Identifier: homeofgodspeople00gage (find matches)
Title: The home of God's people
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Gage, William Leonard, 1832-1889
Subjects: Bible Palestine -- Description and travel
Publisher: Hartford, Conn. : Dustin, Gilman & Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ing not onlytheir numbers, but the value of the treasure they carried withthem, as well as their insecurity from the marauding tribesupon the road, and the jealousy with which their expeditionwas regarded. One would like to know the route by whichthey at length approached Jerusalem. Did they venture intothe hill-territory of Palestine, and come down through therich midland provinces, keeping throughout on the track oftheu- great ancestor ? Or did they, as seems more possible,take the more cautious path through the old Gilead provincesof Manasseh and Gad, crossing the Jordan by the fords o^Jericho^ and so make their way up the mountain paths thatconducted them across the slopes of Olivet, and gave themthe first view of the now ruined city, from the east ? Thismight be preferred as the securer road; it would, besides,save them much suffering and humiliation that would bealmost intolerable, as they saw the best part of the countrythat should have been their own free possession, and their
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THE OTHER NEIGHBORS. 405. childrens inalienable heritage, in the hands of an oppressive,an ignoble, and idolatrous people, who were there polluting,with the rites of a degrading superstition, structures and sitesthat had been associated with their most hallowed recollec-tions. . For this was now the condition of the country. The prov-inces adjacent to Jerusalem on the north were in possessionof communities, which, if not perfectly heathen, had amongthem only a few remnants of the Hebrew faith superstitiouslypreserved ; while, in the south, the chief towns of Judea, andthe most desirable provinces of the Jewish kingdom, were inthe hands of the Idumeans. So that those who came in theexpedition found themselves confined to the bare, hilly coun-try, extending only a few miles round, of which Jerusalemwas the centre. They found it occupied only by the strag-gling remnants of the last deportation, or perhaps by a fewpilgrims who were hovering in reverent, lingering affection,around the old

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