Jonas king
PRIEST. The Mussulmans are the children of Abra ham. " I. Are all the nations of the world blessed by them ? "PRIEST
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| PRIEST. The Mussulmans are the children of Abra ham.
" I. Are all the nations of the world blessed by them ? "PRIEST. The blessing is with us Samaritans. "I. Is this then the fulfilment of God's promise, `I will multiply thee'? Here you are, pined away to the number of two hundred, without a temple. No, the prom- ise is spiritual, and is fulfilling, and will be fulfilled : all the nations of the earth shall turn unto the Lord, and shall believe in Jesus Christ, and the seed of Abraham shall be like the stars of heaven for number, and as the sands upon the seashore, and I hope that you will be of that spiritual seed also. " While I thus spoke he listened very attentively. Be fore leaving, I asked if he would permit me to see his manuscript of the Torah. He replied, `Yes,' and asked how much I would give ? I offered him two piastres. He then said the key to the synagogue, where the book was, was not with him. "I answered, ' I know where the key is, sir ; it is in my purse.' At this he smiled and said, ` Yes.' " Afterwards showing this man a dollar, the roll was brought out and opened. He said it was 3,448 years old, and was written by the grandson of Aaron. IIe did not say a word against my touching it. I asked him to read the ten commandments of the Law, which he did from
" The commandments were comprised in four sections. The Samaritan differs from the Hebrew in character, and in pronunciation. The priest charged the Jews with having changed the letters of the Hebrew language, and added to the word of God. Before closing the book, the priest remarked to me, ' You will now receive a blessing, on account of having seen this book.'" On a shelf near the altar in the small neat synagogue, Dr. King saw many books written in Samaritan, but was not disposed to pay $2 oo for one of them. He went with the priest to his house, from which was a fine view of the Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. The priest seemed really impressed, when Dr. King on leaving committed him to the care of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ. The tomb of Joseph was shown here, also the well of Jacob, now partly filled with stones and earth. On Wed nesday the missionaries received a most cordial welcome from Mr. Fisk at the Convent of the Archangel at Jeru salem. The expense from Bcyrout, including servants, was thirty-four dollars. Dr. King's second stay in Jerusalem was a short one. He still felt that in order to learn the Arabic quickly, he must be alone among the Arabs, entirely surrounded by them. For this reason, after visiting the sacred locali ties with the new comer, Mr. Bird, and celebrating with MT. LEBANON AND THE SAMARITANS. 159 him and Mr Fisk, the Lord's Supper and the Monthly Concert as before in an upper chamber. he resolutely left his friends for Jaffa. On the way at Ramleh, a very venerable Arab, blind, and reminding one of Joseph of Arimathea, spoke highly of the word of God, and encouraged his countrymen to buy it. The Arabic Bible circulated by Dr. King was a great improvement upon the one formerly used, which was full of errors, so that the Roman-catholics had indeed reason to complain of it ; but it was far inferior to the more re cent translation made by Drs. Eli Smith and Van Dyke. 16o JONAS KING. CHAPTER XI. LIFE IN PALESTINE CONTINUED. Jaffa—Discussion with Mussulmans and Catholics—The Iioran Oriental Dress—Return to Beyrout—Damascus—Aleppo Antioch—Armenian Creed—Tyre—Third Visit to Jerusalem—Letters written from Calvary—Journey towards Home—Asaad El Shidiak, the Martyr of Lebanon—Farewell Letters. Da. KING decided to remain for a time at Jaffa, and engaged a teacher there at $4 a month, who, speaking of the Koran, said it was the root of all knowledge, the sum of perfection of all wisdom ; and that, in order to know Arabic well, one must read it sixty times. Mere human reason everywhere, east or west, among the Arabs of Syria, the Brahmins of India, or the trans cendentalists of nominal Christianity, asserts itself, as re gards the " mystery of godliness," in about the same terms. One clay Sheikh Khalil said to Dr. King, " I am willing you should love Jesus Christ. I love him more than all things in this world, more than my own life. All I wish is that you should say he is the servant of God, and not say God was in him, and he in God; and that they are one." Dr. King replied, " O Sheikh, I have no hope of salvation but by the blood of Jesus Christ. He is God. He is my all." Dr. King said further of this man, "He is very zealous in his endeavors to convert me to the Mussulman faith ; says I am an infidel, in danger LIFE IN PALESTINE CONTINUED. 