Show OFF FOR JERUSALEM on february of this year 0 our r little party broke up from drennin early in in the morning our road led through a narrow canyon and right up among the mountains of samaria at we lost our way A strong wind was blowing right against us and made the riding all but pleasant the toad road was rear fear fully bad up and down up and down rocks rocks rocks the horses stumbled at every step and a fall would in many places have been a sure road into eternity our arab guide guide was quite useless he ba had lost all track of the directions we were to follow and we had to find our way as well as we could for several hours we rode about at random among the mountains and when we finally found the right road again we were not far from sebastine the ancient samaria Ba maria the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes this city built by king omri was once an important place but when the As syrians conquered conquered samaria the city was destroyed it was partly rebuilt later but again in the second century was destroyed by john Hy cyreanus Hyrc reanus anus from that time it has never been able to I 1 rise to any prominence according to isaiah 14 samaria is called the crown of pride and her glory is compared to the fading flower of the drunkard woo woe to the c crown row n of P pride ride to the drunkards of ephraim T the e crown of pride the drunkards of ephraim shall be trodden under feet and the glorious beauty which Is is on the head of the fat valley shall be a fading flower and as the hasty fruit before the summer Sa kamarit babaria marit is built on the top of a hill and it might very appropriately by the prophet be compared to a crown 11 or wrea wreath such puch as hz was often worn on the head in times of festivity but she was the wreath con on the head of a drunkard for the people had fallen away from god and given even up to their carnal desires she was therefore hastily destroyed and today what was once the crown of pride is a miserable village proving by its very wretchedness the truth of the word of god as spoken by his servants prom from samaria we hastened on to Na bulus which place we reached a little before sunset we had been without food almost all day and found it necessary to visit an arabian eating house but I 1 frankly admit that the surroundings in this house and the smell of the food were such that had it not been for hunger I 1 should probably not have been able to eat at all is the ancient eichem it is situated in a valley between the mountains of ahal chaland and gauzin and has 1200 inhabitants of whom some are Cat catholics holles some protestants some jews and some mabom madans while about belong to the so called samaritans samaritana Samar itans this sect deserves a few lines their origin dates from the time when the assyrian KID king sargon 11 II conquered samaria ama ria a and ny carried many of the 1 israelites s rue I 1 res into captivity th this is king s sent e nt many of his own sul subjects ejects into the conquered land as colonist sand they accepted the religion of the israelites who were lep left and en grafted on the jehovah cultus many of their own heathenish ideas against this mixture of religion we find the jews on their return from babylon in strong opposition the Sa samaritana samaritans Samar marita itans n a 0 offered to lend their assistance in rebuilding the temple of jerusalem but their offer was rejected and when they tried under the leadership of to hinder the jews from completing their work they were defeated a and nd driven away whereupon they commenced to build a temple of their own on the mount Garl rim but this sanctuary was destroyed by john ayr banus in B C and the gap between the jews and the samaritans samaritana Samar itans became greater and greater at the time of christ the word samaritan 1 1 was an expression of greatest contempt thou art a samaritan and hast a devil john vill viii 48 was a charge hurled against christ and so great was the fanatical feeling that a jew would have nothing to do with a samaritan he would not even travel through their country hence in traveling from jerusalem to nazareth a jew would go down to jericho and follow the jordan valley preferring the longer way may and the chances of falling into the hands of the robbers to any contact with the samaritans samaritana Samar itans these facts throw much light upon the gospel passages relating to the samaritans samaritana Samar itans and the travels of our lord the samaritans samaritana Samar itans have endured much from roman emperors the crusaders and the edans but have managed to outlive it all aji although their number is very small the sect are strict monotheists heists elsts and great enemies to the worship ping of images they believe in the existence of good and bad spirits a resurrection of the dead and that messiah will appear years after the creation of the world they keep the sabbath and other jewish holidays and offer sacrifices on mount glarizio Gari zim they have circumcision and allow a man to have two wives in case the first has no child children mu they have a high priest who claims to be a descendant of levi and his office is inherited by his oldest eldest son this dignitary is supported by tithing they have in a synagogue in which an old codex containing the five books of moses is kept this codex is covered with a metal case very curiously engraved it is no doubt very ancient probably one of the most ancient manuscripts in existence and has a high value to text critics the sa maritana mar itans themselves claim that the manuscript was written by abiona aarons great grandson but this is not generally believed not very far from to is a well which is called bir jakub jacobs well this is a deep water reservoir or cistern about metres de epAnd it is thought to be the well by which our lord held his memorable discourse with the samaritan woman in the first century of our era a church was built on this place but of this edifice only miserable ruins remain it was