The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-07

TrHE hills of the Holy Land" that have spoken to
 all Chrstendom of Peace and Good WlT' for
 nearly twenty centuries, are to resound with the of artillery and the hiss of the rife-ball. The sacred places which rod by the feet of the Child Jesus, and in which He grew to manhood the Son of the Carpenter to be profaned by the most bloody of If the latest is verified by later events.
 missionary has just reached Cairo, Egypt, fleeing before the aroused Turkish soldery According to his report the Turks preparing themselves against invasion of Palestine by the British, and the allies of the Germans they planting cannon the hills around Nazareth digging trenches and building great military roads from the nearest port Acre. far as Mount Carmel for the transport of other heavy aril lery which they expect the Krupps ship through the Mediterranean Sea-
 If the cry has up all the world at the unchrstian that has burst forth between Christian nations what will be said that the Holy Land it. self is to become a battle ground?
 It in Nazareth that the Saviour made His home for eight and twenty years, according Luke H. A. 39 51 :SAnd Joseph also went up from Galee out of the city of Nazareth. And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord they returned into Gaee, to their city Nazareth And the child waxed strong in spirit filled with wisdom: and the of God was upon Him And He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was sub ject unto them. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man."
 The malicious ingenuity of the Turk could not have selected any spot earth whose proclamation by would have stirred the conscience of Christendom this of Nazareth for in the mind of every believing Christian it is the most sacred spot earth, crated by the actual life of Him who become the Saviour of mankind.
 A cluster of hills forms the northern wall of the famous Plain of Esdraeon and this is what seems be the crater of extinct volcano On esides of this crater the village of Nazareth clings with it's houses tier upon tier like reaching upward toward the blue sky It is upon these hills that the Turks planting their cannon,
 Here is still shown the Fountain of the Virgin" to which Jesus and His mother must have resorted day by day the needed water and here, too, is shown the house. made into church, in which the Saviour lived toiling a carpenter the Joseph who called His father
 Millions of Christian pilgrims have to Nazareth during the last twenty centuries seeking the inspra- ton they might gather by contemplation of the places sancthed by the life of Jesus where for large of the time that He earth He preached peace and love The contrast and contradiction in ideas be- then and now raise the interesting question of what the Saviour himself would say were He to see these warke preparations around His old home?
 But if the continues and spreads is likely, to Syria, which, of course, includes all Palestine many blows will be struck at the other places identified important in the birth of Christianity, and in it's later development The very port of Acre. mentioned in the New Testament but Ptolemais, from which the military road is being built to Mount Carmel famous in the days of the Crusades Saint Jean dAcre the seat of the Christian Kingdom and head quarters of the Knights Tempars
 Should the British invade Palestine there will be another Crusade of the objectives cannot fail to be Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre It would be frghtful, indeed contemplate the batterng of the great Golden Gats and the possible destruction of Church the Holy Sepuchre itself that wonderful lonument of Saracenic art.
 f the British guns are levelled at Jerusalem they