161 of everlasting flames unless I give up the divinity of Christ. By the grace of a crucified Redeemer, I hope to be faithful to this deluded soul. My feelings are so shocked sometimes at hearing Gabriel called the Holy Spirit, and the name of the false prophet exalted above that of Jesus Christ, that I would gladly lay aside the Koran, and never read in it again, did I not think it my duty so to do, in order to enable me to be more useful." Sheikh Khalil afterwards begged for a whole Bible, promising never to part with it, and some time after made no comment when Dr. King spoke of the Bible as far exceeding the Koran. Still he one day asked Dr. King to pull off his shoes while reading the Koran, who satisfied him by saying that among Englishmen (Ameri cans went by that name) this was considered no mark of respect. Khalil was exasperated at the conduct of a Catholic family who had ordered a Bible to be burnt. He said, " Do not let the Christians have any more of your books. We Mussulmans will take them. If I should see that Catholic priest I would kill him." After some talk one day with a young man who be came very vociferous about general councils and saints, Dr. King says, "The common people of this country are so noisy and impudent that one has need of much grace and humility in order to converse with them in a proper manner. They come at you like a mad bull, pawing and bellowing and throwing dust around them, and one is almost tempted sometimes to knock them down with weapons that are only carnal. We need to think much 1.:
of I-Iim ' who endured the contradiction of sinners,' that we be not wearied, neither faint in our minds." A poor blind man called for books one day, which his younger brother could read to him, but soon came back saying the priests would not let him keep them. " I felt my indignation moved at this sinful act of taking away the light of heaven from one who will never more behold the light of the sun in this world." Direct discussion was had with the superior of a Cath olic convent, Terra Santa .at Jerusalem, carried on with singular boldness on the part of Dr. King, considering how much he was really in this man's power. Dr. Ping writes : " As I had seen him in Beyrout, I thought I would do him the honor to call on him. He immediately began to make remarks about my dress, and said, ` Aha ! a white turban—all Mussulman. I must write to England and let the people know you have turned Mussulman. You missionaries have come out here—two at Jerusalem, two at Beyrout, with their wives—to turn men away from the true faith, and to make discords and divisions.' " I interrupted him by saying, ` Christ said there would be divisions.' He continued, You come here and spread about your books, which are changed.' I replied, They are not changed, but are word for word according to the one printed at Rome, under the eye of the pope.'" The next objection was that the Apocrypha was omit ted, when Dr. King said, "The books composing it were not received by the early fathers of the church." " You arc excommunicated," said he, "from the church." "It
is a blessing so to be," replied Dr. King, "because the Roman-catholic church is in error, and no longer the true church." Some priests present could hardly re strain their rage. " What errors ?' said he. Answer. ' Your images, your giving pardon for money. You have wholly taken away the second commandment. Why is there so much lying and iniquity here among the people and the priests Because they have not the Word of God. If you would give the Word of God to the people yourselves, I would be glad.' " The Austrian consul, who was present, started up and said, The Roman-catholic church is the oldest in the world.' "' The Jews are before you,' said Dr. King. ' They were once the true church, but they have wandered.'" The above is but a specimen of the conversation held with.this superior, who, following Dr. King to the door, warned him to desist from speaking against their images and the worship of the holy Virgin, lest he should do him harm. To show that Dr. King's studies of Arabic were not in vain, his teacher soon affirmed that he " was now fit to read the Koran in the Mosque of Omar or in the tem ple at Mecca ;" that he read it with more propriety than Mussulmans who had been doing so for twenty years. Dr. King adds, "The beauties of the Koran consist prin cipally in the language, in the fine jingle of words which it is utterly impossible to convey through the medium of any European language. But I cannot conceive that any
