A JEWISH RABBI.
Looking across the Jordan one sees the Mountains of Moab. While the country "beyond the Jordan" plays an unimportant part in Bible history as compared with Judea, Samaria and Galilee, still it has its Nebo, where the great Jewish lawgiver sleeps in an unmarked grave; it has its Macherus, where John the Baptist was beheaded, and its Gilead. Elijah, the Tishbite, came from beyond the Jordan, and beyond the Jordan Elisha received his teacher's mantle; Ruth came from the Land of Moab, and Job endured his trials in the Land of Uz.
Space does not permit a reference to all the places of interest or an elaborate consideration of any of them. It is impossible to describe in a few words what it requires several days to see. One thought often comes to the mind as the different scenes are visited, viz., that a visit to the Holy Land makes it easier to understand many Bible passages and gives added significance to others. We have seen the barren fig tree and the fruitful vine; we have seen the lame and the blind, and have met the leper at the gate; we have seen the tiny lamp, such as the wise and foolish virgins carried—lamps that need often to be refilled; and we have seen the "whited sepulchres," "full of dead men's bones." We have been impressed with the life-giving power of a fountain in a barren land and can more fully realize the force of the promise that the man who delighteth "in the law of the Lord" "shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water."
But no part of the Old Testament has been brought more vividly to our minds than the twenty-third Psalm. Life is much the same here to-day as it was two, three, four thousand years ago, and we have seen innumerable flocks and have watched the sheep following the shepherd with confidence as he, staff in hand, led them into new pastures or from hillside to stream. No animal is more helpless than the sheep and no guardian more tender than the shepherd. The sheep know their master's voice, and we have several times seen a shepherd carrying a lamb in his arms. The hills about Jerusalem, the springs, the shepherds and their flocks, will rise before us whenever we read again:
"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters."