fear, because He had already conquered it.
How calm and gentle was the voice with which He wakened His disciples,
how firm the step with which He went to meet Judas! The bitterness of
death was behind Him in the shadow of the olive-trees. The peace of
Heaven shone above Him in the silent stars.

_A PSALM OF SURRENDER_

_Mine enemies have prevailed against me, O God:
Thou hast led me deep into their ambush._

_They surround me with a hedge of spears:
And the sword in my hand is broken._

_My friends also have forsaken my side:
From a safe place they look upon me with pity._

_My heart is like water poured upon the ground:
I have come alone to the place of surrender._

_To thee, to thee only will I give up my sword:
The sword which was broken in thy service._

_Thou hast required me to suffer for thy cause:
By my defeat thy will is victorious._

_O my King show me thy face shining in the dark:
While I drink the loving-cup of death to thy glory._

V

AN EXCURSION TO BETHLEHEM AND HEBRON

I

BETHLEHEM

A sparkling morning followed a showery night, and all the little red and
white and yellow flowers were lifting glad faces to the sun as we took
the highroad to Bethlehem. Leaving the Jaffa Gate on the left, we
crossed the head of the deep Valley of Hinnom, below the dirty Pool of
the Sultan, and rode up the hill on the opposite side of the vale.

There was much rubbish and filth around us, and the sight of the
Ophthalmic Hospital of the English Knights of Saint John, standing in
the beauty of cleanness and order beside the road, did our eyes good.
Blindness is one of the common afflictions of the people of Palestine.
Neglect and ignorance and dirt and the plague of crawling flies spread
the germs of disease from eye to eye, and the people submit to it with
pathetic and irritating fatalism. It is hard to persuade these poor
souls that the will of Allah or Jehovah in this matter ought not to be
accepted until after it has been questioned. But the light of true and
humane religion is spreading a little. We rejoiced to see the
reception-room of the hospital filled with all sorts and conditions of
men, women and children waiting for the good physicians who save and
restore sight in the name of Jesus.

To the right, a little below us, lay the ugly railway station; before
us, rising gently southward, extended the elevated Plain of Rephaim
where Da