New Paths through Old Palestine

Chapter 6: I GO TO BETHANY

Open in WeRead

Explore more books like this:

About This Book

A traveler's series of pilgrimage sketches recounts journeys across Palestine, blending sensory descriptions of landscape, ruins, and local customs with observations of modern changes such as railroads, motor vehicles, and aeroplanes. Each chapter visits a holy site—Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho, Bethany, the Mount of Olives, the Garden, and crossings into Egypt and the Dead Sea region—pairing biblical memory with wartime scars and everyday rural life. The narrative contrasts ancient traditions and sacred geography with technological progress and reflects on possibilities for the land's social and spiritual future.

I GO TO BETHANY

I tell you when I looked upon these fields,
And stony valleys,—through the purple veil
Of twilight, or what time the Orient sun
Made shining jewels of the barren rocks,—
Something within me trembled; for I said:
This picture once was mirrored in His eyes;
This sky, that lake, those hills, this loveliness,
To Him familiar were; this is the way
To Bethany.
—Richard Watson Gilder.