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INTRODUCTION.

THE land where the Word-Made-Flesh dwelt among men must ever continue to be an important part of Revelation; and Palestine may be fairly regarded as the divinely prepared tablet whereupon God's messages to men have been graven in ever-living characters by the Great Publisher of Glad Tidings. That this fact invests the geography of the Holy Land with special importance, needs neither proof nor illustration. But there are other considerations which impart to it a deeper and more practical interest. It is from this land we have received that marvellous spiritual language through which we gain nearly all true religious knowledge. Here it was devised and first used, and here are found its best illustrations. To form an adequate nomenclature for the thoughts of God, and the wants of mankind, was the problem; and it would not be difficult to show that this was a matter of supreme importance, and not easily ac complished-one wholly beyond the unaided skill of man to achieve; nor could it be effected once for all, and suddenly, by any act even of Almighty power. We learn from history that it required fifteen centuries of time, and an endless array of providential arrangements, co-operating with hu man and superhuman agents and agencies, to bring this

medium of intercourse between God and man to the needed

perfection.

Numerous and complicated as were the instrumentalities employed, and extending over many generations of wonderful history, still they may be all grouped under two fundamental expedients

The selecting, training, and governing of a peculiar people; and,

The creating and preparing an appropriate home for them.

Abraham and Canaan, the Hebrew Nation and the Land of Promise, the long ongoing and outworking of the Mosaic Economy, in conjunction with the physical phenomena of their earthly Inheritance-by and through all these did the Spirit of Inspiration evolve and perfect man's religious language. Palestine, fashioned and furnished by the Creator's hand, was the arena, and the people of Israel were the actors brought upon it, and made to perform their parts by the Divine Master. When the end and aim had been reached, the language of the kingdom fully developed and matured, the King himself appeared, and the Gospel of Salvation was sent forth on its high mission of mercy among the nations. of the earth.

Like other books, the Bible has had a home, a birthplace; but, beyond all other examples, this birthplace has given form and color to its language. The underlying basis of this wonderful dialect of the kingdom of heaven is found in the land itself. But as in the resurrection "that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual," so, in the process of developing man's

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religious language, it was preceded by and grew out of the natural and the mundane. From the material and the human were evolved the spiritual and the divine. The material out of which was formed our spiritual dialect was of the earth earthy, requiring to be transformed and transfigured ere it could become a fit medium for things heavenly.

To see and to study to the best advantage this transfiguration of language, we must resort to Palestine, where it was first learned and spoken. That land, we repeat, has had an all-pervading influence upon the costume and character of the Bible. Without the former, the latter, as we now have it, could not have been produced. To ascertain this fact, and to notice by what process of analogy and of contrast the physical and the mundane came to signify and illustrate things spiritual and heavenly, may well occupy much of our attention during this pilgrimage through the Holy Land.

Let us, therefore, deal reverently with it, walk softly over those acres once trodden by the feet of patriarchs, prophets, and sacred poets, and most of all by the Son of God himself. Let us put off the soiled sandal of worldliness and sin as we enter this consecrated domain. There is design in this grouping of mountains and plains, hills and valleys, lakes and rivers, the desert and the sea, with all their vegetable and animal products, and in the marvellous and miraculous incidents and phenomena in the sacred record. These things were not the result of blind chance, were not merely natural, but beyond and above that, for we see in them the supernatural and the divine.

The Land and the Book constitute the all-perfect text of the Word of God, and can be best studied together. To

read the one by the light of the other has been the privilege of the author for more than forty years, and the governing purpose in publishing is to furnish additional facilities for this delightful study to those who have not been thus favored.

The sites and scenes described in the work were visited many times during the author's long residence in the country; and the results, so far as they bear on Biblical illustration, appear in the current narrative. The conversations are held in the open country, on horseback, by the way-side, or beneath the travellers' tent, and the reader is at liberty to regard himself as the compagnon de voyage; for, in the mind of the author, his fellow-traveller is not a mythical abstraction, whose office is merely to introduce new themes, but a real and true-hearted friend, in full sympathy with the purpose and aim of our pilgrimage through the Holy Land.

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