omination to him. All his enthusiasm was for the other side. He was
for Oriental conservatism in all its forms. He was for preserving every
survival of ancient custom. He told of the delight with which he watched
the laborious efforts of the peasants ploughing with a forked stick. He
believed that there had not been a single improvement in agriculture
since the days of Abraham.

The economic condition of the people had not changed for the better
since patriarchal times, and one could still have a good idea of a
famine such as sent the brothers of Joseph down into Egypt. Turkish
misgovernment furnished him with a much clearer idea of the publicans,
and the hatred they aroused in the minds of the people, than he had ever
hoped to obtain. In fact, one could hardly appreciate the term
"publicans and sinners" without seeing the Oriental tax-gatherers. He
was very fortunate in being able to visit several villages which had
been impoverished by their exactions. The rate of wages throws much
light on the Sunday-School lessons. A penny a day does not seem such an
insufficient minimum wage to a traveler, as it does to a stay-at-home
person. On going down from Jerusalem to Jericho he fell among thieves,
or at least among a group of thievish-looking Bedouins who gave him a
new appreciation of the parable of the Samaritan. It was a wonderful
experience. And he found that the animosity between the Jews and the
Samaritans had not abated. To be sure, there are very few Samaritans
left, and those few are thoroughly despised.

The good-roads movement has not yet invaded Palestine, and we can still
experience all the discomforts of the earlier times. Many a time when he
took his life in his hands and wandered across the Judaean hills, my
friend repeated to himself the text, "In the days of Shamgar the son of
Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the people
walked through by-ways."

To most people Shamgar is a mere name. But after you have walked for
hours over those rocky by-ways, never knowing at what moment you may be
attacked by a treacherous robber, you know how Shamgar felt. He becomes
a real person. You are carried back into the days when "there was no
king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes."

The railway between Joppa and Jerusalem is to be regretted, but
fortunately it is a small affair. There are rumors of commercial
enterprises which, if successful, would change the appe