050. Among the Bedouins
Among the Bedouins
Num_10:31 : ’93Forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness.’94
Night after night we have slept in tent in Palestine. There are large villages of Bedouins without a house, and for three thousand years the people of those places have lived in black tents, made out of dyed skins; and when the winds and storms wore out and tore loose those coverings, others of the same kind took their places. Noah lived in a tent; Abraham in a tent. Jacob pitched his tent on the mountain. Isaac pitched his tent in the valley. Lot pitched his tent toward Sodom. In a tent the woman Jael nailed Sisera, the general, to the ground, first having given him sour milk to make him soundly sleep’97that being the effect of such nutrition, as modern travelers can testify. The Syrian army in a tent. The ancient battle-shout was, ’93To your tents, O Israel!’94 Paul was a tent-maker. Indeed, Isaiah, magnificently poetic, indicates that all the human race live under a blue tent when he says that God ’93stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in;’94 and Hezekiah compared death to the striking of a tent, saying, ’93My age is removed from me as a shepherd’92s tent.’94
In our tent in Palestine tonight I hear something I never heard before and hope never to hear again. It is the voice of a hyena amid the rocks nearby. When you may have seen this monster putting his mouth between the iron bars of a menagerie, he is a captive and he gives a humiliated and suppressed cry. But yonder in the midnight on a throne of rocks he has nothing to fear, and he utters himself in a loud, resounding, terrific, almost supernatural sound, splitting up the darkness into a deeper midnight. It begins with a howl and ends with a sound something like a horse’92s whinnying. In the hyena’92s voice are defiance and strength and blood-thirstiness and crunch of broken bones and death. For the most part Palestine is clear of beasts of prey. The leopards, which Jeremiah says cannot change their spots, have all disappeared, and the lions that once were common all through this land and used by all the prophets for illustrations of cruelty and wrath, have retreated before the discharges of gunpowder, of which they have an indescribable fear. But for the most part Palestine is what it originally was. With the one exception of a wire thread reaching from Joppa to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem to Nazareth, and from Nazareth to Tiberias, and from Tiberias to Damascus, that one nerve of civilization, the telegraphic wire (for we found ourselves only a few minutes off from Brooklyn and New York while standing by Lake Galilee)’97with that one exception, Palestine is just as it always was.
Nothing surprises me so much as the permanence of everything.
A sheep or horse falls dead and, though the sky may one minute before be clear of all wings, in five minutes after, it becomes black with eagles contending for largest morsels of the defunct quadruped. Ah, now I understand the force of Christ’92s illustration when he said: ’93Wheresoever the carcase is there will the eagles be gathered together.’94 The longevity of those eagles is wonderful. They live fifty or sixty and sometimes a hundred years. That explains what David meant when he says, ’93Thy youth is renewed like the eagle’92s.’94 I saw a shepherd with the folds of his coat bent far outward and I wondered what was contained in that amplitude of apparel, and I said to the dragoman: ’93What has that shepherd got under his coat?’94 And the dragoman said: ’93It is a very young lamb he is carrying; it is too young and too weak and too cold to keep up with the flock.’94 At that moment I saw the lamb put its head out from the shepherd’92s bosom and I said: ’93There it is now, Isaiah’92s description of the tenderness of God’97’92He shall gather the lambs with his arm and carry them in his bosom.’92’93
Passing by a village home, in the Holy Land, about noon, I saw a great crowd in and around a private house, and I said to the dragoman: ’93David, what is going on there?’94 He said: ’93Somebody has recently died there, and their neighbors go in for several days after to sit down and weep with the bereaved.’94 ’93There it is,’94 I said, ’93the old Scriptural custom: ’91And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother.’92’93 Early in the morning, passing by a cemetery in the Holy Land, I saw among the graves about fifty women dressed in black, and they were crying: ’93O my child!’94 ’93O my husband!’94 ’93O my father!’94 ’93O my mother!’94 Our dragoman told us that every morning, very early for three mornings after a burial, the women go to the sepulchre, and after that every week very early for a year. As I saw this group just after daybreak, I said: ’93There it is again, the same old custom referred to in Luke, the evangelist, where he says, ’91certain women which were early at the sepulchre.’92’93
