Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1915-09-15
The "promised Land
Country of Br;gands

terly that ar~chaeologists dispute Over
their sites. There is little cultivation, and
where half IL million of people are said to
have lived at the beginning of our era, not
o'oo are now to be found. Many a devas-
tating war and the mis-government of IA
centuries have done their fatal work.
Palestine Summed Up.
If Palestine is not a land of natural
wealth nor a and of natural beauty, what
is 1t? What are the Impressions which
the traveller who tries to see 1t exactly as
1T Is carries away with him? Roughly
summed up. they are these: Stones, caves,
tombs, ruins. battlefields, sites hallowed
by traditions-all bathed in an atmos-
phere Of legend and marvel.
unde a better governmental govern
ment which should give honest admins
t%ration. repress ~brigandage, diffuse edu-
cation. ir1igate the now desolate, because
sun-scorched, valley of the lower Jordan
by water drawn from the upper course
of the river-Palestine might become a
prosperous and even popuious country and
have its place in the civilization of the
present.
The inhabitants, mostly Moslems, are a
strong and often handsome race, natur-
ally equal to the races of southern Eu-
rope; but as Palestine stands today, 1t is
a land OF the past, a land of memories
\ memories OF religion. but chiefly OF re-
liglous war, and always rather of war
than of peace.
But Few Bible Towns Left.
We can Identify some of the spots where
miracles are related, such as Main and
Cana of Galilee, but the events are not
connected with any special feature Of the
locality. Journeys are mentioned, but not
the route along which Christ passed, ex-
cept Sychar, in the Samaritan territory,
where was Jacobs we'll. one of the few
sacred spots which can be positively
identified. (The Crusaders erected a
church over 1t which is now being re-
stored by Franciscan monks.) The cities
round the Sea of Galilee have, all except
liberals, vanished from the earth, and
the sites of most of them are doubtful.
The town now called Nazareth has been
accepted for many centuries as the home
OF Christ's parents, but the evidence to
prove 1t SO Is by no means clear. and 1t 10
hard to identify the cliff on which the city
was built. The Mount of Olives, in par
ticuiar. and the height of its slope, where
Christ. following the path from Bethany,
looked dow on Jerusalem. and the tenn
pie In all its beauty, are the spots at
which one seems to get into the closest
touch with the gospel narratives; and 1t Is
just here that the scene has been most
changed by new buildings, high walls.
villas and onven and chapels.
Land Of the Past.
To all travellers who a anything of
poetry In their hearts. be they pilgrims or
tourists. or critical archaeologists and his
torians. there Is. n there will always
be. an inexpressible romance in this jour-
ney. Palestine is pre-eminently the Land
OF the Pasta land whose very air is
charged with the human emotions and
the memories of human action, reaching
far back into the dim twilight of pre-
historic centuries.
No one who is in any degree susceptible
to the Impressions OF Nature or of his
tory can help feeling the glamour of the
country. The colors of distant hills, seen
at morn or even through this clear keen
air, seem rich and sad with pathos of
ages of human effort n human passion.
The imagination is always trying to body
forth the men and women who lived be.
meath these skies. the heroes Of wal and
the saints of suffering, the nameless poets
and the prophets who lived on in their
burning words, and to give them visible
form Inc life.
Imagination always fails, but 1t never
desists from the attempt, and though It
cannot visualize the scenes, 1t feels the
constant presence of these shadowy fig
ures. In them, shadowy as they are, in
the twilight OF far-off ages, the primal
forces Of humanity were embodied-in
them its passionate aspirations seem to
q v their earliest, simplest and most
J moving expression.