man of decent morals and of good understanding, who admires thoughts rather than words, should ever leave the Bible for the Koran. This would be leaving a pure, crystal fountain, to drink out of a dirty slough ; prefer ring tinsel to gold, or husks to bread. I have often won dered how any man who had as much knowledge of the awful truths of the Bible as Mohammed seems to have had, could be so daring as to mix them with falsehoods, and swear that he had received them from the Lord of all worlds. " The Bible is as much above the Koran, with regard even to its precepts for the good order and happiness of society in this world, as the heavens are higher than the earth. One conviction produced on my mind by reading this book has been that a man, having a perfect knowl edge of the Arabic language, possessing a strong mind and fertile imagination, with the Bible in his hand and the devil in his heart, would find no great difficulty in writing the Koran." Dr. King remained at Jaffa as long as he could study there to advantage, and then returned by land to Bey-rout. Room cannot be given to his account of the jour ney, nor to a report of all the missionary work every where so persistently carried on, "in season," and often no doubt apparently "out of season." Yet one may im agine what a hearing the zealous stranger must have gained even through the very incongruity of time and place often chosen by him for religious conversation. Dr. King's eyes were very weak at this period, and he was obliged to use green glasses. •He wore the Orien-
tal costume--for according to the example given in i Cor. 9: 20, to the Arabs he became as an Arab—so that New England friends just now could scarcely have recognized him. Indeed, on one occasion he purposely quite misti fied Dr. Goodell, who had just arrived, and passing up the street, supposed the figure which he saw seated on a stone by the wayside was a genuine son of the desert, until suddenly addressed by it in unmistakable Ameri can vernacular. A long letter, sent to the Bible Society at Malta from Beyrout, reports with great particularity the sale within a short time of one hundred and seventy-five Bibles. It was a great luxury at Beyrout to find there a true home with his missionary friends. Conferences were soon held on various topics ; the first related to the spelling and pronunciation of Scripture and Mussulman names. A list of these is given, in which the name 'of their present abode appears as Beyroot, and Tripoli takes the place of Trabloos. Discussion on the subject of fasting had the practical effect of leading the missionary band to observe the first Monday of every month in this special way. The decision as to one's duty in the case of evil re ports, was to "pay little attention to them. Christ did not. Preach the gospel ; let your eyelids look right on ; commit your cause to God. If men think we are politi cal spies or agents, denying it will do no good, etc." While at Beyrout, Dr. King offered for the first time an extempore prayer in Arabic. Some of the Arabs
kneeled, and while he was praying smote on their breasts, crying out, Lord, have mercy upon us," but with what sincerity it was difficult to tell. Upon returning for a time to Deir el Kamar, the per sonal greeting received by Dr. King was very satisfac tory, but difficulties as to distributing the Bible had in creased. The Roman-catholics had held a council at Jerusalem, and had ordered the convents not to receive the missionaries. Again, complaints were repeated as to the edition of the Bible circulated, because the Apocry pha was not in it. One of the priests, Abouna Yusuf, confessed that the opposition arose from fear that the Bible would be the means of bringing out those who read it from under the pope. Dr. King allowed there was dan ger of this, as it had had this effect on his own ancestors. This priest asked Dr. King why he did not go directly to the patriarch ; who answered, " I have no time to visit all who oppose the gospel. St. Paul kept about his own business, preaching the Word." Then Dr. King went on to tell how this very patriarch had received money from England and a press from America, five years before, in order to print and circulate the Bible, but had done noth ing about it—was living on the funds and opposing the missionaries. When asked, " Why should you distribute the Bible, when an edition of it was published at Rome ?" Dr. King answered, "Yes, but at a price no poor man could pay, thus virtually excluding it from the public. Those who profess to be built on Peter should observe his directions, and take heed to the Scriptures as to a light in a dark place."
