"There at Tiberias, and along this western shore towards the north,
and upon the bosom too of the lake, our Saviour and His disciples--
" away flew those recollections, and my mind strained eastward,
because that that farthest shore was the end of the world that
belongs to man the dweller, the beginning of the other and veiled
world that is held by the strange race, whose life (like the
pastime of Satan) is a "going to and fro upon the face of the
earth." From those grey hills right away to the gates of Bagdad
stretched forth the mysterious "desert"--not a pale, void, sandy
tract, but a land abounding in rich pastures, a land without cities
or towns, without any "respectable" people or any "respectable"
things, yet yielding its eighty thousand cavalry to the beck of a
few old men. But once more--"Tiberias--the plain of Gennesareth--
the very earth on which I stood--that the deep low tones of the
Saviour's voice should have gone forth into eternity from out of
the midst of these hills and these valleys!"--Ay, ay, but yet again
the calm face of the lake was uplifted, and smiled upon my eyes
with such familiar gaze, that the "deep low tones" were hushed, the
listening multitudes all passed away, and instead there came to me
a dear old memory from over the seas in England, a memory sweeter
than Gospel to that poor wilful mortal, me.
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