Chorazin—Bethsaida—Capernaum.
As the reader peruses the following graphic article, let him remember the fearful denunciations of the Saviour against these cities, as recorded in Matt. xi, 21–23. And whenever he reads those denunciations, let him remember this article. They need no other comment. Before the morning sun overtopped the hills of Bashan, I was in the saddle. A ride of three miles westward along the shore brought me to the ruins of a large town. It was encompassed by such a dense jungle of thorns, thistles, and rank weeds, that I had to employ some shepherds to open a passage for me. Clambering to the top of a shattered wall, I was able to overlook the whole site. What a scene of desolation was that! Not a house, not a wall, not a solitary pillar remains standing. Broken columns, hewn stones, sculptured slabs of marble, and great shapeless heaps of rubbish half concealed by thorns and briars, alone serve to mark the site of a great and rich city. The Arabian does not pitch his tent there, the shepherd does not feed his flock there, not a sound fell upon my ear as I stood amid those ruins, save the gentle murmur of each wave as it broke on the pebbly beach, and the mournful sighing of the summer breeze through sun-scorched branches; yet it is the place where CHORAZIN once stood. Chorazin heard, but rejected the words of mercy from the lips of its Lord, and he pronounced its doom, “Woe unto thee Chorazin!” Matt. xi, 21. After riding some three miles further along the lake, I reached a little, retired bay, with a pebbly strand, just such a place as fishermen would delight to draw up their boats and spread out their nets upon. Here were numerous fountains, several old tanks and aqueducts, great heaps of rubbish, and fields of ruin. Two Arab tents were pitched a little way up on the hill-side, but I saw no other trace there of human habitation or human life; and yet that is the site of BETHSAIDA, the city of Andrew and Peter, James and John. Upon this strand Jesus called his first disciples. Like Chorazin, this city heard and rejected his words, and, like Chorazin, it has been left desolate. “Woe unto thee Bethsaida!” A few minutes more and I reached the brow of a bluff promontory which dips into the bosom of the Lake. Before me now opened the fertile plain of Gennesaret. At my feet, beneath the western brow of the cliff, a little fountain burst from a rocky basin. A fig tree spreads its branches over it, and gives it a name, Ain-et-Tin, “the fountain of the fig.” Beside it are some massive foundations, scarcely distinguishable amid the rank weeds; and away beyond it, almost covered with thickets of thorns, briars, and gigantic thistles, I saw large heaps of ruins and rubbish. These are now all that mark the site of CAPERNAUM. Christ’s words are fulfilled: “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto Heaven, shall be brought down to hell.” Matt. xi, 23. On that day I climbed a peak which commands the lake and the Jordan valley up to the waters of Merom. The principal scene of Christ’s public labors lay around me, a region some thirty miles long by ten wide. When he had his home at Capernaum, the whole country was teeming with life and bustle and industry. No less than ten cities, with numerous villages, studded the shores of the lake and the plains and the hill-sides around. The water was all speckled with the dark boats and white sails of Galilee’s fishermen. Eager multitudes followed the footsteps of Jesus through the city streets, over the flower-strewn fields, along the pebbly beach. What a woful change has passed over the land since that time! The angel of destruction has been there. From that commanding height, through the clear, Syrian atmosphere, I was able to distinguish, by the aid of my glass, every spot in that wide region celebrated in sacred history or hallowed by sacred association. My eye swept the lake from north to south, from east to west; not a single sail, not a solitary boat was there. My eye swept the great Jordan valley, the little plains, the glens, the mountain-sides from base to summit—not a city, not a village, not a house, not a sign of settled habitation was there, except the few huts of Magdala and the shattered houses of Tiberias. A mournful, solitary silence reigned triumphant. Desolation keeps unbroken Sabbath in Galilee now. Nature has lavished on the country some of her choicest gifts, a rich soil, a genial climate; but the curse of Heaven has come upon it because of the sin of man. I saw how wondrously time had changed a prophetic sentence into a graphic reality. “I will make your cities waste saith the Lord; I will bring the land into desolation. I will scatter you among the heathen.” “Upon the land shall come up thorns and briers, yea, upon all houses of joy, in the joyous city.” “So that the generations to come of your children that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall come from a far land, shall say when they see the plagues of that land, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger?” Jer. xxvi; Isa. xxxii; Deut. xxix.—Porter’s “Cities.”