In a Syrian Saddle

by A. Goodrich-Freer

The population is about ten thousand, of whom thirty-five hundred are Moslems, and thirty-five hundred Greeks; about twenty-eight hundred Catholics, Latin, Greek, and Maronite, and about two hundred and fifty Protestants. The people are prosperous, mainly as agriculturists, but there is also some commerce in cotton and grain.

The Franciscans, besides their own college for novices, have a school for boys; the Salesians an orphanage for boys; the Christian Brothers a school for boys, with higher grade as well as elementary teaching; the Dames de Nazareth an orphanage and school for girls; the Sisters of St Joseph a school for girls and a dispensary; the Brothers of St John the Divine a hospital and dispensary; the Sisters of Charity all the miscellaneous works of care for young and old, for homeless and infirm, with which everywhere they fill up the gaps left by others. The Greeks, Russians, Maronites—all have their own institutions; the Russians a very large hospice for pilgrims. The Edinburgh Medical Mission has a church and hospital, and the English have a small orphanage for girls, founded by the Society for Female Education, which, despite its unattractive title, has done some excellent work in Palestine. How, out of a Christian population of about three thousand (exclusive of Greek Orthodox, and in a well-to-do town), enough material is collected to furnish occupation to so many societies, and the means of spending so much money as is here represented, is beyond the understanding of the mere layman!

Darkness fell suddenly, and in the narrow, unlighted streets we—to our own self-contempt at so unusual a circumstance—lost our way, got mixed with a long train of camels which, whether standing or sitting, barricaded our steps in all directions, and were finally rescued by a lad speaking very good French, who lifted the Lady bodily over pack-saddles and humps of camels, drove her under arches formed by the front and hind legs of camels, held aside for her the investigating muzzles of camels, defended her from the hind legs of camels, and finally, to her great surprise, delivered her safe at the convent door, and disappeared into the dark.

Next day we visited all the traditional sites, known by description to all the world. The great Church of the Annunciation, rich with costly gifts of marbles, and silver, and pictures, on the site of that built by Constantine, is the parish church of the Franciscans. The present building is not older than the beginning of the eighteenth century; its immediate predecessor having been burnt and pillaged by the Bedu from beyond the Jordan. A very simple chapel covers a part of the foundations, still visible, of a crusading church, on ground bought by the Franciscans a hundred and fifty years ago, and which they hope some day to restore. The timeworn arches, the fragments of masonry standing silent and solitary in a walled garden, among well-ordered flower-beds—the tradition that this was the site of the workshop of Joseph, the village carpenter, impressed us more than all the wealth, the multiplied legends of the handsome Church of the Annunciation.[4] The Franciscans have also a chapel covering the rock said to be the scene of one of the occasions when our Lord, after His resurrection, was known in the breaking of bread. The Greek Catholics are in possession of the church which is associated with the synagogue in which Jesus is said to have preached, and from which He was cast out; the Greek Orthodox of a chapel which covers one of the springs of the village well. Here, as in many other places where only one well exists, we may feel certain of at least one scene of many sacred associations.

Later in the day the Lady and the Doctor rode up to the top of one of the many hills, which stand out like islands or peninsulas in the plain, and from which, but a mile or two beyond the village, one has a view which is an epitome of Old and New Testament history. It is said that one may see thirty miles in three directions: east to the valley of the Jordan and the hills of Gilead beyond, west to the Mediterranean, and in the nearer foreground one may look upon the battlefields of Esdraelon, on Carmel and Tabor, on the scenes of the history of Elijah, Barak, Gideon, of the death of Saul, of the struggles of the Maccabees, of the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

Here, once more, one cannot fail to be struck by the falsity of conventional teaching. No meditation on the boyhood of Jesus is complete without its paragraph as to the obscurity of His home, the remoteness of this Galilean village, its aloofness from the life and history of the times. The very phrase "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" is taken in support of its insignificance, instead of evidence of the well-known character for turbulence of its inhabitants—a character said, by those in political authority, to be still prominent to-day.

Apart, however, from the stimulus of its surrounding scenery it is obvious to the most elementary student that Nazareth was very little removed from the most crowded highway, from the centre of the busiest life of Palestine; that—to speak it with reverence—an intelligent boy, wandering about the neighbourhood as boys will, would bring in every day news of all the activities, the competitions, the commerce, the politics of the times. Midianite caravans making their way to the fords of the Jordan would tell of all the wealth and learning of Egypt, and reflect somewhat of its contact with Europe; Damascus caravans coming south or returning home from trading expeditions; pilgrims going up to Jerusalem to the feasts, and bringing back news of the capital, the rendezvous of all Jewry; lords and princes with their retinues travelling from the Greek cities of the Decapolis to the Greek city of Tiberias, but a few hours distant; Roman legions marching south; luxurious ladies going down to winter among the palm gardens of Jericho; learned men travelling from one city to another; peripatetic teachers as the fashion was; Herod and his Court removing from Tiberias to Sebaste, to Jericho, to Jerusalem—all such spectacles would be of daily occurrence, a part of that human training which made the Master, perfect Man; which taught Him sympathy not only with those who frequented the carpenter's workshop and the fisherman's hut, but with a learning, a civilisation, a life, which brings Him nearer to us and to our own temptations and interests than some would have us think; which made it necessary that His teachings should be represented not only by the Synoptic gospels but by the author of the fourth gospel, by the Epistle to the Hebrews, by the philosophy of St Paul.

Looking down from our elevation at a scene which showed the ploughman with his yoke, the sower with his basket, the busy little town, the many schools, hospitals, orphanages; the hospitalities of the Franciscans and the Russians, frequented, later in the year, by persons of every class and nationality; the buildings in progress, the vehicles and laden beasts travelling seawards to Haifa, in touch with all the commerce of the age, we turned for one moment to the convent of Poor Clares at our feet, with the passing thought that asceticism, inactivity, contemplation such as this, was an anomaly compared not only with our own life but with that of Him whom they would serve.

The Artist's horse required an off day or two, and the roads were in such good condition that it was arranged that the Artist should follow in a carriage, as the rest of the party had a long day in prospect. The Church of the Annunciation had been crowded every evening with village people, singing special litanies, and praying for rain. "I thought of your long ride, and prayed with mixed feelings," said a kindly Father; "but the majority are against you, and you had better make the most of the time. I saw 'as it were a man's hand' over Carmel!"

Accordingly we set off at twilight next morning, and saw the sun rise over the hills of Galilee. The little town had not yet awakened to life, and not a single woman waited with her pitcher at the well which yesterday had been a scene of so much activity. We had planned to visit the Austrian hospital, where so much science and surgical skill are devoted to the poor by the Brothers of St John the Divine, but the early start and a change in our route made this impossible. The country hereabouts is not in itself interesting, except for the beauty of colouring, which is never wanting in Palestine, and for the associations of which we were everywhere reminded. We looked back at the Mount of Precipitation, with its sheer precipice of 1000 feet, at the range of Carmel, at Tabor and Hermon, at the wide plain to the south and the rising ground beyond, where, in Nain and Endor and Shunem, men and women were still perplexed by the mysteries of life and death.