the sacred dust of Abraham and Sarah. The dew of Hermon has wet the banners of all nations, from Nebuchadnezzar to Napoleon. Nazareth, Bethlehem, Zion, Jehoshaphat, Olives, and Calvary, remain as really as do Rome or London. The dark road to Jericho is dark and perilous still. The shepherd can be seen on the hillside, in garb and appearance like the sons of Jacob, leading his sheep, who know his voice and follow him. Women go out to the well to draw water for the noon-tide meal, and will, if asked, give the weary traveler at the well-curb to drink from the pitcher. The ox treadeth out the grain. On the house-top the family assemble. Men in the morning take up their bed and walk. The pitcher at the fountain is often broken, and the bowl at the cistern is destroyed. In the earlier time, God held the land of Zion sacred to worship. It has been bound up with the great and endearing events of life. It is loved and honored, and holds the tears, and prayers, and hopes, of the best part of our race. the changes, revolutions, convulsions of the earth that are to come, in the overthrow of dynasties, and the rise and fall of kingdoms, the march of freedom, truth, humanity, and the Kingdom of God, with the dawning of the millennium and the subjugation of the earth to Christ, the calling of the Redeemer blessed, this portion of the world will have much to do. In "Dear to the exile is the soil That reared Jehovah's vine; Land of the Patriarchs, he recalls And hope still guides his thoughts afar⚫ It tells to all who roam, That He who rode the cloudy car Will guide His people home." II.-CALVARY IDENTIFIED. Calvary's mournful mountain climb, Thus adoring at His feet, Mark that miracle of time, God's own Sacrifice complete: "It is finished," hear Him cry; Learn of Jesus Christ to die. It would require a miracle to blot out the site on which the Redeemer died for man. Calvary, for many centuries, has been fragrant with precious memories to God's people. The Lord had done marvelous things for them, and the covenant made with their fathers grouped many of its most hallowed features around this summit. It was the custom of the children of Abraham, in their better days, to mark the location of God's visitation to them. National gratitude and religious faith bade them stud the highway of their pilgrimage with memorials of his presFrom Canaan to Egypt, and from Egypt to Canaan, a few hundred miles, covered all their journeyings. From sire to son, the sacred localities would be handed down with pious exactness. The Jews of this generation hold in reverence and buy the privilege of wailing near the old foundation-stones on which Solomon's temple once stood. ence. So in all ages we find the Jew hovering over the site of his ancient greatness, marking with intense fervor places celebrated in the history of his race. To such a people, sacred localities would neither be lost nor unknown. No matter how long the time between Abel's sacrifice and the offerings of Isaac on this Mount; nor how desolate or uninhabited might be Moriah or Calvary, it is God that points out the sacred spot, and commands and guides his servant where to make the great offering. The foundations of Jerusalem herself, her brazen gates, massive walls, and altars of daily sacrifice, were not better known in the days of John the Baptist, than was Moriah, the Mount of Vision, from the hour of Adam's morning song, to the present. As students of the Bible, we know little of the Holy Land and of the localities of sacred story. The Bible was written amid the scenery, the social and kingly customs, the arts and trades, and among the people who dwelt in or near Palestine. Few readers of the Bible have any clear idea of the geography of sacred events. Dim, misty, and far-off to the popular mind, is the theatre of those stupendous transactions that compose the historic parts of the Word of God. The homes where lived and wrote those holy men, who spoke by the Holy Ghost, are to us as mythical as the dreams of childhood. The location of the great things God did among men is hidden from the common eye as is the tomb of Moses. The long procession of genera-. tions has trampled them out of sight. We do not study sacred, as we do profane history. With the map before us, we do not follow the march of God's people as we do the march of armies. Their encampments are not studied as we study great battles. Did we do so, we should find that sacred localities have been preserved with an accuracy almost as exact as sacred history itself. Crowded into a circuit of about fifty miles from the summit of Calvary, transpired nearly all the marked events of sacred history. Standing on the Mount of Olives, near the site where the Redeemer wept over the doomed Capital of David, the eye takes in the locality of nearly all the events, from Eden to the preaching fields of John, the mountains and vales, the seas and towns, celebrated in sacred story and in song. Calvary and Moriah stand before us, so near that we could hail the priest that offers sacrifice near the site where Abraham offered Isaac. Standing on that spot, we could have heard the death-cry of Abel as he fell beneath the fatal blow. The Mountain of Corruption and the accursed vale of Hinnom are near. Carmel rises in great beauty, bathing its feet in the blue Mediterranean. The hills of Nazareth, backed by the mountains of Samaria, are plainly seen. Hermon, with its dew still descending; Tabor, where Deborah fought, and Moses and Elias talked with Christ; Sychar, the tent-home of Jacob, whence Joseph went forth to a prison and a throne, and where, foot-sore and weary, the seed of Jacob, in later times, asked water from the well of his fathers. We can see the spot where Abraham pitched his tent, when he "departed out of Haran, having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east." Hebron is within our range, where the ashes of Sarah and Abraham repose, now celebrated as the birthplace of John, the forerunner of our Lord. The sea of Sodom is in view, whose sullen waters pay no tribute to the |