somewhat late before we left Na bulus the day was wet and the road indescribable but a faint idea of the feature of the road over which we traveled on the day of february may be obtained by supposing one of our most rocky utah creeks dried up and used beed for a road without any grading or leveling whatever besides it went through a wild narrow valley interesting te only for the immense amount of labor which had been laid down on the hill side in order to make the cultivation of the vine and olives olivea possible in soil which seemingly consisted of nothing but pebbles we had a long fatiguing ride this day the sun was waa already setting we had passed ain ei haramija the robber bobber springs and were coming out of the long dark valley but there was no place visible where we could apply for a nights quarters we were not prepared to camp out and besides being without weapons to camp out in this country sometimes means to be stripped of everything and even killed we had therefore no other choice but to continue our wearisome journey finally the shadowy outlines of a village were seen on a hill but as it was dark all round we could form no true conception of the distance after a short consultation we decided to make our way towards it and to test the hospitality of the natives it must have been a great surprise to these sons of ishmael to find their little village invaded by cavalry at this time of night for they all fled in various directions good counsels were dear our arabian guides on this occasion acted splendidly one of them succeeded in catching a small boy and by mere force compelled him to show us the way wa into the heart of the vf village flage this ahls done he simply held him and talked very explaining we stop over night finally a woman peeped her head out to see what was gol going n 0 on L another did the same and another another and still another until we had gathered quite a little crowd then a mau man came and a few more men the crowd increasing In increase creasi ng all the time much talking much consultation sul tation much discussion followed everybody talked at once our guides displaying all their eloquence in our behalf it was a diplomatic negotiation lasting three quarters of an hour before the final agreement was entered into namely that we should be permitted to stop overnight in consideration of some substantial recognition of hospitality in form of backs chish we were now introduced into our lodgings one of the best houses in the village this house consisted of an old ruin patched up and fitted out so as to meet the claims of an arabian family it had one room furnished in one comer with a platform or elevation covered with a straw mat on this mat we were invited to seat ourselves in another comer was a fireplace very primitive though with no outlet for the smoke a fact which we were soon made aware of by the thickness of the atmosphere and the tears that were forced out of our eyes our hosts took no notice of the smoke but rather added to it by burning cigarettes as liberally and as gracefully as any dude from america they formed a ring round the fire and smoked and chatted while the lady of the house prepared their supper which consisted of boiled rice this was passed round to the various members of the family all dipping with their hands thus facilitating the dish washing to a great extent when everyone had eaten his share the lady of the house scraped the pot with her hands and hung it up for future use As soon as supper was over a couple of our hosts came up to us and a friendly conversation took place we were informed that the reason why the inhabitants had fled from us on our first appearance in the village was that they took us to be turkish officers who had come to gather taxes or something else and they were always on the ilu underground when government officials came there it seems that the government is very much dreaded and yet the people are loyal from religious motives at least indeed it is doubtful whether any other government on earth could have the influence with their people that the turkish government still has we were also informed that the people here to a certain extent believe in polygamy but that very few could indulge in the luxury because said they a nice girl here is too dear nobody N 0 bod can ghys afford to buy more than one on e why whys you cannot get a nice girl in this place for less than plasters pi asters quite a fortune here thus we chatted away a couple of hours and finally rolled ourselves up in our blankets for the night we all slept in the same room that night our little company of travelers including our ur guides the inhabitants of the bouse old and young three horses and our donkey not to mention the myriads of fleas which did not sleep at all yet we felt to thank god for having baving preserved us on our journey so far and for the humble shelter we ha had found in this strange far away country the name of the village is next day we were up before the sun and in our saddles slowly our horses carriel us over the wretched road the first noteworthy place we passed was betin the ancient bethel that is the house of god it is now nothing but a poor village we also rode through Rama mallah Ra a neat little town where we stopped for a few minutes later we passed et tul where a few ruins still testify to its former greatness according to robinson this is the ancient gibba benjamin known in scripture history for the fearful crime committed against a woman which resulted in the almost total destruction of the tribe of benjamin see judges judge chapters 19 and 20 subsequently we rode over to scopus where once titus with his legions camped and an about two pm we entered jerusalem through the damascus gate our journey is thular completed in jerusalem a highly needed rest must be indulged io in there is much here to be awen seen and learnt when the mind is open and the heart is willing to profit by the experiences of life I 1 hope to be able to describe jerusalem fn an my next J M 8 |