But here we found ourselves at Jacob’92s well, the most famous well in history, most distinguished for two things: because it belonged to the old patriarch after whom it was named, and for the wonderful things which Christ said, seated on this well-curb, to the Samaritan woman. We dismount from our horses in a drizzling rain, and our dragoman, climbing up to the well over the slippery stones, stumbles and frightens us all by nearly falling into it. I measured the well at the top and found it six feet from edge to edge. Some grass and weeds and thorny growths overhang it. In one place the roof is broken through. Large stones embank the wall on all sides. Our dragoman took pebbles and dropped them in, and from the time it took ere they clicked on the bottom you could tell it was deep; though not as deep as formerly, for every day travelers are applying the same test; and though in the time of Maundrell, the traveler, the well was a hundred and sixty-five feet deep, now it is only seventy-five. So great is the curiosity of the world to know about this well, that during the dry season a Captain Anderson descended into it’97at one place the sides so close he had to put his hands over his head in order to get through, and then he fainted away, and lay at the bottom of the well as though dead, until hours after when he was brought to the surface. It is not like other wells digged down to a fountain that fills it, but a reservoir to catch the falling rains; and to that Christ refers when speaking to the Samaritan woman about a spiritual supply, he said that he would, if asked, have given her ’93living water;’94 that is, water from a flowing spring in distinction from the water of that well, which was rain water.
But why did Jacob make a reservoir there when there is plenty of water all around and abundance of springs and fountains, and seemingly no need of that reservoir? Why did Jacob go to the vast expense of boring and digging a well, perhaps two hundred feet deep as first completed, when, by going a little way off, he could have water from other fountains at little or no expense? Ah, Jacob was wise. He wanted his own well. Quarrels and wars might arise with other tribes, and the supply of water might be cut off; so the shovels, and pickaxes, and boring instruments were ordered, and the well of nearly four thousand years ago was sunk through the solid rock. When Jacob thus wisely insisted on having his own well he taught us not to be unnecessarily dependent on others. Independence of business character; independence of moral character; independence of religious character. Have your own well of grace, your own well of courage, your own well of divine supply. If you are an invalid you have a right to be dependent on others. But if God has given you good health, common sense, and two eyes and two ears and two hands and two feet, he equipped you for independence of all the universe except himself. If he had meant you to be dependent on others you would have been built with a cord around your waist to tie fast to somebody else. No; you are built with common sense to fashion your own opinions, with eyes to find your own way, with ears to select your own music, with hands to fight your own battles. There is only one being in the universe whose advice you need, and that is God. Have your own well, and the Lord will fill it. Dig it, if need be, through two hundred feet of solid rock. Dig it with your pen, or dig it with your yard-stick, or dig it with your shovel, or dig it with your Bible.
In my small way I never accomplished anything for God or the Church or the world or my family or myself, except in contradiction to human advice and in obedience to divine counsel. God knows everything, and what is the use of going for advice to human beings who know so little that no one but the all-seeing God can realize how little it is. I suppose that when Jacob began to dig this well on which we were sitting that noontide, people gathered around and said: ’93What a useless expense you are going to, when rolling down from yonder Mount Gerizim, and down from yonder Mount Ebal, and out yonder in the valley is plenty of water!’94 ’93Oh,’94 replied Jacob, ’93that is all true, but suppose my neighbors should get angered against me and cut off my supply of mountain beverage, what would I do, and what would my family do, and what would my flocks and herds do? Forward! ye brigade of pickaxes and crowbars and go down into the depths of these rocks and make me independent of all except him who fills the bottles of the clouds! I must have my own well!’94
Young man, drop cigars and cigarettes and wine cups and the Sunday excursions, and build your own house and have your own wardrobe and be your own capitalist! ’93Why, I have only five hundred dollars income a year!’94 says some one. Then spend four hundred dollars of it in living and ten per cent of it, or fifty dollars, in benevolence and the other fifty in beginning to dig your own well. Or if you have a thousand dollars a year, spend eight hundred of it in living, ten per cent, or one hundred dollars, in benevolence and the remaining one hundred in beginning to dig your own well. The largest bird that ever flew through the air was hatched out of one egg and the greatest estate was brooded out of one dollar.