Sometimes the priests became so much excited that the noise was deafening; especially was this the case when they were told there was no rule in Scripture "for- bidding to marry," nor to abstain from meats. Again, they said that when Peter denied Christ, it was only with his mouth, not with his heart, and therefore not wrong ; and that he never dissembled, as related in Galatians, These discussions were not useless. Sometimes a priest would say, "Sir, you are right. I think as you do. Go; you are right." Sometimes the talk was with or about the dervishes. These men pretended to great self-abnegation, while in reality their lives were thoroughly wicked and im pure. When Dr. King visited Damascus he found it neces sary to make some concession to Mussulman prejudice by not wearing his white turban nor riding into the city; but he refused to dismount until absolutely compelled to do so. Some of the smaller trials of life were here ex- ceedingly numerous. Sleep sometimes could be secured only towards morning, and then in the open air, exposing one to cold and hoarseness. Much kindness was shown to Dr. King and the friends with him by Hakeem (Dr.) Solomon. He told them that in Damascus there were about twelve thou sand nominal Christians. Whatever may have been the purity of the Abana and Pharpar in the days of Naaman, in May, 1824, their waters were muddy and unwhole some. About this time the superior of a Greek Catholic
convent, meeting Dr. King, said the discovery of America had been a great injury to the cause of religion, because the Indians were not men, not children of Adam. Dr. King asked that the conversation might be in Arabic, that all present might understand ; but Abouna Saba chose to use Italian. Speaking of Protestants, he said, " You have protested against the true church." DR. KING. " No, we have protested against the errors of the church." ABOUNA SABA. "Errors in the church ? No. There are no errors in the church. Old things are certainly better than new." DR. KING. " Surely ; and for that very reason we protested against the errors of the Romish church, which were new, and returned to the ancient system, such as existed in the first ages of the church among the disci ples of Christ, and we took the gospel and the Old Tes tament for our guide, which were of old." Abouna Saba went on asking about the course in America of collegiate and theological study, and seemed surprised to hear the Bible was received as ultimate au thority. With regard to the Druses, Abouna said that he had seen some of their books, and that they in reality wor ship the light, and have the image of an ox to represent power ; that when one of them becomes of the number of those called Aakel, or Aakelin, there is an apparent change in his conduct for the better. He then leaves off smoking tobacco, swearing, and every vice, however aban doned he may have been before. This change he thought
was merely external. Very little can be known of them. They have houses for worship, but no one can enter them except Druses. The teacher whom Dr. King engaged at Damascus to give him lessons in Arabic did so in true ancient style. His scholars were obliged literally to sit at his feet, while he sat as if lord of the world. He was a firm believer in genii, some of which he said were under his control. It was not possible for a stranger to remain in Da mascus during July and August on account of fevers, so that Dr. King could not very long avail himself of the service of the above distinguished professor, and soon left for Aleppo—just before going having an interview with a very intelligent Jew, who claimed to be a lineal descendant of David, and to whom Dr. King enlarged on the story of Saul's conversion near the ancient city where they now were. On the journey Dr. King had a talk with some well-informed Mussulmans, whom, however, it was difficult to convince that all Christians were not the idolaters which, from their personal knowledge of those so called, they believed them to be. Hooms, now written Hums, and the seat of encour aging mission work, was passed on the way. Harrah, also, the ancient pass of Hamath, with its musical water wheels, utilizing the waters of the Orontes, was a point of great interest. Here, too, were found priests who were great sticklers for the Apocrypha, while yet the mission ary, like Lot, could not but be vexed with their filthy 170 .7ONAS KING. conversation. Indeed, descriptions were given by them of deeds so unlawful, so unmentionably wicked, as proved to our traveller