A Journey to Palestine
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WESLEYAN HERITAGE Library Travelogue A JOURNEY TO PALESTINE By Rev. Mr. Beverly Carradine “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” Heb 12:14 Spreading Scriptural Holiness to the World Wesleyan Heritage Publications © 1997, 1998 A JOURNEY TO PALESTINE By Beverly Carradine Contents Chapter 1 The Departure Chapter 2 New York And Vicinity Chapter 3 The Ocean Voyage Chapter 4 Liverpool -- Ayre In Scotland Chapter 5 Scottish Lakes And Mountains Chapter 6 Stirling, Bannockburn, And Edinburg Chapter 7 Melrose And Abbotsford Chapter 8 In England -- Warwick -- Kenilworth -- Stratford -- Oxford Chapter 9 London Chapter 10 London -- Gray's Country Church Yard Chapter 11 The English People -- London Chapter 12 Paris Chapter 13 Paris Chapter 14 The Rhine Chapter 15 Baden And Switzerland Chapter 16 Venice Chapter 17 Venice Chapter 18 Rome Chapter 19 Naples Chapter 20 Pompeii And Mt. Vesuvius Chapter 21 The Mediterranean Sea -- Egypt Chapter 22 In Egypt -- The Pyramids Chapter 23 Palestine -- Jaffa -- Jerusalem Chapter 24 Jerusalem Chapter 25 Jerusalem Chapter 26 Mt. Calvary Chapter 27 Gethsemane Temple Place Chapter 28 The Debris -- The Churches Chapter 29 Jaffa Gate -- Wailing Place -- Mt. Olivet -- Bethany Chapter 30 Wilderness Of Judea -- Dead Sea -- River Jordan Chapter 31 Gilgal -- Jericho -- Jericho Road Chapter 32 Bethlehem Chapter 33 Damascus Road -- Bethel -- Shiloh -- Jacob's Well -- Mt. Gerizim Chapter 34 Samaria -- Plain Of Sharon Chapter 35 Lake Galilee Chapter 36 Mt. Of Beatitudes -- Mt. Tabor -- Cana Chapter 37 Nazareth Chapter 38 Moslemism -- Plain Of Sharon Chapter 39 Scenes On The Plain Of Sharon Chapter 40 Customs In Palestine Chapter 41 Palestine As A Mission Field Chapter 42 Guides Chapter 43 The Return Trip A JOURNEY TO PALESTINE By Beverly Carradine Chapter 1 The Departure -- The Pullman Palace Car -- Southern Rivers And Slavery Songs -- Central Depots -- Ohio City of Cleveland -- Mt. Vernon -- The Silver Key -- The Hudson. For many years I have desired to visit the Holy Land. While I realized the omnipresence of the Saviour, and that He was not to be confined to Jerusalem or Mt. Gerizim, and that His gracious presence made all places sacred, yet still the desire remained in the heart to see the earthly city of our God, and to tread the paths, ascend the slopes, and to stand in the places forever made peculiarly and tenderly sacred by the footsteps, and voice, and presence of Jesus, the Son of God. By a combination of providential circumstances the trip was made possible; and so, on Monday evening, June 23, 1890, I found myself bidding farewell to a band of friends who accompanied me to the cars to say God-speed at the beginning of a journey to last four months. When Paul was "accompanied to the ship" by his friends, he was consigned to wind and wave and many perils; but the writer was left in the midst of all the conveniences and luxuries of a Pullman palace car. Cushioned seats; and mirrors reflecting at every angle; a snowy aproned attendant awaiting orders; and an electric bell to summon him. These were some of the contrasting features that served to humble the writer as he recalled the much suffering apostle. After a little time an inviting supper-table, with spotless cloth and shining silverware, is placed before the traveler, who, in spite of hunger, gives most of his observation to the flying scene outside the car window. Later on a pleasant bed takes the place of the table, and the utter dissimilarity to the Pauline experience is established. Surely, we say, the centuries are different, and the treatment of the preachers is different, and the life of a bloated bondholder is today fairly thrust upon the humble traveler. But, softly, let us not go so fast. "Things," said the poet, "are not always what they seem." The bill of fare is anything but a fair bill when the time of settlement comes. As for the bed, curtained as it was, in darkness it proved a stronghold for the mosquitoes that arose at once and claimed the occupant for their own. Rendered desperate by their attacks, the writer raised the car window, when, in ten minutes, he was reduced to the condition of Pompeii, being covered with ashes and cinders from the Vesuvian locomotive. Let us now touch the electric bell, and bring the aproned servant to our relief. But he heeds not the touch. We ring again and again; but, according to Tennyson's "Mariana," "'He cometh not', she said." He never did come. We saw and heard others ring for him; but he never responded. If there is anything in the world a Negro hates, it is a