THE LAND AND THE BOOK; OR, BIBLICAL ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN FROM THE MANNERS AND THE HOLY LAND. Villiam ~Clure BY W. M. THOMSON, D.D., TWENTY-FIVE YEARS A MISSIONARY OF THE A.B.O.F.M. IN SYRIA AND PALESTINE. Maps, Engravings, &c. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight, by HARPER & BROTHERS, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of AUTHOR'S PREFACE. EVERY sincere attempt to illustrate the Word of God is in itself commendable. On this fundamental fact the author rests his apology for obtruding the present work upon the notice of the public. Commentaries are daily multiplying; geographies and dictionaries, researches and travels almost innumerable, lend their aid to the student of the sacred page, and it is not proposed to add another to the long list. The author does not attempt a consecutive comment on any particular book of the Bible, but selects indiscriminately from all, such passages as contain the themes he desires to eluci date. The field is ample, and it is abundantly rich in subjects for scenic and pictorial description. Whether he has succeeded in working out his own idea or not must be left for others to determine, but, if he has failed, it has not been through want of opportunity to study the originals of which his pictures are to be copies. For a quarter of a century he has resided amid the scenes and the scenery to be described, and from midday to midnight, in winter and in summer, has gazed upon them with a joyous enthusiasm that never tired. The first impressions, corrected and improved by subsequent study and examination, are now reproduced for the eye of the public and the heart of the pious. The author entertains the opinion that much has been published upon Biblical illustration which recent research has shown to be incorrect or rendered superfluous, and much, also, that does not properly belong to the subject. Erudite and curious inquiries into the life and conduct of 507 30 JAN -4 317879887 patriarchs, prophets, and kings, for example, though valuable contributions to religious knowledge, are plainly out of place in such works; and the same remark applies to extended critical and exegetical discussion. In these and many other departments of Biblical literature, the student in the heart of Germany or America, surrounded by ample libraries, is in a better situation to carry on profitable inquiries than the pilgrim in the Holy Land, however long his loiterings or extended his rambles. But it is far otherwise in respect to the scenes and the scenery of the Bible, and to the living manners and customs of the East which illustrate that blessed book. Here we need the actual observer, not the distant and secluded student. To describe these things, and such as these, one must have seen and felt them, and this the author has done through many years of various vicissitude and adventure, and whatever of life and truth may be in his pictures is due solely to this fact. Here is his appropriate field, and the limit of his promise. Where he has been he proposes to guide his reader, through that "good land" of mountain, and vale, and lake, and river-to the shepherd's tent, the peasant's hut, the hermit's cave, and palace of kings, and temple of gods-to the haunts of the living and the sepulchres of the dead-to muse on what has been, and converse with what is, and learn from all what they can teach concerning the oracles of God. A large part of these pages was actually written in the open country-on sea-shore or sacred lake, on hill-side or mountain top, under the olive, or the oak, or the shadow of a great rock: there the author lived, thought, felt, and wrote; and, no doubt, place and circumstance have given color and character to many parts of the work. He would not have it otherwise. That blessed book, at once his guide, pattern, and text, wears the same air of country life, and He who came from heaven to earth for man's redemption loved |