that he was indeed passing through some of the dark places of the earth. There seemed little hope of making impression on men so thoroughly defiled; yet to some of the early believers in Christ did the apostle say, " But such were some of you." The journey physically was a trying one, from sand and heat and burning winds; yet while thinking of rich people in Boston and elsewhere, Dr. King writes of being happy. " I would not change places with them. I would indeed be willing to change for a little time, that they might see that missionaries have something to suffer. Many of our clear friends, could they see us here to-day, would think that we could not live." When arrived at Aleppo word was received that fur ther distribution of the Bible was forbidden : copies al ready given out were to be collected and sent back to England. Dr. King writes : " I have no doubt that the Roman-catholics have caused this order." One of them afterwards acknowledged that a .communication on the subject had been sent to the headquarters of the Greek church, Constantinople. " Mr. Lesseps, the French con sul," whose son Theodore is also mentioned, " called, and in conversation said he would do all in his power to pre vent anything which could in the least tend to injure the Catholic church ; and avowed that it was according to the principles of his church not to put the Bible into the hands of the common people, and that they ought to believe according to what the priests tell them. What a LIFE IN PALESTINE CONTINUED. r71 disgrace to a man of his standing in the nineteenth cen tury i" Sept. 19, 1824. " The French consul read me a letter which he had just received from a captain of a French vessel at Alexandretta, stating that on his way from Cy prus he had fallen in with a Greek cruiser, who hailed him and ordered him to stop ; that he did so about 5 P. hr.; that the Greek cruiser told him he had many Turks on board, which he intended to massacre that night, but that he would sell them if the French captain would buy them. He bought five for fifty dollars. Twenty remain ed. While buying those five he heard some one from the Greek ship crying out in French, ' Au, nom de Dieu, achetez-moi et sauvez-moi.' The French, captain de manded if he were French. He replied, ' No, but a Jew doctor well known at Aleppo.' It must have been Lay bach. Upon this the French captain offered to buy him, but the Greek captain refused to sell, saying that he meant to kill him that night with the twenty Turks who remained. My heart was much pained at this intelli gence. Dr. Laybach had bought of me, two or three days before leaving Aleppo, the Old and New Testa ments in Hebrew and the New Testament also in French. This was about three weeks since." Antioch was the next place visited. At this birth place of the Christian name no Christian church remains. A few Greeks meet for worship in a grotto or hole in the rock. Here Dr. King learned, in regard to the late Fir-man of the Grand Seigneur, that the governor of Damas cus had sent messengers after him in the wrong direc- 172 70JVAS KING. tion, and the order soon became a dead letter. Mr. Tur ner, British chargé at Constantinople, took a firm stand, claiming that the Turkish government had no right to destroy English Bibles any more than any other kind of British property. These were dangerous times in the East. Death by poison of men of high position was not unusual. Just after that of the Reverendissimo of Jeru salem, as strongly suspected in this manner, a French marquis, a Roman-catholic, was attacked by seventy Turks, who beat him, bruised him, and carried him by night, bareheaded, to Jaffa, not for having made any re marks implying this, but for having heard them. Not far from Antioch, near Swedia, are "the ruins of a church on Mount Simeon, so called, I suppose, from Simeon the Stylite, who remained thirty-seven years on a pillar, and was the founder of that order of monks termed Stylites, or Pillar Saints. The pillar is still standing, I am told, in the midst of the ruins of the church." From Beyrout Dr. King wrote immediately, through Colonel Greaves, to the trustees of Amherst College, rec- ognizing his engagement to return to them, while he still wished to qualify himself further for his duties as their professor. As many otherwise intelligent Protestants doubt the need of sending the gospel to nominal Christians in the East, it may be well to insert here a synopsis, according to J. Agrarius, of the Armenian creed. I. Christ is the Head of the church.