bell. Let the ladies speak awhile to this point. The electric bell in the Pullman is an innocent affair, a child-amuser, and a pretty toy; but for the purpose for which it was constructed, it is an utter failure and an useless appendage. Just a word more about this flying palace, and we leave it. The eggs gave out in Southern Alabama, the tomatoes in North Alabama, the ice was exhausted in Tennessee, and the lemons all departed in Kentucky. "Things are not what they seem," said Longfellow. The names of our Southern rivers, as I have crossed the streams one by one, bring back to memory a number of what were called "slavery songs." The Tombigbee, the Tennessee, the Kentucky, and the Ohio each recalled one or more of these peculiarly pathetic melodies. A frequently recurring expression in them was "'Way down." 'Way down upon such a river;' way down in such a State. Then came the words, "Toiling in the cotton and the cane." There were heartbreaking pictures of separated husbands and wives, and parted parents and children. A child is stolen from its Virginia home; a wife is carried "to Georgia to wear her life away;" a husband languishes in bondage "from the old Kentucky home, far away." The Tennessee, the Ohio, the Suwanee, and other rivers, through the power of song, were made in their meandering to become frames of pictures of unutterable pathos and beauty. The balls and bayonets of 1861-'65 tore away the living painting, but the frames are still left; and I can never look at their pebbly edges and willow margins without thinking of the pictures which they once encased. As a child -- although my father was a slave-owner -- my eyes were often moistened under the influence of these songs of slavery. But my eyes were not the only ones that were wet. Tears dripped in many States and lands. And these tears meant revolution and deliverance; for when you see thousands of people grieving over a state of things, that means a coming social or moral upheaval; and when a nation gets to singing about its troubles, the day of redemption is nigh. When the Marseilles hymn leaped from lip to lip, and, we might say, flowed from eye to eye, a nation awoke from its long slumber and sprang into freedom. I a m convinced that Song is one of God's mightiest agencies for the effecting of His purposes, and I feel assured as well, that the songs of slavery, or the Negro melodies did as much, if not more, than speech or book, for the preparing of the people for emancipation. As I have studied the grand central depots that constitute one of the remarkable features of our large cities, I am more than ever impressed that there is one of the great needs of New Orleans. I know nothing that more impresses a traveler than the focalized travel and business seen at a great central depot. The constant arrival of trains from different quarters of the country, the roar of vehicles, the rush of constantly changing crowds of people, will advertise the city in the most forcible of ways. The Niagara distributed into twenty different channels would hardly be worth visiting; but the Niagara thundering away at one place attracts the nations. Let New Orleans gather up her railroad streamlets and pour them into her corporate lines, in the form of one great Niagara of a central depot. She will never regret it. Crossing the State of Ohio, diagonally, to Cleveland on its northern edge, we were struck with the fact that we were never a single minute out of the limits of a field of wheat. The forms of Beauty and Prosperity were never out of sight in that wonderful State. It is a nation in itself. The country approximates my conception of English scenery. There are vast expanses of gently undulating table-land. The crops are diversified, and, by their different colors, give a new charm to the landscape. The well-kept fences; the neatly-trimmed hedges, the cosy country homes, buried in orchards, or fronting spacious grassy lawns, and here and there spires or a belfry peeping above a distant line of trees, declaring the presence of town or village -- all combined to bring England constantly to mind. The city of Cleveland, situated beautifully, imposingly and advantageously by that inland sea, Lake Erie, is destined to municipal greatness of the first order. Ten miles away, as we approached over the level fields, we saw a vast cloud hovering over it. It proved to be the smoke of her multitudinous factories. I am reminded here, that at a point south of Cleveland, several years ago, I deflected from my course on a Northern trip and looked in on Washington City and Mt. Vernon. The day before I started the dentist extracted an aching tooth.