A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE Copyright^* Cqu £%+*Rcurx^ Ha/Mil* ^
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CiffiERIGHT DEPOSITS A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE Copyright^* cqu £%+*rcurx^ Ha/Mil* ^ ©CI A690726 V* J The Pilgrim A PALESTINE PILGRIMAGE EDWARD RUSKIN WELCH ASH EVI LLE ADVOCATE ~j)S> ion . 3 DEC 26 '22 DEDICATION To that noble band of parishioners and friends Whose great generosity made possible this pilgrimage; To all my fellow pilgrims whom I shall ever Hold in fond regard; To her who is my comrade and inspiration To make every day a pilgrimage to some Holy Land; To a Christian layman whose confidence and Esteem is precious; To a little girl who loves me; To all these and many others this volume is Affectionately dedicated. AUTHOR'S NOTE. We felicitate ourselves most generously on being able to launch this volume with the prestige of Dr. W. A. Shelton's fine introduction. The honor only exceeds the personal pleasure. With him the writer has enjoyed a long and most congenial friendship. We feel that no man is better qualified for speaking on the subject of Palestine. He has but recently spent a year in the Near East as a member of the Chicago University Archaeological Expedition. The public awaits with eagerness the appearance of a promised volume from his graphic and learned pen. INTRODUCTION. The subject of this volume, "A Palestine Pilgrimage," is ever of com- pelling interest to all who study the history of religion or interest themselves in those things which have to do with the development of civilization. One might be neither Christian nor Jew nor yet a Moslem, all of which have a peculiar interest in the Land and each of which holds it sacred, but yet if he have any concern with history or human progress he would still be interested in the cradle of the great issues and great movements which have tremendously influenced the world's ongoing. To the three great faiths of the world today Palestine remains the place of most vital interest and will continue to do so to the end of time. Though a relatively small country, geographically and politically, it has stood for five thousand years as "The Bridge of the Nations," the Pathway of the Ancient Civilizations, and the School Room in which God prepared His people for their great mission m the world and in which, under His guidance, the foundations of all law and literature, worth while, in the world was laid. Humanity will never lose interest in those rugged ways over which the Patriarchs walked with God and the Prophets traveled up and down de- nouncing the sins of kings and championing the cause of the poor, and over which walked the feet of Him who "taught as one having authority," and "spake as never man spake;" the place where the infant church struggled until it conquered and the kingdom of Christ spread out to the uttermost parts of the earth. Many books have been written upon the subject, but they are ever new and, from the pen of the many we get a better vision of those places we long to see. Peculiar interest attaches to the Land just now for the reason that it is becoming again the political catspaw that it was for the first four milleniums of human history, and also because, for the first time in five thousand years, there appears evidences of change, and when in this change- less land, relentless change sets in, the old things as they have always been, will very quickly pass away and the tourist of the future will be unable to see them as they were in those days of deepest human interest. The author of this volume has long been my friend and knowing him as I do, I believe that he is peculiarly fitted for the task of producing a worth- while book. Few men are better qualified to see the Land of the Book than he. Possessed of a soul so sensitive to the things of ethical and spiritual life, quickened by the dynamic of an unbounded enthusiasm, he is able to find and analyse that which the average traveler would entirely overlook. Gifted in the use of good English and untiring in industry, he is capable of making others see that which he has seen. "A Palestine Pilgrimage" should have a most hospitable reception in the field of travel literature. W. A. SHELTON. Emory University, Ga. September 12, 1922. FOREWORD. For years we had dreamed of a possible pilgrimage to Palestine, but the proverbial wolf always stood too close to the door. In 1921, through the exceeding generosity of parishioners and friends, a door of opportunity opened wide and with unbounded gratitude we entered. Our party was most congenial and from start