1951-12-15 — Page 5

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1951.

A MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU FROM

T

HERE is no lovelier place in a Midale

Enst than the appr part of the Jordan valley in the ping

11

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1!

Dur eady placz 1 know that ari, heart-breaking Fattlegend betre on

breath of his Renae, in

$112 Joses, BuyS r:f Jas, though he came from Nazareth, was always more at home in the Galiler tish

For Nazareth ing villapes

bill-town, bare, slimy, b. abrupt: but the foo! had the fail from the Wes! to the shores of Galilee, only a day's walk from Nazareth, are suave, gentle, and green the right back. for 11 gospel of

ani sun, and sand, in which there

ELTA JN yetlenese

Eik

In

season ground

CE

I sat by the lakeside at Coast an watily vil

lame with 2,000 years of i ry behind it, and

Intre

fering place a

NG mote

2 barren

than Come, a torrent cor a week of the year. a string Trackish tands for a month

for fwo, then dry banks and sandy beil.

mountain

But the great

his

t Tommy thr.ft. and is re

fore- wanderi 1g a green

His cort to bus majesty.

spart from this side is not mulike that of Skildaw, seen from Borrowdale, over Der- wentwater.

a

From Tiberias, I could see 1x - markel de taketon

1 Weih

THE LANDSCAPE

of the

CHRISTIAN STORY

Renan, in his "Life of Jesus says that Jesus, though he came from Nazareth, was always more at home in the Galilee fishing-anllages PATRICK MONKHOUSE agrees with this observation. for he says ...the foothills which fall from the west to the shores of Galilee

are suave, gentle, and green in season-the right background for a gospel of peace

The castern and the western sides of the valley The grave is all on the west- These hills fall in ern side grassy curves to the water's lge; they have shapeliness a dark crag and variety lowers over Magdala (Mary found a Magdalene's village); શ dossa. gotove of trees

Becks the Shore where Andrew and In the troph of the val

kept their ley it is green all the year

reuust. But the grass m the hill-ides hardy outlives May The winter rains be gret it in the sunnier

S201

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"

en over the water to Moun fteramma. now-capped

head and April, risingg sheulit, ver the northern fouth.. Hermon demi- Pete the taper Jordan, and

for to dest ryolly.

the summer long melting of ha zaow the river owes its perpetual flow.

Without the 9000 feet of Hermon. Jordan might be

W

litt itam!

4.1

the

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mean:

Il is a

ana

As we talked, three widdiy-clad On the west is a station of the horsemen, with carbines on their Trans-Jordan Frontier Force, shoulders trotted along

and the with the magnificent bay oppos.te band. They are part of chestral Murses,

their Part of frontler guard main equally magnificent hea.gent of

dashia W. Lamed, not by the Syrian govern- black sheep kin. ment. but by the landowner s.arlet; frein this post the car, who holds most of the land on an endless contact with the cross the river. I watched them drug-smugglers from the north. Hide away, across the marshy fat And then, as you drop into the which was once the proud elty valley. comes Rosh Pinnah self. of Bethrurdu.

the oldest, I think. of all the

rodern Jewish settlements 'Woe unto thee, Bethsaila, Palestine, more than fifty years Rail Jesus. For if the mighty ola; it has had time to weather

into werk had been done in Tyre

confrmity with its baZİ: – cun Sizon, which had been done greund, nat prospers unobtu-

in you, they hat a great while sively.

cloth and ashes." But Bethsaida

ogo reperiet, sitting in sack-

And above Bulch again, id not repent, and there is now valley becomes small net stone to show where stood.

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it

נון

the And in- timate. The river forks into four some of mle n. thin prunks. But the Banias, which as the main stream, springs ala.ost full-grown from a cave the southern stone of Heaney.

en

like the Lathkill in Derbyshire the Shannon on the Leiteing

hills and its course is comely

and various with glades of oaks

rock, and waterfalls.

There is little more of Caper- neum itself. There survives the mosaic floor and the base of the

wall of the Af Pinnah

Syran into the lake. The river here is outer

Bynagogue stop place to run desks profuse that,

perhaps where Jesus first stood forward distance, they make frontier, and leaves on its right a clear, plaris stream,

hilink which makes a premen- Thirts or forty feet across, How-to speak his mind in public: and a hazel, oni shallow gorges of vellow in the

& Roman dev ista the lake.

some fragments of This

ang through green mea towɛ. Are Leriting. A blue flower trallion,

Basilica; a square, squat house the Mount of the

Al the confluence, on the west which the Franciscans have busk In this part of the valley stand like a Canterbury bell corn. Beatitudes. (Blessed are the pode, is an Arah village--fifty or

whore Je, us to watch over these relics; and Cæsarea Philippi, petes with the daisies. A spirit-I think Jesus

tents of black Those who

two or three shepherds' hovels tave Peter his great commission who prefer in their hearts sixty dwellings, you enne closer, these long- to be poor because they do not goatskin, sometimes reinforces of stone and turf. That is all. Cupon the Rock I will build my church'). And up the course of distance effects yield to the are to be rich: not what we w with a buttress of smis or by a

Upward from Khoury's village, the intant Jordan he must have intenser volcar T the men by poor-spirited.") On the streen of matted reels

the more or ings permanent village, the valley is at and marshy, and come, The als bulls. before

few days to analer flowers-the pierc

strene going as far as Lake Feter and James and for there is water all the year. a small domed chapel, and

may ing blue of the gentians, hostel for pilgrims; it is serve

but it still looks like un cramp-ulch, which you

know sable through the chestnut of woons on the flank of: Hormon but the setter by the anvient name ment, of nomads-all Poppies in passionate scar- by Italian nuns.

the the Water of Merom: a house of the hess man of

pale. ap

and to gain the crest, sia per- llage. wonten hul. like an in.it heet of water, shigent with haps, decked with winter show, my hut, with twu rooms ant + 8

It is better on the day when the disciples this shook

as Matthew relates. Tittle thr b pope fold by the high roat, saw him, telephone laid on. His name is

which

les over the shoulder gloriusly transfigured

the And mountain-top.

по they From the chapel, a rough path Nasif Khoury. We calle! on him of the hill above Rosh Pinnah,

their reluctant etaps was walking with the lernt when you have limbed for half turmet ients

hillade Cown the Jower.

lice officer) and found him an hour or so from the lake, you southward and homeward, all The high road the hil Capernaum, aut then follows the

Jure settling aunts with beet a niti e-pard which pro- the green world of Upper Jordan

laims ca level."

smiled up to greet them. here to where the Jordan flows fishermen, Mugdala, making for

it perishes. la the nois ing, it is green and growth

its the

evening il withered and vet down But I have seen nothing like it in the spring.

wiki tulips, anemones. three L four brilliant vetches, n-phodel.

this

jite h master thera to the north. Trans Jordana further south the hills are forlorn and feature less.

di et hul as if the spilled over ints the valley

It is a green shot through The loway proze plaques. tamely to the lak. Grlach with all the calours of the was on that bank, and i do floral palette. There ar

vellow Michaelmas beyond not know where the swine great.

One cal Lurdly step from the path without trampling down

$

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with

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