Modern Palestine by Alexander Mackenzie

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 14, 1884

Modern Palestine.

By Alexander Mackenzie

We came to Nazareth, where he [Jesus] was brought up. We rode over the hills and looked on the same fields over which he had roamed. We saw some things which he saw, and whose influence was upon him in the long years of his waiting, when among the quiet scenes of this hill-country he held communion with the nature which he had created, and with his own heart, and with the Father. We did not think that we stood where Mary's house was; or that we saw the foundation stones of Joseph's shop; or that we touched the table of stone from which Christ ate with his disciples. But we did think that we were where his Nazareth was, and among the mountains and plains in which he found delight. We could not bring him into the streets which we trod, and make him such a Nazarene as the men about us; but we did remember that here his life of purity and beauty was lived till he was ready for his work, and that among the names which have endeared him to the world is "Jesus of Nazareth."

We pitched our tents at Shechem, or Sychar, or Nablous, as they call it now. There between the mountains we rested, according to the commandment. Abraham had been there, and he whose day Abraham desired to see. Jacob had been there, and in our journeying on Monday we turned aside and rested by his well, and heard again the wondrous words which revealed God to Samaria, and the world. The glory of Samaria has departed, but the glory of his words fill the earth.

We came to Bethel, and made our camp in the dry reservoirs of the perished town. Not even the ancient name remains for the hovels which stand where Abraham built an altar, and Jacob saw a ladder reaching to the skies; where Deborah dwelt under a palm-tree, and Samuel held his annual court; where Jeroboam set up his golden calf to keep the people from straying to Jerusalem; where Elisha was mocked by the children, and was avenged by bears from out the wood. Women came to the well for water, and finding strangers there, added to their purpose a clamor for bakhshesh, while the men whom we found among the huts made their petition for tobacco.—Alex. Mackenzie.