CHAPTER IX 



Palestine Letters to his Wife, and Extracts from Journal. 

 AGE 46. 



To HIS WIFE. 



" MOUNT OF OLIVES, 

 Sunday, $ist March 1889. 



OH ! how I wish that you were here I cannot say. 

 We are camped just above Gethsemane, which, if right, 

 must be where He went off a little space to pray, when 

 He left the three He took up from Gethsemane to watch. 

 Below, in the Valley of Kedron, and from its very steep 

 bank, rise the walls of the city. Dear old Trench went 

 to church, but I, as you can fancy, went to my worship 

 on the * Mount ' that He so often worshipped on. I was 

 alone, and went over to Bethany ; on this side it is very 

 cold and windy ; at Bethany the sun was shining brightly, 

 and it is impossible to say how intensely peaceful 

 the tiny little village looked, nestled as it is in the 

 very bosom of the hills. Beyond stretches in un- 

 dulating rocky sterile hills, covered however with 

 vegetation of some kind, the ' wilderness ' which falls 

 away to the utterly placid, still, Dead Sea, guarded to 

 the east by the high wall of the mountains of Moab. 

 It is a marvellous scene and one I can never forget. 

 Coming back, I came by the way of the triumphal 4 

 entry, and have no doubt Stanley is right in his 



