THE SOUTHERN CATSKILLS 



son is only a wrinkle in the earth's surface. You 

 discover with a feeling of surprise that the great 

 thing is the earth itself, which stretches away on 

 every hand so far beyond your ken. 



The Arabs believe that the mountains steady the 

 earth and hold it together; but they have only to 

 get on the top of a high one to see how insignificant 

 mountains are, and how adequate the earth looks to 

 get along without them. To the imaginative Oriental 

 people, mountains seemed to mean much more than 

 they do to us. They were sacred ; they were the 

 abodes of their divinities. They offered their sac- 

 rifices upon them. In the Bible, mountains are used 

 as a symbol of that which is great and holy. Jeru- 

 salem is spoken of as a holy mountain. The Syrians 

 were beaten by the Children of Israel because, said 

 they, " their gods are gods of the hills ; therefore 

 were they stronger than we." It was on Mount 

 Horeb that God appeared to Moses in the burning 

 bush, and on Sinai that He delivered to him the law. 

 Josephus says that the Hebrew shepherds never 

 pasture their flocks on Sinai, believing it to be the 

 abode of Jehovah. The solitude of mountain-tops 

 is peculiarly impressive, and it is certainly easier 

 to believe the Deity appeared in a burning bush 

 there than in the valley below. When the clouds 

 of heaven, too, come down and envelop the top of 

 the mountain, how such a circumstance must have 

 impressed the old God-fearing Hebrews! Moses 

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