there are multitudes kneeling in the silence of the spirit:
They are kneeling at the unseen altar of the lowly heart._

_Here is plentiful forgiveness for the souls that are forgiving:
And the joy of life is given unto all who long to give._

_Here a Father's hand upholdeth all who bear each other's burdens:
And the benediction falleth upon all who pray in love._

_Surely this is the altar where the penitent find pardon:
And the priest who hath blessed it forever is the Holy One of God._

VII

JERICHO AND JORDAN

I

"GOING DOWN TO JERICHO"

In the memory of every visitor to Jerusalem the excursion to Jericho is
a vivid point. For this is the one trip which everybody makes, and it is
a convention of the route to regard it as a perilous and exciting
adventure. Perhaps it is partly this flavour of a not-too-dangerous
danger, this shivering charm of a hazard to be taken without too much
risk, that attracts the average tourist, prudently romantic, to make the
journey to the lowest inhabited town in the world.

Jericho has always had an ill name. Weak walls, weak hearts, weak morals
were its early marks. Sweltering on the rich plain of the lower Jordan,
eight hundred feet below the sea, at the entrance of the two chief
passes into the Judean highlands, it was too indolent or cowardly to
maintain its own importance. Stanley called it "the key of Palestine";
but it was only a latch which any bold invader could lift. The people
of Jericho were famous for light fingers and lively feet, great robbers
and runners-away. Joshua blotted the city out with a curse; five
centuries later Hiel the Bethelite rebuilt it with the bloody sacrifice
of his two sons. Antony gave it to Cleopatra, and Herod bought it from
her for a winter palace, where he died. Nothing fine or brave, so far as
I can remember, is written of any of its inhabitants, except the good
deed of Rahab, a harlot, and the honest conduct of Zacchaeus, a publican.
To this day, at the _tables d'hote_ of Jerusalem the name of Jericho
stirs up a little whirlwind of bad stories and warnings.

Last night we were dining with friends at one of the hotels, and the
usual topic came up for discussion. Imagine what followed.

"That Jericho road is positively frightful," says a British female
tourist in lace cap, lilac ribbons and a maroon poplin dress, "the heat
is most extr'ordinary!"

"No food fit to eat