15`' LIFE IN PALESTINE CONTINUED. 173 they would intercede for them with Jesus Christ and with God. 4. They pray for the dead, and receive money for doing so. They pray for those who dic in India, in Russia, in Angora, in Constantinople, and other places, and send every three years to receive the money from the friends of the deceased. This money is for the poor priests at Jerusalem. They have twelve patriarchates, over whom the grand patriarch is like a pope. They do not profess to believe in purgatory, but their prayers for the dead imply it. They baptize infants by three immersions, like the Greeks ; cross the child with oil in his face, his hands, his breast, his eyes, and his ears, then put in his mouth a little of the sacramental bread and wine and take it out again. They have secret confession ; they believe in the Real Presence, but do not take money for pardons. Dr. King writes with regard to one of the bishops, that towards the close of a conversation he seemed to comprehend what was meant by being born again and about salvation as wholly the gift of God. " I could not but be affected myself on thinking of the state of the Armenian church when I heard one of her most intelli gent bishops asking me, like a little child, about some of the first and plainest doctrines taught in the gospel. I-Ie says that the only preaching they ever have is about ab staining from certain kinds of food on fast-days : ` Oh, my brethren, if you eat such and such things on such a day you will go to hell.' "
January, 1825, found our missionary studying at Tyre. Here he became acquainted with an old Greek priest named Antinous, one of the few who escaped the terrible massacre at Scio, from which a few Greek boys were also preserved and sent to America for education, one of whom, Dr. Alexander George Paspati, is well known at Constantinople. It was common at this time for the Turks to go beg ging food from the Greeks, and then to ask pay for the use of their own teeth in chewing it. Dr. King again attempted to establish a school for girls, but the priests and people said, " Women have small minds. If taught to read, they would be devils." Some young men said that they would put away their espoused wives, if taught to read. Reports that the missionaries bought converts, and took portraits of them to be shot at in case of retraction, and that this would cause death and earthquake, interfered with efforts made for the instruction of even the boys. Yet bright spots often cheered Dr. King's heart ; as when, after a long talk, an Arab sheikh kneeled in prayer, and again when a warm welcome greeted him from some Greek priests upon his return to Jerusalem. Here the influences of the place, ever fresh, led to a season of self-examination, during which D~, King writes most bitter things against himself, acknowl edging that every good thing in him was a gift from above, and writes : " Here, on Calvary, and at the foot of Thy cross, I wholly discard all right and title to merit or favor in Thy sight, by anything I ever have done, or ever
can do." These heart-searchings seem to have led him on to more absolute dependence on our Lord, and conse cration to his service. Scenes connected with the taking of Jerusalem un der Titus were forcibly recalled, as the day arrived, when the pasha of Damascus, with two or three thou sand soldiers, made his yearly claim for tribute. Mus sulmans and Christians all fled from the villages on his approach. On March 31, 1825, the theatrical representations of our Saviour's crucifixion led the missionary to protest more strongly than ever against the errors of that reli gion which for popular effect turned the most sublime events of time into absurdity. A bright sunbeam came now from Egypt, a letter from Mr. John Glidden, telling of his own and his wife's conversion by the influence of Dr. King and his fellow-laborers, together with the bereavement of a dear child. Sunday, January 3, Dr. King was privileged to preach on Calvary, from the specially appropriate text, "And when they were come to the place which is called Cal vary, there they crucified Him," the first Protestant ser mon probably ever delivered there in the current lan guage of the country. The next day, the Monthly Concert was observed for the third time in this sacred spot. This, however, was not done without enduring some "contradiction of sinners," one of the Turks du ring the closing hymn even striking Mr. Fisk with his gun ; and at the convent of the Terra Santa, it was not safe to accept even a cup of coffee, for fear of its con-
taining poison. The Jews also suffered greatly. Rabbi Mendel and forty others were bound with chains on their necks and legs, until some exorbitant demand was paid. Jerusalem was just now literally in tears, as described by Jeremiah, the oppression of the modern Benhadad, Mustapha Pasha, was so crushing. The superior of one convent received five hundred blows on his feet, in order to make him give up treasures concealed under his care. Forty men were employed to beat him. After this he was left bareheaded on the ground, without any sus tenance but water, for three days and three nights, with a rope about his neck. Dr. King, knowing the interest that would be attach ed at that time to letters penned upon Mount Calvary, took especial pains to write to friends at home, and in Europe, thus strengthening greatly their missionary zeal, as well as their personal interest in himself. Among other things, he writes that he accounts for the extra wickedness of the people living near the sacred places in Syria, from the fact that they depend on these places, and not on Christ himself. Also that he becomes more and more convinced that the same divine Spirit is re quired to renew the hearts of men everywhere, whether among Greeks, `° Cretes and Arabians," Americans or Englishmen. He also gives his plans for the immediate future, as the three years he had engaged to spend in these Oriental lands had about expired, which plans were to visit, before returning to America, some parts of Europe, everywhere preaching the gospel. To a former classmate, Rev. Orville Dewey, who had
subsided into Unitarianism, after referring to early asso ciations, and to fears long ago that his friend was in clined to speak " smooth things," Dr. King writes : " Judge then of my surprise, when I learned that you were doubting of the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is the author and finisher of the Chris tian's hope, the alpha and omega of all things, the root and the offspring of David, the creator of the heavens and the earth, the brightness of the glory of the invisi ble God, the judge of the quick and the dead, the adora tion of the angelic hosts, and the everlasting song of the redeemed in heaven. " I said, ' this is only a temporary falling away; like Peter, be will presently weep bitterly ! The great Shep herd will yet bring him back to his fold, and not suffer him to wander and perish.' But I hear that after so long a time you are still in doubt, or rather that you have entirely cast off your first faith as it respects Jesus Christ. You perhaps say that you still trust in him, al though he be but a man. But remember that it is writ ten, ' Cursed be he that trusteth in man, or maketh flesh his arm.' You will say, perhaps, that he is super-angelic. Be it so. But if he be not the everlasting God, you make him a liar, for he has said, ' He that hath seen me, bath seen the Father.' I will not here attempt, as it would probably be in vain, after all your advantages of study and research in theological subjects, to adduce proof of the Divinity, I mean the Godhead of Christ. With you, I deem it not so much the work of reason, but of the heart, to bring you back to the sinner's only hope.
