HOME OF CHRISTIANITY.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15309, 9 August 1923, Page 9

HOME OF CHRISTIANITY.

SOME INTERESTING IMPRESSIONS OF A VISIT TO PALESTINE. Dr Norman Maclean, of Edinburgh, who recently viisited Palestine, sent the following description of the land as it is to-day to the Morning Post:— "Out of Jerusalem, that parched city set in the wilderness of stones, with its atmosphere of narrow pedantry and acrimonious disputes, it is impossible that so beautiful a thing as Christianity could over have come. The Jew still walks its streets, cringing and arrogant, shadowed by his past. There is nothing left to him but the crumbling wall at which he recites his litany of tears: 'For our destroyed temple, here we come and weep! For our fallen glory here we come and weep.' The short-comings he bewails are those of ancestors long dead. As for himself,Tie is not as others are. Within the walls of Jerusalem Jesus never found a night's rest. Jerusalem never did aught for Christianity except crucify its Founder. For the well-spring of that river that has flowed to the ends of the earth we must seek elsewtvcre than amidst the sterile hills' of Judea. "The true home of Christianity is to be found in the flower-strewn glades and valleys of Galilee. Out of Nazareth came the dream of a Kingdom not of this world —the dream that still haunts the fevered nightmare of humanity. In a little bowl encircled by green hills lies the little town where Jesus toiled as a carpenter, and standing amid the chips mused over the ways of men. It was there that, like a lightning flash suddenly illuminating a murky sky, there came to Him the thought that God was the Eternal Father, and that if He, shaping rude ploughs 'in a mean workshop, was a Son of the Eternal, so also were all shepherds and all ploughmen and all street sweepers. In that hour He saw all men as the children of one Father, and realised that the true riches lay within. "Out of the workshop in Nazareth came the most revolutionary truth ever proclaimed—the brotherh'ood and equality of men, it is out of much brooding thought that the message, clear as crystal, at last springs. The carpenter's shop in Nazareth is the true home of Christianity. . . The pilgrims to Nazareth are shown the house of Joseph and Mary. In the Church of the Annunciation you descend a flight of steps and here find the living rock, grey and streakish, and partly cased in marble. There are side-altars and pictures. An old Franciscan Monk recites his well-worn tale. This is the land of apocryphal sites and of weird shrines. If this be the true site of Jesus's early home, to encase it thus is to hide ,if from us. "It is sauntering through Nazareth in the eventide that you suddenly see the home of Jesus. That poor house, lighted by the open door, which is at once workshop, living room, and bedroom, with a mat or two and a few clay pots—there is the home of Jesus. Out of such a home as that came the message that <is transforming the world.

"It was when I made my way to the top of the highest ''of the hills that encircle Nazareth that I realised how naturally out of this village should come the vision of a . transfigured world. The boy Jesus would make His way up here in the eventide, the day's work done, for men only do the things they learned to love in youth. And He always loved hilltops, and from this height what a view He had —3O miles in three directions! What scenes to kindle His imagination! "Twenty battlefields told their stories; there in the west Carmel brooded over the memories of the grim prophets defying all the hosts of Baal; and in the east the great gorge of the Jordan, Tairus Abysomel. And when the sky was clear the sun shimmered on the great sea with its ships laden with the spices and the treasures of the world. The highways of three continents passed the plain; and the mysterious caravans of camels moved north and south, east and west, weaving the nations together, even as they do still. And. over the great plain the wind sang in the corn, and cloud shadows chased each other.

"And as He turned to go home the night darkened in the valleys, and His feet trod among the flowers. For in spring at Galilee is a flower garden, and the rainbow is under the feet. As He walks what thoughts germinate in His mind—thought of the folly of men waging endless wars killing and devouring each other, while all the time they are children of the One Father, whose heart is so tenderthat He feeds the sparrow and clothes the lily! "If on the Mount of Onerantina, the Jordan Valley, Jesus saw a vision of the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, it was because He had seen the same vision on evenings such as this, from the hilltop overlooking Nazareth. If on the hill above Capernaum He spread out His hands in the midst of a travailing Work saying: 'Blessed are the peacemakers, 1 it was because brooding on this hill-top, looking out on the great world, there came to Him the realisation of what madness it is for brothers to be killing each other. "Not Jerusalem, but Nazareth, is the homeland of Christianity. On the hill, the great plain spread out beneath His feet, the mountains robed in their purple, the azure sky cloudflecked the flower-strewn slopes, and the green valleys became one vast transparency, through which the invisible flashed on His soul. In that evening, when first the world was thus lit up, Christianity was born. . . anft the little village as He came hurrying home in the falling darkness, was as beautiful then as now, as snug in its green setting, and Mary would gently chide Him for being late and for dreaming away, the time once more!

"No place in Palestine bears the impress of Christianity as markedly as Nazareth.

"If" in Nazareth Christianity germinated, it was by the shores of the Sea of Galileo that it came to fruition. The road that leads downhill from Nazareth and along plains to the lake is perhaps the most beautiful in Palestine. The foot track that Jesus followed to Cana lies alongside the road. "It was with a leap of the heart that, cresting a ridge, we saw suddenly glowing like a polished silver shield, the oval-shaped Sea of Galilee circled by its hills. It might be a quiet loch in the Highlands of Scotland." "Nineteen centuries ago- the shores of the Sea of Galilee were thronged with a great population. To-day Magdala is a collodion of mud hovels, with one palm tree in the midst, and Capernaum a quarry. The slopes that were thickly wooded are treeless. The naileries that sent their cured produce to the cities of the East are well-nigh ■ relict. And the plain of Gennearest, the garden of the Lord, over wnich .losophus became dithyrambic. which in his day had a soil so fruitful that all sorts of trees and fruit grew in It, lies waste save for a Jewish colony Ihat is banking up the soil in a corner and preparing a nursery for treef. Ths grapes and the figs have given place to a jungle of weeds. For the shadow of the Turk has blighted all the land. nut it will yd be a garden of the Lord once more."