aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

324 AROUND THE WORLD.
first view of the city with its mosques and towers. How unspeakably
charming was that moment's vision ! Never did silence and loneliness
appear so gratifying."
Believing as firmly in Jesus' suffering, bleeding, and
dying a martyr to a principle, as in Socrates' draining tlie
hemlock draught, the sight of Jerusalem had for me a thousand
charms.
" Here circling vines their leafy banners spread,
And held their green shields o'er the pilgrim's head;
At once repelling Syria's burning ray,
And breathing freshness on the sultry day."
To Strauss, Jesus was a wise rabbi ; to Renan, a moral
teacher ; to Fourier, a warm-hearted socialist ; to Fenelon,
the most rapt of mystics ; to Paine, the most sincere of
philanthropists ; to Miiller, the harmony of all history ; to
Emerson, a true prophet seeing the mystery of the soul ; to
Parker, a fellow-brother and self-sacrificing reformer ; while
to me he was the marvel-working medium of the East, the
baptized of Christ, and the great Syrian Spiritualist sent
of the gods to bear " witness to the truth." Previously I
had looked upon the Isle of Samos that gave birth to Pythagoras
; I had stood upon the spot where Socrates was
imprisoned for corrupting the youth ; I had wandered over
the fields of Sarnath, where Buddha's feet had pressed the
soil ; I had traversed the land where Plato taught in the
Athenian groves ; and noio I was at the gates of the city
where Jesus had toiled and taught, healed and suffered,
wept, and died with the prayer upon his purpling lips,
" Father, forgive them ! " The sainted John Pierpont
sweetly wrote, —
" A lonelier, lovelier path be mine;
Greece and her channs I'd leave for Palestine;
There purer streams through happier valleys flow.
And sweeter flowei-s on holier mountains blow;
I'd love to breathe where Gilead sheds her balm;
I'd love ta walk on Jordan's banks of palm;