered. It seemed as if were descend ing into well and after going down some 30 stone steps I came to rocky platform which gave access to a low | CT chamber, through a narrow aperture which I also entered and stood in the | tomb from which the dead had come forth alive. sE=.-se' t-.--ss a Tradition has consistently maintained
 that after the crucifixon Lazarus and his two sisters went to Marsailles, whence. they wandered into either France or Spain and spent the re-
 mainder of their lives.
 I spent over an hour in Bethany and then resumed my. journey eastward for l was on my way to Jericho It Is 1 worthy of note and interesting to re- l late the difference of the topography
 
 from that on the Jordon side of the mountain, upon the top of which Is to- cated Jerusalem. On the west the Acoun-, try is full of yerdure and the entire land is one series of terraces all sup ported by stone walls. It is upon these terraces that grow the orange. olive and grape orchards, for all places where
 fruit is grown in Palestine are desig
 mated as orchards. The grapes raised
 In the orchards are not produced for the making of wine, but they furnish the rafsins of our commerce. l am sor- " that the people of this section of the country are not noted for being overly honest and each orchard is ac- companied with it's watch tower on the top of which all day long sits an ob- server on the lookout for plunderers of vine and tree. Many olives are also to
 be seen upon the terraces, some ot which are centuries old. These trees
 have a fashion of splitting at the bot
 tom when aged so that they completely separate and seem as two trees, caus- ing the natives to declare that the olive walks. Each tree is taxed and so heavy did the tax become that many owners
 cut their trees down to avoid the bur den. but the government finally pen- | alized the practice and thus preserved
 the trees. As one moves westward from Jerusalem, however, the entire character of the country changes ana then it is that we realize the full sig niticance of the terrors of the desert as portrayed in the Bible. The shrubbery
 soon becomes dwarfed and stunted and finally fails entirely; the long yellow
 road rapidly descends amid cliffs of sul- phurous hue to an arid plain and pre- cipitous yawning caverns leer at the
 traveller on every side.
 have never visited the Bad Lands"
 of western America, but while some of
 the canyons may be deeper I am sure
 that none are more forbidding or
 rugged than those that go down to the
 Jordan. Here was pointed out to me
 the place where Elijah was fed by
 the ravens and the locality is still in-
 habited by hermits who live in nooKs and upon perches like the birds that
 brought bread to the prophet. The caves wherein these anchorites dwell are cut in the dry chalky cliff about
 half way from the tiny brook which
 trickles at the bottom of the gorge ana and the top of the cliff. A marrow
 path, scarcely available for a goat, af- fords access to the caves and a long wire
 stretches from the path to the brook
 below upon which water Is hoisted in suspended pails. In one of these can yons is situated the convent of St. George, modern institution for monk ish life, perched like a martin box upon the cliffs.
 About half way between Jerusalem and Jericho l halted for refreshment at the historical inn whither was carried by I the good Samaritan, the man who had | fallen among thieves mentioned in | Christs parable. The present inn is. Of
 course, not the hostlery mentioned in the
 Bible but sit is immediately adjacent to | a tumulus that marks the exact spot of
 the parable inn.
 l I climbed the mass of debris and
 obtained a magnificent view. On one
 side Of me were the towering outlines 1 Of Nebo and Pisgah and on the other
 side rose the graceful domes Of the
 Greek church on the apex of the Mount
 of Olives, but the most charming fea
 ture Of the vista was the little white
 village Of Anathoth, the home of Jere. miah, just three miles northwest of
 Jerusalem. glistening with dazzling rad
 iance in the rays of the Judean sun.
 No wonder,T I thought, that Jeremiah was born prophet, for such an en-
 trancing enviSonment could do naught l else but produce poets ana all prophets
 are poets." God may not have touched
 this mans tongue with the same fire l that He bestowed upon Isaiah, but the
 prophet or Anathoth was more than a | seer; he was a statesman and a patriot
 ond his crown of martyrdom was a fit- ting setting to his life of divine inspira- tion. And his Inspiration was divine. for | when Zedikiah. the last king of J,Idea was captured and robbed of his eve sight, Jeremiah was taken with some
 of the Jews and kings daughters to
 Tahpanhes in Egypt. Here he again prophesied and upon being revled by the populace he took several stones which
 he buried and foretold that Nebuchad- | reZZpr wOuld set his