these same causes occasioned its successive restorations, which exceed, probably, those of any other city in Palestine, except Jerusalem. First, although the actual site of Jericho long lay desolate, yet Gilgal, the scene of their first encampment, not two miles distant, which enjoyed the same general advantages of the shade and the streams of the noble forest, became the first regular settlement of Israel. The ground of Gilgal was the first that was pronounced "holy." ""* On its hill, during the long wars in the interior of Palestine, the Tabernacle remained, till it found its resting-place in Shiloh.† And in those sacred groves were celebrated, in later times, the solemn assemblies of Samuel and of Saul, and of David on his return from exile.§ But Jericho itself, in the reign of Ahab,|| if not before, rose from its ruins. A school of prophets T gathered round the spot almost immediately, and in the glimpses of their history we catch the same natural features with which the story of the first siege has already made us familiar. Elijah and Elisha came to it from Bethel.** From Jericho, "they two went on" to the banks of the Jordan, whilst the sons of the prophets stood on the upper terraces, "afar off;" and there, nearly at the same spot where Moses had vanished from the eyes of his countrymen, Elijah also was withdrawn,carried away, as the prophets imagined, to "one of the mountains,"* into which they knew he had retired -carried up, as the Bible teaches us, "by a whirlwind into Heaven." Elisha was left on the spot alone, but it was his natural home. He was himself a native of one of those rich plots of meadow ground which are found in the upper stages of the Jordan valley. At AbelMeholah,† he was first seen on his way from the southern desert of Sinai to the northern desert of Damascus. At Gilgal was his frequent abode. The spring whose "waters" he "healed," is probably that which now bears his name. He, too, went up the ascent through the pass to Bethel, where, in the forest now destroyed, lurked the two she-bears.§ Naaman, at his command, "went down" to the Jordan, murmuring at the contrast of its troubled "waters' with the clear " rivers of his native Damascus. Into the thicket on the banks of the river, the sons of the prophets descended to cut boughs for their huts, and "as one was felling a beam" from the branches which overhung the stream, "the axe-head fell into the water." T It was through Jericho that our Lord passed on his final journey to Jerusalem; passed along the road beside which stood the sycamore tree; ** went up into the wild dreary mountain; caught from the summit of the pass the first glimpse of the line of * 2 Kings ii. 16. +1 Kings xix. 16, 17; Judges § 2 Kings ii. 23, 24. 2 Kings v. 12, 14. trees and houses on the summit of Olivet; and s went His way through the long ascent, the scene His own parable of the Good Samaritan, till H reached the friendly home perched aloft on th mountain side, the village of Bethany. Was this wilderness of His last approach-so w naturally ask-the same as that which witnessed Hi earliest trials? Was the reach of the Jordan, whic Joshua and Elisha crossed, the same as that whic was consecrated by His first entrance into His publi ministry? It is difficult to determine. But th narrative seems to point to a locality further nort than the scene which tradition has selected. "I the wilderness of Judæa,"* "In all the country abou Jordan," are the general expressions of the thre first Evangelists, which would apply to the whol of the southern valley of the Jordan. St. John however, adds, "in Beth-abarat beyond Jordan," which seems to confine "the wilderness," generally to the eastern bank, and the special locality to the more northern ford, near Succoth, the same by which Jacob had crossed from Mahanaim, by which the Midianites endeavoured to escape in thei flight from Gideon, and where Jephthah slew the Ephraimites. And on a later occasion John is described as baptising in Enon (the springs') "near to Salim,"§ which would probably be the same "Salem" as that near Shechem,-close to the passage of the Jordan near Succoth, and far away from that near Jericho. If this be so, the scenery of the exact spot of John's baptism, though visited by two or three travellers, has never been described. This is, perhaps, of less importance, because the images, and even associations of the whole valley are so much alike, that what applies to one spot must, more or less, apply to all. The "wilderness" of the desert-plain has never been inhabited except for the purposes of seclusion by a few retired sects or solitary hermits. Wide as was the spiritual difference between them and the two great prophets of the Jordan wilderness, yet it is important to bear in mind the outward likeness which accompanies this inward contrast. Travellers know well the startling appearance of the savage figures, who still haunt the solitary places of the East, with a "cloak,"-the usual striped Bedouin blanket-woven of camel's hair, thrown over the shoulders, and tied in front on the breast; naked, except at the waist, round which is a girdle of skin; the hair flowing loose about the head." This was precisely the description of Elijah, whose last appearance had been on this very wilderness, before he finally vanished from the eyes of his disciple. This, too, was the aspect of his great representative, when he came, in the same place, dwelling, like the sons of the prophets, in a leafy covert woven of the branches of the Jordan forest,* preaching, in * 2 Kings vi. 2. |