to finish the pilgrimage was one continual kaleidoscopic thrill after another. We toured Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, of course omitting very much of interest. The three countries are discussed under the title of Palestine because they have been interwoven in Israel's genesis and development, as indeed they have been in all the centuries of history. But their chief interest lies in that Jehovah here enacted the tragic history of the fittest available race for His purpose—that of con- creting certain great religious ideals in a nation's life and climaxing the process in an atonement for all races and all peoples. Here was born the Christ of God. We confess that Palestine had always been partly obscured in a haze of semi-mysticism, half earthly, half fairyland; its heroes, demigods, possessing some faults, to be sure, but too valiant and too good "for human nature's daily food." Now it is as real as the soil of our nativity; its Esdraelo?i battleground as real as Valley Forge and Bunker Hill, and Joshua and David as real as Washington and Pershing. Its battles were but the contests of peoples human as we are, restless under oppression and fighting at the behest of an inner urge for country, for God as they conceived Him, ani for right as they saw it. Even the beautiful humanity of Jesus stands out in a living light of reality hitherto unperceived. We heard again the baby's low cry at Bethlehem, followed Him to Nazareth and traveled over Judean hills and Galilean pathways His feet had sanctified, wept with the Holy Mother beside the cross, and stood with the wondering eleven on Olivet's brow, and looked into the same skies His ascending form had entered. The contour of the country, its manners and customs, its seasons, its harvests, its plants and animals, especially domestic; its streams, wells, lakes, hills and valleys, its tombs—all these survive unchanged and over them glimmers still the same Syrian sun that set for Jacob at Beeroth, that hung above Gibeon for Joshua's convenience, and that rose so often over the brow of Neby Sain as He, the skillful young Carpenter, entered His shop for the day's toil. All this makes real the Book and the Man of the Book and places in one hand of the sincere student a trowel for erecting the walls of Truth's temple, and in the other a sword, two-edged, for fighting the battles of the Lord. Now in reading or discussing an event we see it in its physical setting, including relative distances and local coloring. May we not indulge the hope that the kind reader will be able to receive in some measure similar benefit from the perusal of these vagrant chapters. They have been written with primary aim to serve the laity in giving some portion of intelligent background for the study of the Bible. Palestine is the Land of the Book and the Bible is the Book of the Land and each explains and complements the other. "Go, little booke, God send thee good passage, And specially let this be thy prayere, Unto them all that thee will read or hear, Where thou are wrong, after their help to call Thee to correct, in any part or all." Chaucer's Bell Dame sans Mercie. Land of the Sky Asheville, N. C. October, 1922. E. R. W. CONTENTS Chapter Page I Beirut—The Lebanons—Baalbek 1 II Damascus 15 III Hauran— Sea of Galilee 27 IV Mount of Beatitudes—Cana of Galilee 41 V Nazareth and Esdraelon 51 VI Dothan—Samaria—Shechem 65 VII Jacob's Well— Shiloh—Bethel 77 VIII Entering Jerusalem 87 IX Mt. Zion—Church of Holy Sepulcher 99 X The Temple Area 111 XI The Wailing Place—City's Environs 125 XII Gethsemane—Olivet—Jerusalem to Jericho 139 XIII The Jordan—The Dead Sea 153 XIV Bethlehem—Solomon's Pools—Hebron 165 XV Palestine, the Old and the New 175 XVI Going Down Into Egypt . 187 XVII Gizeh—Heliopolis—Cheops—Sphinx 197 L'Envoy 205 ILLUSTRATIONS The Author Frontispiece Page The Big Stone at Baalbek 5 Damascus 11 A Bedouin Family 23 Sunrise on Galilee 29 Tiberius by the Lake 33 Mount of Beatitudes 37 The Well at Cana 43 Fountain of the Virgin, Nazareth 53 Esdraelon 57 Shechem 69 Jerusalem and Damascus Gate 79 The Golden Gate 93 The Holy Fire 103 The Mosque of Omar 113 The Wailing Place 121 Gordon's Calvary 129 The Big Tree in Gethsemane 137 The Mount of Olives 141 The Jordan River 151 Bethlehem Today 16? The Author in Costume of Sheik 183 The Sphinx and Old Cheops 201 CHAPTER I. Beirut—The Lebanons—Baalbek. CHAPTER I. Beirut—The Lebanons—Baalbek. My introduction to the land of my pilgi image was strikingly picturesque. At Beirut, Syria, our big liner being of too heavy draft to come close to the dock anchored some distance away.