THE WATER OF JORDAN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13811, 26 January 1907, Page 10

THE WATER OF JORDAN.

Colonsl Clifford Nadaud, of Covington, Kentucky, has obtained from the Turkish Government tlio exclusive concession to export the water of the River Jordan. Ho has started for Palestine to make the necessary preparations for his undertaking. The water will be pumped into largo barrels, each of which will bear the seals of the Ottoman authorities and the American Consul. The exportation was to begin on December 1, and will be supervised , by the Patriarch of Jerusalem. In America, the Jordan water will bo used for baptisms and other religious functions. Colonel Nadaud is tho president of a company formed for the purpose of distributing the water. Nothing is apparently sacred to the American "corner-man." Since Mark Twain wrote the diary of Adam, followed by the diary of Eve in the Garden of Eden, and made of our original father a grumbling, discontented, and selfish inaji, while tie mother of all living appeared as a modern and elightly neurotic woman, there is apparently no limit to the mercantile instinot of America. The River Jordan is, of course, a sacred stream, which played a large part in the history of the Jews, and was the scene of many miracles. Tho Israelites under Joshua crossed the river, which piled itself into a pillar and allowed the chosen race to go over dryshod (Joshua iii, 15-17). So, too, both Elijah and Elisha. divided the waters by a stroke of the mantle, as narrated in the Second Book of Kings, while Naamaa's miraculous cure from the leprosy was brought about by bathing seven times in the historic stream. According to P>abbinical literature, the water of Jordan, the, use of which in the Temple was prohibited on account of its impurity, does not mingle, thanks to a miracle, with Lake Tiberias, but ultimately flows into the mouth of the Leviathan. For Leviathan we must clearly read the United States.