Now all is silent there, lonely and most desolate. Till last year, but a single boat floated upon its waters. On its shores, Tiberias in ruins, and Magdala, composed of a few wretched hovels, are all that remain. You may ride round and round the empty beach, and, these excepted, never meet a human being, nor pass a human habitation. Capernaum, Chorazin, Bethsaida, are gone. Here and there you stumble over ruins; but none can tell you exactly what they were. They knew not, those cities of the lake, the day of their visitation. Their names and their memory have perished.
The number of sick people whom Jesus healed on this circuit must have been immense; for he traversed a wide and populous region, and patients were brought to him from great distances; and he healed them all. One cannot but regret that we have no minute record of the events which transpired and of the addresses which Jesus made on this missionary excursion, which commenced, it is supposed, in June, and was closed early in October.
CHAPTER II.
TOUR THROUGH GALILEE.
The Horns of Hattin.—The Sermon on the Mount.—Jesus goes to Capernaum.—The Miraculous Draught of Fishes.—Healing the Leper, the Paralytic.—Associates with Publicans and Sinners.—The Feast of the Passover.—The Cripple at the Pool.—The Equality of the Son with the Father.—Healing the Withered Hand.—Anger of the Pharisees.—The Twelve Apostles chosen.—Inquiry of John the Baptist.—Jesus dines with a Pharisee.—The Anointment.—Journey through Galilee.—Stilling the Tempest.—The Demoniacs and the Swine.—The Daughter of Jairus.—Restores Sight to the Blind.—Address to his Disciples.
BOUT seven miles south of Capernaum there was a double-peaked eminence, fifty or sixty feet high, which commanded a charming view of the Valley of Gennesaret. These peaks were called the Horns of Hattin, from the village of Hattin, situated at the base of the hill. As Jesus, upon his return from his first circuit through Galilee, approached Capernaum, when the throng which accompanied him, or flocked out of the city to meet him, had become immense, he probably ascended this hill, from which he could easily address them. For ages it has been called, on that supposition, the “Hill of the Beatitudes.”
It must have presented a charming scene. The smooth and grassy hill rose from a landscape luxuriant with verdure, draped with vineyards, and rich in the autumnal hues of harvest. The waters of the lake sparkled in the sunlight, and the distant horizon was fringed with towering mountains. Jesus sat upon the summit of the hill: his avowed disciplesgathered affectionately around: the multitude, presenting a sea of upturned faces, thronged the grassy slopes.
It was then and there that Jesus delivered that Sermon on the Mount, which, by universal admission, is the most memorable discourse ever uttered by human lips. Probably in a voice which penetrated the remotest ear, he enunciated those sublime truths, which, for eighteen centuries, have echoed through human hearts, and which will continue thus to echo, with ever-increasing power, until the flames of the last conflagration shall envelop our globe.
He first announced the conditions of entrance into the new kingdom of God. Its gates were to be open to the lowly in heart; to those weeping over their own unworthiness, and hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Those qualities which were most despised by Jewish pride and pharisaic self-righteousness were the ones upon which God looked with love and a blessing.