| Show LETTER FROM JERUSALEM jerusalem jerew em syria may ath 1888 the road from fro m nazareth left led over abe plains of jezreel reel thence over the mountains of samania or ephraim into iral the country of benjamin where jerusalem Is located the journey amt three days and as the weather was rather adol the season being late W had a much pleasanter plea santer ride tam than WO we had expected at nazareth we hired six horses to earr carry your our party to jemm beom ai salem there being no wagon road but when the morning came for star starting tAng our man brought no other antra animal als than he showed us the evening before it turned out that he did not have the horses himself but that he was patch ing up an outfit for us of uch sah a ae could get to go 90 cheap this thin of court would make little or no difference to pa fun so long as we got good animals but we were dealing with arabs and they alier make the best of every bargain honor hon or no honor hence we got poorer baroo and strange men who were not willing to go unless they had it their own way this thio brought on a regular reg oriental scrap men mea yelled ed and jumped around and refused to take us on and the whole bargi declared at an end this they t 6 woula bring up the prices w i C 1 ready to xo 0 and go w raw thoughts thought ct but to their A Hurp ahm rUie us started up town to wo i outfit at once a brother er of makary came up aa A himself and offered himself and abon we were fixed up and we had it our way the these arabs are terrors to deal with They have no scruples scruples no honor usually it Is customary to make them give a surn sum of money as security but we did not take it he plead honesty besides being recommended but we found we needed it right enough our first day out we crossed the east end of the plain of jezreel reel near the city of jezreel reel where king ahab lived this place is in now reduced to a poor pool village called zerin the plain of reel is a beautiful rich valley very fertile and a desirable place 0 o n look at but at present it is not fit to build on asit s it Is not healthy the villagers live off in the highlands it may however lie be fixed up later on with proper drainage and trees and be made as fine a place as one could wish for the second day took us out of the possessions of issachar into the mountains where we crossed a narrow strip of land allotted to manasseh then into ephraime Ephr aims fertile mountains at once two of our party who are real egyptians felt themselves quite at f home and well they might for turning whichever way you wished the hills from top to bottom were terraced oft off and showed that at one time they had been highly cultivated and sustained a large population it was evident that much of the terrace work was very ancient probably reaching back as far as the days of thet house of israel often the prophets of god told the children of israel that their land should be cursed and laid waste for their sake tt if they kept not his commandments this was verily fulfilled the sight was waa before our eyes but we also remembered that god has said through his prophet hosea who plainly foretold them their fall that 1 I will be as the dew unto israel he shall grow as this my lily and cast forth his root as lebanon his branches shall spread and his beauty shall be as the olive tree and his smell ernell as lebanon they that dwell under his shadow shall return they shall revive as the corn and grow as the vine the scent thereof shall be at as the wine of lebanon ephraim shall aay what have I 1 to do any more with idols 1 I 1 I am like a green fir tree from me is the fruit found jeremiah also speaks of the return of ephraim to his ne sessions and how the land shall te be blessed with wheat and with oil and with ith wine we saw that if this land could be owned by an industrious and progressive people a generation would make a very great difference here the work of generations is still in existence all it needs is repair and to be planted with trees and cultivated properly ro perly we saw before us a fruitful land andi i a blessed country we saw a land that once the saints of god would when god in his wisdom would fulfill all his words we saw that thai eph balms s inheritance Is not only in america but that he has a choice little here 1 our dally prayer to is that sred may open a way whereby his israel may possess thos promised land the hills are best ov on the north or shady side the south side is also cultivated but more stony the valleys dajley we are generally narrow and but little land for grain but the hills are and even now a good many on oil of olive trees are growing in places olive trees are very slow growing twenty years are required before they do much to count on but when once started they are very long lived I 1 but when hen we say fine hills they are after all out of the conception of most of utah people not otherwise acquaint with t this country chany of th the W or mountains are great heaps of rocks ana cliffs among which a little arth may bo be found in which th husbandman plants his hl vines and tres trees tome some of course more some less coming into the north of samaria the country looks more forbidden nearer jerusalem we come in upon benjamins rocky mountains they look much worse hundreds of acres of volcanic rock thrown up in great fields with a little earth in between more than half of the surface being covered by these cliffy boulders covering often both hill and bottom 0 how uninviting this country did look yet of course even here something would grow in between the rocks when cultivated the fellahs fellars utilize every available piece of land no matter how hard or how unlikely it looked samaria is a heap of ruins nothing is left of her former glory A few lone coulmas are standing in a swale on the north side of the hill where the city stood everything points to the fact that the city was once a beautiful place the location is fine and ing among the hills now the arabs sow BOW grain in its terraces and even among the few columns yet standing where halls and theaters and court buildings once stood the arabs have found it profitable to sow grain so completely are the ruins crumbled and covered up at fabulous Na bulous the most uncivilized town of palestine we stayed with the catholics who treated us very well for a handsome buck shish the next morning we called at jacobs well where jesus preached to the samaritan woman we drank of the well and found it good water the greeks have control here and these wise monks know just where jesus sat and where the woman stood they will probably soon know how old she phe was how she was dressed and the size of her jug A great deal of humbug is told and visitors are stuffed with all sorts of tales but this much has caused us to rejoice we are on the land god promised to the house of israel we are here where the son of god and many prophets and prophetesses Prophet esses have lived and done great wonders and when we contemplate that deliverance for the barren waste is at hand and that god is about to gather a second time his chosen people to this promised land and that we have a mission looking toward the immediate fulfillment in the near future i e in this generation of these promises when one of the stakes of zion will be planted here our hearts have swelled with joy and thankfulness to fo god for his goodness T P F HINTZE |