I suppose when Jacob began to dig this well it was a dry season, and some one comes up and says: ’93Now, Jacob, suppose you get the well fifty feet deep, or two hundred feet deep, and there should be no water to fill it, would you not feel silly? People passing along the road and looking down from Mount Gerizim or Mount Ebal, near-by, would laugh and say: ’91That is Jacob’92s well, a great hole in the rock, illustrating the man’92s folly.’92’93 Jacob replied: ’93There never has been a well in Palestine or any other country that, once thoroughly dug, was not sooner or later filled from the clouds, and this will be no exception.’94 For months after Jacob had completed the well people went by and out of respect for the deluded old man put their hand over their mouth to hide a snicker, and the well remained as dry as the bottom of a kettle that has been hanging over the fire for three hours. But one day the sun was drawing water, and the wind got around to the east, and it began to drizzle, and then great drops splashed all over the well-curb, and the heavens opened their reservoir, and the rainy season poured its floods for six weeks, and there came maidens to the well with empty pails and carried them away full, and the camels thrust their mouths into the troughs and were satisfied, and the water was in the well three feet deep, and fifty feet deep, and two hundred feet deep, and all the Bedouins of the neighborhood and all the passers-by realized that Jacob was wise in having his own well.
It is your part to dig your own well and it is God’92s part to fill it. You do your part and he will do his part. Much is said about ’93good luck,’94 but people who are industrious and self-denying almost always have good luck. You can afford to be laughed at because of your application and economy, for when you get your well dug and filled it will be your turn to laugh.
But look up from this famous well, and see two mountains and the plain between them on which was gathered the largest religious audience that ever assembled on earth, about five hundred thousand people. Mount Gerizim, about eight hundred feet high, on one side, and on the other Mount Ebal; the former called the Mount of Blessing and the latter called the Mount of Cursing. At Joshua’92s command six tribes stood on Mount Gerizim and read the blessings for keeping the law, and six tribes stood on Mount Ebal reading the curses for breaking the law, while the five hundred thousand people on the plain cried ’93Amen’94 with an emphasis that must have made the earth tremble. ’93I do not believe that,’94 says some one, ’93for those mountain tops are two miles apart, and how could a voice be heard from top to top?’94 My answer is that, while the tops are two miles apart, the bases of the mountains are only half a mile apart, and the tribes stood on the sides of the mountains, and the air is so clear and the acoustic qualities of this great natural amphitheatre so perfect that voices can be distinctly heard from mountain to mountain, as has been demonstrated by travelers fifty times in the last fifty years. Can you imagine anything more thrilling and sublime and overwhelming than what transpired on those two mountain sides, and in the plain between, when the responsive service went on, and thousands of voices on Mount Gerizim cried, ’93Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the fields, blessed shall be thy basket and thy store!’94 and then from Mount Ebal thousands of voices responded, crying: ’93Cursed be he that removeth his neighbor’92s landmark! Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way,’94 and then there rolled up from all the spaces between the mountains that one word, with which the devout of earth close their prayers and the glorified of heaven finish their doxologies: ’93Amen! Amen!’94’97that scene only to be surpassed by the times which are coming, when the churches and the academies of music and the auditoriums of earth no longer large enough to hold the worshipers of God; the parks, the mountain sides, the great natural amphitheatres of the valleys shall be filled with the outpouring populations of the earth, and mountain shall reply to mountain, as Mount Gerizim to Mount Ebal, and all the people between shall ascribe riches and honor and glory and dominion and victory to God and the Lamb, and there shall rise an ’93Amen’94 like the booming of the heavens mingling with the thunder of the seas.