" This from your friend and servant on Calvary, who knows and feels and acknowledges himself to be one of the greatest of sinners, and whose only hope is in that precious blood which was here shed for the redemption of man." May 9, 1825, Dr. King turned his face homeward, leaving Jerusalem with some difficulty, on account of po litical troubles there. The journey was not made in a Pullman palace-car. One day, dry thistles and onions were the only food procurable. The same night the tents were attacked by robbers, who got off with a trunk belonging to the Englishman, Rev. Mr.- Lewis, around which three men were sleeping. Attempts to regain this trunk led to difficulties with the Arabs, who soon after attacked the travellers with swords and clubs, and yelling like so many furies, riding upon their swift horses as they rushed upon the tents. Dr. King had heard the alarm, and galloped forward, but a sheikh came fly ing after him, and he called out, "Brother, do me no harm, I have not injured you." The Arab let down his sword. It seems that he had heard that Dr. King was a great man, travelling with a firman from Abdallah Pasha. No wonder the Journal of this day is full of praise. " He delivered me from my strong enemy." No lives were lost on this occasion. The way now led through Cana of Galilee, to the Sea of Galilee, descriptions of which have now become famil iar. A church at Tiberias was built in form of a boat, in memory of St. Peter's boat. The priest said that un der the altar was the stone on which St. Peter was when LIFE IN PALESTINE CONTINUED. 179 the Lord said, " On this rock will I build my church." The people " were all praying with united vociferation, beating their heads, jumping, weeping, stretching up their hands towards heaven, as if to pull down mercies thence, then suddenly bowing and crying aloud in the most lamentable tones of voice; clasping their heads with both hands, sobbing and smiting their breasts, reel ing to and fro, and in various ways making violent exer tion. Poor Jews ! the veil is still upon their hearts ! I longed to tell them of Jesus Christ, and call on them to believe in him whom their fathers crucified." Passing through Safed and Tyre, Dr. King came again to Beyrout, and says : " The more I see of Palestine, the more I see that it is a goodly land, and capable of sus taining an immense population." Letters here from his aged parents greatly cheered his heart, telling as they did of the faithful kindness of his friend and their son, S. V. S. Wilder, who had well redeemed the pledge made by him in Paris nearly three years before. There were letters also from Mr. Wilder and Dr. Heman I-iumphrey, president of Amherst College, expressing willingness to have their professor of Oriental Literature remain away still longer, if thus better able to promote the cause of Christ; while yet they felt that his presence would be of essential help in making Amherst College what Dr. Humphrey writes it would be, `and must be, one of the first colleges in New England.' " Simple incidents alone of the homeward journey can be given. At Beyrout he was not satisfied to rest in the enjoyment of the society of his friends, the American iSo .70-1;1S KING. missionaries, but sought to acquaint himself still more fully with the customs of the Turks, having in all an eye to the great object of his life; and he began also to write a grammar in Syriac. His teacher, the priest Asaad el Shidiak, afterwards better known as the Martyr of Leb anon, now appears on the scene, and is soon forbidden by one who signs himself, Aug. Yüklə 0,75 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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