rst of the rocky
shelves by which the central range of Palestine declines through desert to
the valley of the Jordan. The village is hidden from the main road between
Jerusalem and the North, and lies on no cross-road to the East. One of its
influences on the spirit of its greatest son was its exposure to the East
and the Desert. The fields of Anathoth face the sunrise and quickly merge
into the falling wilderness of Benjamin. It is the same open, arid
landscape as that on which several prophets were bred: Amos a few miles
farther south at Tekoa, John Baptist, and during His Temptation our Lord
Himself. The tops of the broken desert hills to the east are lower than
the village. The floor of the Jordan valley is not visible, but across its
felt gulf the mountains of Gilead form a lofty horizon.

The descending foreground with no shelter against the hot desert winds,
the village herds straying into the wilderness, the waste and crumbling
hills shimmering in the heat, the open heavens and far line of the Gilead
highlands, the hungry wolves from the waste and lions from the jungles of
Jordan are all reflected in Jeremiah's poems:--

Light o' heel young camel,
Zig-zagging her tracks,
Heifer gone to school to the desert--
In the heat of her passion,
Snapping the breeze in her lust,
Who is to turn her?

Wind off the glow of the bare desert heights,
Direct on my people,
Neither to winnow nor to sift,
In full blast it meets me.

A lion from the jungle shall smite,
A wolf from the wastes undo them,
The leopard shall prowl round their towns,
All faring forth shall be torn.

Even the stork in the heavens
Knoweth her seasons,
And dove, swift and swallow
Keep time of their coming.

Is there no balm in Gilead,
No healer there?(99)

We need not search the botany of that province for the suggestion of this
last verse. Gilead was the highland margin of the young prophet's view,
his threshold of hope. The sun rose across it.

The tribal territory in which Anathoth lay was Benjamin's. Even where not
actually desert the bleak and stony soil accords with the character given
to the tribe and its few historical personages. _Benjamin shall ravin as a
wolf._(100) Of Benjamin were the mad King Saul, the cursing Shimei,
Jeremiah's persecutors in Anathoth, and the other Saul who breathed
threatenings and slaughter against the Chur