On and on we ride until now we have come to Shiloh, a dead city on a hill surrounded by rocks, sheep, goats, olive gardens and vineyards. Here good Eli fell backward and broke his neck and lay dead at the news from his bad boys, Phineas and Hophni. Life is not worth living after one’92s children have turned out badly, and more fortunate was Eli, instantly expiring under such tidings, than those parents who, their children recreant and profligate, live on with broken hearts to see them going down into deeper and deeper plunge. There are fathers and mothers here today to whom death would be happy release because of their recreant sons. And if there be recreant sons here present, and your parents be far away, why not bow your head in repentance, and at the close of this service go to the telegraph office and put it on the wing of the lightning that you have turned from your evil ways? Before another twenty-four hours have passed, take your feet off the sad hearts at the old homestead. Home to thy God, O prodigal!
Many, many letters do I get saying in purport: ’93My son is in your cities; we have not heard from him for some time; we fear something is wrong; hunt him up and say a good word to him; his mother is almost crazy about him; he is a child of many prayers.’94 But how can I hunt him up unless he be in this audience? Where are you, my boy? On the main floor, or on this platform, or in these boxes, or in these great galleries? Where are you? Lift your right hand. I have a message from home. Your father is anxious about you; your mother is praying for you; your God is calling for you. Or will you wait until Eli falls back lifeless and the heart against which you lay in infancy ceases to beat? What a story to tell in eternity that you killed her! My God! avert that catastrophe!
But I turn from this Shiloh of Eli’92s sudden decease under bad news from his boys, and find close by what is called the ’93Meadow of the Feast.’94 While this ancient city was in the height of its prosperity, on this ’93Meadow of the Feast’94 there was an annual ball, where the maidens of the city, amid clapping cymbals and a blare of trumpets, danced in a glee, upon which thousands of spectators gazed. But no dance since the world stood ever broke up in such a strange way as the one the Bible describes. One night while by the light of the lamps and torches these gaieties went on, two hundred Benjamites, who had been hidden behind the rocks and among the trees, dashed upon the scene. They came not to injure or destroy, but wishing to set up households of their own, the women of their own land having been slain in battle, and by preconcerted arrangement each one of the two hundred Benjamites seized the one whom he chose for the queen of his home and carried her away to large estate and beautiful residence, for these two hundred Benjamites had inherited the wealth of a nation. As today near Shiloh we look at the ’93Meadow of the Feast,’94 where the maidens danced that night, and at the mountain gorge up which the Benjamites carried their brides, we bethink ourselves of the better land and the better times in which we live, when such scenes are an impossibility, and amid orderly groups and with prayer and benediction, and breath of orange blossoms, and the roll of the wedding march, marriage is so solemnized, and with oath recorded in heaven, two immortals start arm in arm on a journey, to last until death do them part. Upon every such marriage altar may there come the blessing of him ’93who setteth the solitary in families.’94 Side by side on the path of life, side by side in their graves, side by side in heaven!
But we must this afternoon’97our last day before reaching Nazareth’97pitch our tent on the most famous battlefield of all time’97the Plain of Esdraelon. What must have been the feelings of the Prince of Peace as he crossed it on the way from Jerusalem to Nazareth? Not a flower blooms there but has in its veins the inherited blood of flowers that drank the blood of fallen armies. Hardly a foot of the ground that has not at some time been gullied with war chariots, or trampled with the hoofs of cavalry. It is a plain reaching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan. Upon it look down the mountains of Tabor and Gilboa and Carmel. Through it rages at certain seasons the river Kishon, which swept down the armies of Sisera, the battle occurring in November when there is almost always a shower of meteors, so that ’93the stars in their courses’94 were said to have fought against Sisera. Through this plain drove Jehu, and the iron chariots of the Canaanites, scythed at the hubs of the wheels, hewing down their awful swath of death, thousands in a minute. The Syrian armies, the Turkish armies, the Egyptian armies again and again trampled it. There they career across it’97David and Joshua and Godfrey and Richard, Coeur de Lion,and Baldwin and Saladin’97a plain not only famous for the past, but famous because the Bible says the great decisive battle of the world will be fought there’97the battle of Armageddon.
