Project Gutenberg's My Three Days in Gilead, by Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal

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Title: My Three Days in Gilead

Author: Elmer Ulysses Hoenshal

Posting Date: July 25, 2009 [EBook #4322]
Release Date: August, 2003
First Posted: January 5, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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My Three Days in Gilead

I love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm;
I love to walk on Jordan's banks of palm;
I love to wet my foot in Herman's dews;
I love the promptings of Isaiah's muse;
In Carmel's holy grots I'll court repose,
And deck my mossy couch with Sharon's deathless rose.
--J. PIERPONT.

MY THREE DAYS IN GILEAD

By Elmer U. Hoenshel, D. D.,

Principal of Shenandoah Collegiate Institute and School of Music

In profound gratitude, this little volume is dedicated to the memory of
William Barakat of Jerusalem.

My faithful, careful dragoman, who in manhood's prime, yet not many
months before his death, guided me in safety, not only during my trying
"Three Days in Gilead," but also throughout an extended tour otherwhere
in his native land--the Holy Land of my faith.

THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

At last, after waiting twenty leaden-winged years from the time in
which a fixed purpose was formed in me to visit the Orient, the
realization came. The year that saw the fulfillment of my cherished
ambition was definitely determined upon eight summers before it took
its place in the calendar of history. Fortune smiled upon my plan. I
was ready. My joy was akin to ecstasy.

Imagine my disappointment when, in the month of May of my chosen year,
1900, I learned that no agency would organize a tourist party to move
at a time in the summer or autumn that would suit me! There was but one
alternative--to travel independent of any organization. This I would
do. The decision to do so brought instant and happy relief.

At no time in my period of absence of five months did I meet a single
former acquaintance. I plan