wheel and gears on the right side. All vehicles in Europe and the Holy Land pass to the left instead of the right hand as in America. Once more I notice the great hole, forty feet wide, torn in the wall in order that Kaiser William might enter Jerusalem in state. There it stands to-day-a gaping memorial to the swollen pomp and pride of the man who wished to rule the world instead of to serve the world.

THE UNWISE WISE MEN

Now we are off down the road toward Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus. Down this same road the wise men went, after losing a month by going to Jerusalem, which they should never have done. The star did not go to Jerusalem; indeed, they lost it by presuming to turn aside to visit the capital. Just so; we follow the leadership of the Spirit until we have passed the desert; then we say: "Good-by, star! I know the rest of the way."

"Of course," they said, "the young king will be found in his holy city, Jerusalem," and they lost time, incited Herod's massacre of innocents, caused the flight into Egypt, missed the opportunity of meeting the shepherds and hearing their wondrous story of the angels—in fact, they spoiled the entire program by coming in too late.

In the art galleries of Europe I saw many paintings celebrating the visit of the Magi-all wrong, the artists' idea being that the wise men and the shepherds visited the infant at the same time. All represent both groups— shepherds and Magi-in the stable worshiping. Such a conception is untenable. The wise men were at least a month or six weeks later, when the holy family had moved out of the stable into more comfortable quarters.

Luke 2: 22-24 states that Mary in presenting Jesus in the temple (when he was forty days old) brought as her offering a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons. Such an offering was allowed only in the event a mother was not able to provide a lamb. What if the wise men's gold were in Mary's possession? Had they come at first with the shepherds, she would have brought a lamb to represent most beautifully the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world! But the wise men's presumption cheated her out of that joy. Moreover, would Joseph sit idly by and allow mother and babe to remain in a stable forty days? Would the inn continue congested so long? No; the truth is, while the Magi were loitering about Jerusalem, waiting on Herod and his scribes and advisers to tell him where the Christ is to be born, Jesus was brought within stone's throw of the monster and was presented quietly in the temple. Thence they returned the child to the ancestral place at Bethlehem, which might have been his undisturbed boyhood home had not the Magi aroused Herod's jealousy and precipitated the flight into Egypt. (See Matt. 2:1-13.)

Along this road sped the soldiers of Herod with orders to kill all male babies two years old and under, to make sure of destroying the infant Christ, who by that time was safe in Egypt on the banks of the Nile. Is it a coincidence that both Moses, the lawgiver and greatest of Old Testament times, and Jesus the Saviour found no downy cradle in infancy? One in a slimy ark of bulrushes sobs his little body to sleep amid the crocodiles; the other in a borrowed stone box cries among the

cattle. One represents the law, the other brings the gospel; but potentates of earth wanted neither; hence both are imperiled in babyhood. Rather significant, too, that the baby Jesus now found asylum and refuge in the land of Moses and near the identical spot of the lawgiver's birth.

Near the road is a well called yet the well of the Magi. Here it is said the wise men saw the star again and rejoiced to follow it on to Bethlehem. On a sloping hillside the ruins of a stone house are certified as the place where Judas met the officers and arranged for the betrayal of Jesus. The guide told us that several olive trees near by had been pointed out to credulous tourists as the one upon which Judas hanged himself.

DAVID'S WONDERFUL HIGHWAY

Nevertheless, the scenery is the most restful and inviting that we have seen. The hard limestone roadway is flanked on both sides by terraced fig and olive orchards. Between the gently rolling hills flocks of sheep graze through the meadows and valleys. Shepherds in flowing robes of soft oriental colors keep watch as of old.

What a wonderful view David had every time he rode or walked from his home into Jerusalem. Over to our left is the Jordan valley and through rifts in hills an occasional view of the Dead Sea. Beyond are the smiling peaks of Moab. On we go, now entering the Plain of Rephaim, where David twice defeated the hosts of the Philistines. It was in one of these battles that David grew faint and said, "O, that one would give me to drink

of the water of the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate!" Three of his bodyguard heard, and that night, at great peril, they broke through the Philistine lines and drew water from the well, returning at daybreak with the priceless liquid. David was greatly moved by the heroism and splendid loyalty of his brave trio, but would not drink the water, which he said was too sacred, being the blood of his men. Thereupon he solemnly poured it out as an offering unto the Lord. We shall look for this well when we come to Bethlehem.

A mile or two before reaching Bethlehem we stop at the tomb of Rachel. It is a modest two-roomed stone building with snow-white dome. At the very edge of the road it lies. Here Rachel died as Benjamin was born, and here Jacob buried her. How lonely it is! Not another tomb near; not a house nor town. I have often wondered why Jacob did not bury her at Hebron, on down that same road and only fifteen miles away. There she might have rested beside Abram, Isaac, Sarah, and Rebekah-yes, and even Leah, her sister. Jacob himself desired to be buried there and extracted from Joseph the promise that he would carry his bones thither.

Jacob thought he was marrying the lovely Rachel, only to find his bride was Leah. What Leah lacked in looks she made up in diplomacy, and both girls inherited their father's duplicity. Rachel, the younger and more beautiful, seemed always to come off second best. Leah, the "tender-eyed," homely and elder, came first in life and now rests beside Jacob in Machpelah, while poor Rachel sleeps out yonder by the roadside alone. Very poetically and pathetically it is stated that when the

tribes came marching by this lonely tomb as they were being led away captive to Babylon Rachel turned over in her grave and wept for her children, most of whom were Leah's.

ON HISTORIC AND ROMANTIC GROUND

Soon we swing around a curve in the dazzling white road, and below us to the left smiles the field of Boaz, where Ruth came and saw and conquered a husband and fame. She became the great-grandmother of David. On the human side, Jesus felt that other nations might claim a share in him, since Rahab, the Jericho woman, and Ruth the Moabitess were in the ancestral line. In that field David watched the sheep. But he did more than tend sheep; he dreamed of a day when he should shepherd Israel. "Stung by the splendor of the thought," as Browning would say, ambition nerved his hand, and aspiration would not let him idle away the golden hours of leisure. On that sloping hillside yonder he sat and thrummed his harp-he might need it some day, as a sesame to a king's court; no harm to be a musician on the side. Weary with harping, he picks up his sling and beguiles the hours slinging the white rocks that lie thick about him. (They are there still!) He will become an expert sharpshooter; some enemy of his country may one day defy all others, and he may get a crack at him. As I gazed on this field, to me it became also the field of preparation, and I thought, "It was no accident that God sent the aged Samuel here to anoint, not one of the big, careless, beefy sons of Jesse, but the lithe little