To me the plain was more absorbing because of the desperate battles here and in regions around, in which the Holy Cross’97the very two pieces of wood on which Jesus was supposed to have been crucified’97was carried as a standard at the head of the Christian host. That night, closing my eyes in my tent on the Plain of Esdraelon (for there are some things we can see better with eyes shut than open), the scenes of the ancient war come before me. The twelfth century was closing, and Saladin, at the head of eighty thousand mounted troops, was crying, ’93Ho, for Jerusalem! Ho, for all Palestine!’94 and before them everything went down, but not without unparalleled resistance. In one place, one hundred and thirty Christians were surrounded by many thousands of furious Mohammedans. For one whole day the one hundred and thirty held out against these thousands. Tennyson’92s ’93Six Hundred,’94 when ’93some one had blundered,’94 were eclipsed by these one hundred and thirty fighting for the Holy Cross. They took hold of the lances which had pierced them with death-wounds and, pulling them out of their own breasts and sides, hurled them back again at the enemy. On went the fight until all but one Christian had fallen, and he, mounted on the last horse, wielded his battle-ax right and left till his horse fell under the plunge of the javelins, and the rider, making the sign of the cross toward the sky, gave up his life on the points of a score of spears.
But soon after the last battle came. History portrays it, poetry chants it, painting colors it, and all ages admire that last struggle to keep in possession the wooden cross on which Jesus was said to have expired. It was a battle in which mingled the fury of devils and the grandeur of angels. Thousands of dead Christians on this side. Thousands of dead Mohammedans on the other side. The battle was hottest close around the wooden cross upheld by the Bishop of Ptolemais, himself wounded and dying. And when the Bishop of Ptolemais dropped dead, the Bishop of Lydda seized the cross and again lifted it, carrying it onward into a wilder and fiercer fight, and sword against javelin, and battle-ax upon helmet, and piercing spear against splintering shield, horses and men tumbled into heterogeneous death. Now the wooden cross on which the armies of Christians had kept their eye begins to waver, begins to descend. It falls! and the wailing of the Christian host at its disappearance drowns the huzzah of the victorious Moslems. But that standard of the cross only seemed to fall. It rides the sky today in triumph. Five hundred million souls, the mightiest army of the ages, are following it, and where that goes they will go, across the earth and up the mighty steeps of the heavens. In the twelfth century it seemed to go down; but in the nineteenth century it is the mightiest symbol of glory and triumph, and means more than any other standard, whether inscribed with eagle or lion or bear or star or crescent. That which Saladin trampled on the Plain of Esdraelon I lift today for your marshaling. The Cross! the Cross! The foot of it planted in the earth it saves, the top of it pointing to the heavens to which it will take you, and the outstretched beam of it like outstretched arms of invitation to all nations. Kneel at its foot. Lift your eye to its victim. Swear eternal allegiance to its power. And as that mighty symbol of pain and triumph is kept before us, we will realize how insignificant are the little crosses we are called to bear, and will more cheerfully carry them.
Must Jesus bear the cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No, there’92s a cross for every one,
And there’92s a cross for me.
As I fall asleep tonight on my pillow in the tent on the Plain of Esdraelon, reaching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, the waters of the River Kishon soothing me as a lullaby, I hear the gathering of the hosts for the last battle of all the earth. And by their representatives, America is here and Europe is here and Asia is here and Africa is here and all heaven is here and all hell is here, and Apollyon on the black horse leads the armies of darkness and Jesus on the white horse leads the armies of light. And I hear the roll of the drums and the clear call of the clarions, and the thunder of the cannonades. And then I hear the wild rush as of millions of troops in retreat, and then the shout of victory from fourteen hundred million throats; and then a song, as though all the armies of earth and heaven were joining it, clapping cymbals, beating the time: ’93The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.’94
Autor: T. De Witt Talmage