Evening star., 1934-12-23
VIEWS AND REVIEWS.

TO PALESTINE Mr.. Morton
brought the same alert interest
in discovering things for him.
l. self that produced his delight
full search" books, I'm Search
of England" In Search of Ireland"
In Search of Wales" I'm Search of
Scotland" and its even better supple
ment, In Scotland Again" He is an
ideal traveller, apparently never weary,
taking nothing for granted, relating
history and literature to every scene
without becoming pedantic or losing
the full flavor of the beauties before
him. He believes that when this feel
ing of surprise is no longer possible
the time has come to give up wander
ing" The time has not come for him
and we hope that it will not arrive
for many more years, for no writer OF
books of travel at the present time
excels him in the power to take his
reader journeying with him. Whether
or not you have ever visited Palestine
in the flesh, you are likely to feel that
you have never really seen it until
you have followed Mr.. Morton ''in the
steps of the Master" The illuStra-
tions from his own photographs and
the endpaper maps Of Palestine in the
time of Christ, at the present time,
showing the authors route. and OF
Jerusalem assist in the book journey
over this small country, so small
that from many of the high ridges
of Judea all the boundaries are clearly
visible; snow-capped Hermon to the
north, the sandy desert to the south,
the Mediterranean Sea to the west,
and the high ridge of the Trans-Jor-
dan Mountains to the east"
Mr.. Morton entered Palestine from
Egypt and saw the sun rise, leaplng
up like an orange flung into the air,
between GAIA and AScalon. In Jerusa-
lem he tried to put aside question:
ing mood and TO accept the view that
tradition is more likely to be right
than not as to the exact location OF
the Holy Sepulchre and other sacred
places, and he found it easy to think
of Jesus the man, walking over the
white, dusty roads, among men and
women and animals such as throng
the roads today. The trip from high
Jerusalem. $500 feet above sea level,
to Jericho and the Dead Sea, 1920
feet below sea level, so that in about
Is miles there is a drop of nearly
1000 feet, from frosty hills to hot,
tropical pocket in the scared earth,
| becomes an adventure as Mr.. Morton
describes it. He was warned to re-
turn over the winding mountain road,
perfect brigand country" before
dark, but failed to obey the injunc-
ton. because he took time for the
ascent, long but easy, of the Mount
of Temptation back of Jericho. He
followed the road through the Kedron
Valley, gazed at the superb panorama
of the Jordan Valley and the Dead
Sea from a height below Jerusalem,
which looked like "a primitive con-
ception Of hell stopped at the hud-
die of Arab houses, which is Beth
any, descended into the dark, dank
cave of the Tomb of Lazarus, and
from the hill above the village re-
fected on the universal problem in
volved in the story of the realist.
Martha, and the idealist, Mary. Half
| way down to Jericho he found the
old khan by the side of the road,
which tradition makes the Inn of the
! Good Samaritan, and there sat and
read the parable At the north end
of the Dead Sea he found a stirring
| of life in the shape of an ugly chemi-
cal factory. In search of the place
of Christ's baptism, he followed a
cart track across the baked hills and
came to an odd cafe on stills on the
bank of the Jordon, where the pro-
prietor sat among his chickens, tur-
keys and goats and whitfield stick
| with his penknife. For some reason,
unaccountable even to himself, the
| Jordan here reminded Mr.. Morton
of the Avon il WarWlckShire.
The impression made by Bethle-
! hem was 'one of peace and gracious
ness. Jerusalem is taut with mental
conflict. Bethlehem is quiet, and, I
| think, happy" Meeting the last of
the Samaritans in Samarja, watching
| the village carpenter at work in Naz-
areth, standing among the ruins of
! Caesarea, crossing the hill which sep
arates the Old and New TeStaments
and going into Galilee, free from
| the powerful hypnotism of Jerusa-
lem bathing in the Sea of Galilee,
witnessing the feast of the Passover
and celebrating it with a Jewish fam
| lily on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and
attending the strangest of all the
| ceremonies of the Eastern holy week.
1t is held by the black monks of
Abyssinia on the roo- of the Holy
Sepulchre''; wherever he went Mr..
Morton found the heart of every eX-
perience in its relation to the New
Testament story. Yet his book is not
motivated by religious emotion; it is
| the work of a cultured traveller to
| whom all history and tradition are a
large part of the joy of exploration.
X X X X
! GEN. GEORGE BRINTON McCLEL-
| Lam. By William Starr Myers, Phi.
D. New York: D. Appleton-Cen
tury Co.
THIS is season of military biogra-
phies with Douglas Freeman's
| "R. E. Lee" Col. Robert Mccormick S
| Ulysses S. Grant Frederick Palmer S
Bliss" and this study of the person.
ality of Mcclellan by DR.. Myers, pro-
fessor of politics in Princeton Uni
| versity. In the personality of McClel-
Ian is found the key to his military
career, that career which is often con-
sidered one of the most tragic failures
of the Civil War The interest of Dr.
Myers was first aroused in Mcclellan
| through reading statement of John
| w. Burgess in his work The Civil
| War and the Constitution" to the
effect that whether crushing vic
tory ever the Confederates, ending at
once the rebellion before slavery was
destroyed, was wanted by all of those
who composed the Washington Gov
ernment, may well be suspected. And
/ it is very nearly certain that there
were some who would have preferred
defeat to such a victory with McClel-
land in command" This throws out
suggestion of politics more power
1 full than patriotism even at a great
crisis, but such inappropriate sub
ordination is common in history.
Mcclellan was an intensely religi-