d upon the declining sun.
'The path to the right leads to Bethany.' The force of association
brought back the last words that he had heard from a human voice.
And can he sleep without seeing Bethany? He mounts the path. What a
landscape surrounds him as he moves! What need for nature to be fair
in a scene like this, where not a spot is visible that is not heroic
or sacred, consecrated or memorable; not a rock that is not the cave of
prophets; not a valley that is not the valley of heaven-anointed kings;
not a mountain that is not the mountain of God!
Before him is a living, a yet breathing and existing city, which
Assyrian monarchs came down to besiege, which the chariots of Pharaohs
encompassed, which Roman Emperors have personally assailed, for which
Saladin and Coeur de Lion, the desert and Christendom, Asia and Europe,
struggled in rival chivalry; a city which Mahomet sighed to rule, and
over which the Creator alike of Assyrian kings and Egyptian Pharaohs and
Roman Caesars, the Framer alike of the desert and of Christendom, poured
forth the full effusion of His divinely human sorrow.
What need of cascade and of cataract, the deep green turf, the foliage
of the fairest trees, the impenetrable forest, the abounding river,
mountains of glaciered crest, the voice of birds, the bounding forms of
beauteous animals; all sights and sounds of material loveliness that
might become the delicate ruins of some archaic theatre, or the
lingering fanes of some forgotten faith? They would not be observed as
the eye seized on Sion and Calvary; the gates of Bethlehem and Damascus;
the hill of Titus; the Mosque of Mahomet and the tomb of Christ. The
view of Jerusalem is the history of the world; it is more, it is the
history of earth and of heaven.
The path winding round the southern side of the Mount of Olives at
length brought Tancred in sight of a secluded village, situate among the
hills on a sunny slope, and shut out from all objects excepting the
wide landscape which immediately faced it; the first glimpse of Arabia
through the ravines of the Judaean hills; the rapid Jordan quitting its
green and happy valley for the bitter waters of Asphaltites, and, in the
extreme distance, the blue mountains of Moab.
Ere he turned his reluctant steps towards the city, he was attracted by
a garden, which issued, as it were, from a gorge in the hills, so that
its limit was not perceptible, and then spread over a considerable
space, com
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