The Holy Land and Syria

by Frank G. Carpenter

The man protested so much that the guide took him back, stopped the service, and had them let down the candle. Further than that, he brought up some of the water which Goliath drank at a gulp. I have run across this huge doubting Thomas before on the trip. He would not believe in the spot where our Lord was baptized in the Jordan, saying that the banks were too steep, and that if he couldn’t crawl down them no one, not even John the Baptist, could do so.

It took me just one day to come from Jerusalem to Shechem. My outfit was a three-horse team harnessed to an American wagon. The horses were good, and we drove up hill and down on the trot. We started at Jaffa Gate, passed the Place of the Skull, where General Gordon thought the Saviour was crucified, and then crossed the valley of Kedron. We climbed Mount Scopus, which joins Olivet, and rode under the hill on top of which was Mizpah, where Samuel was buried and Saul was publicly chosen King of the Jews. There is a mosque on that spot and the place is holy to Jews, Christians, and Moslems alike, all of whom worship at Samuel’s tomb. Mizpah lies on a peak about three thousand feet above the Mediterranean, and on one of the highest of the Judean mountains. Here an army of crusaders stood with Richard the Lion-Hearted and got their first sight of Jerusalem. As they looked King Richard knelt down and thus prayed:

“O Lord God, I pray Thee that I may never again see Thy Holy City if I may not recover it from the hands of thine enemies.”

That prayer was uttered seven centuries ago when Jerusalem had already been in the hands of the Mohammedans for about six hundred years.

The road we took to Samaria was the one over which came the boy Christ and the Holy Family when they travelled up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. It is one of the highways of the Holy Land, and is still travelled by thousands. About ten miles beyond Mount Scopus we stopped at Beeroth, a stone village surrounded by green orchards of figs and pomegranates. Tradition says that Nablus is the place where Joseph and Mary as they were returning to Nazareth discovered that their twelve-year-old boy was not with them and went back to find Him teaching the wise men in the temple.

A little farther on we came to Bethel where the Benjamites lived, where Abraham reared an altar and called on the name of the Lord, and where Jacob took stones for his pillow and dreamed that he saw the ladder extending to heaven and the angels ascending and descending thereon. The name Bethel, which means the House of God, has been changed to Beitin. It is a poor stone village of about five hundred people, with a ruined tower and a church.

Shiloh, just off the road a little farther on toward Samaria, is now called Seilun, and, as Jeremiah prophesied, it is nothing but ruins. Where it stood is a mound covered with débris, broken columns, and rubbish, so that one is reminded of the passage: “But go ye now unto ... Shiloh ... and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.”

Nevertheless, Shiloh is one of the most interesting spots of the country. Here Eli dwelt and here Hannah came every year with a new coat for her little son Samuel, whom she had given up to the Lord. It was here that Joshua divided the land and the Philistines stole the Ark of the Covenant.

I am surprised at the caravans which are continually crossing these Palestine mountains. There seems to be a great trade north and south, and the roads are full of odd-looking people. On my way here I saw crowds of men and women on donkeys coming up to Jerusalem. Some were from Galilee, others from Damascus, and not a few from the mountains of Lebanon. One crowd told us that its people were Mohammedans, and that they were making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the tomb of Moses. There were many women among them. They sat astride upon donkeys and some of them carried babies in their arms.