Mine enemies have prevailed against me, O God:
Thou hast led me deep into their ambush.
They surround me with a hedge of spears:
And the sword in my hand is broken.
My friends also have forsaken my side:
From a safe place they look upon me with pity.
My heart is like water poured upon the ground:
I have come alone to the place of surrender.
To thee, to thee only will I give up my sword:
The sword which was broken in thy service.
Thou hast required me to suffer for thy cause:
By my defeat thy will is victorious.
O my King show me thy face shining in the dark:
While I drink the loving-cup of death to thy glory.
V
AN EXCURSION TO BETHLEHEM
AND HEBRON
I
BETHLEHEM
A sparkling morning followed a showery night, and all the little red and white and yellow flowers were lifting glad faces to the sun as we took the highroad to Bethlehem. Leaving the Jaffa Gate on the left, we crossed the head of the deep Valley of Hinnom, below the dirty Pool of the Sultan, and rode up the hill on the opposite side of the vale.
There was much rubbish and filth around us, and the sight of the Ophthalmic Hospital of the English Knights of Saint John, standing in the beauty of cleanness and order beside the road, did our eyes good. Blindness is one of the common afflictions of the people of Palestine. Neglect and ignorance and dirt and the plague of crawling flies spread the germs of disease from eye to eye, and the people submit to it with pathetic and irritating fatalism. It is hard to persuade these poor souls that the will of