wing
with milk and honey,' producing 'grapes, pomegranates, and figs' in
abundance. To-day I have been thinking of the changes that the tempests
of a few short years have made in the hills of my own native state, New
Hampshire, since the rapacious lumber-men have been denuding our
mountains of the forests. There, the unprotected soil is being washed
away by the heavy rains, gulleys have been formed, the brooks have
diminished or dried up, and the part of our once beautiful White
Mountains that has been cut over is desolate indeed. Now, since thinking
of the changes that have occurred in a decade at home. I can more fully
realize the changes that centuries have made here.

"Looking backward," said he, "I can see more clearly in my mind the
picture that David saw with the eye of an artist, and described with the
heart of a poet, when these bare, gray, rocky, treeless hills were
crowned with forests that protected the soil from the beating storms;
when these slopes, now furrowed with gulleys and spread with stones,
were covered with orchards and clad with verdure, where the flocks might
'lie down midst pastures of tender grass;' and when these dried up
waterways were purling brooks, where the flocks were 'led beside the
waters of quietness.' I believe that David's description of this country
was a true picture of the land as it appeared then. 'Thou waterest the
ridges thereof abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou
makest it soft with showers; thou blessest the springing thereof. The
pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over
with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing.'"

[Illustration: WHEN THESE BARE HILLS WERE COVERED WITH ORCHARDS AND CLAD
WITH VERDURE.]

"In those days the vicinity of Jerusalem was beautiful with palm trees,"
continued the clergyman, "and the City of Palms was but fifteen miles
away. Now the City of Palms is a squalid, unhealthful village, and in
the vicinity of Jerusalem it is difficult to obtain a leaf of the palm."

The low spirits caused by the drizzling rain during our last evening in
the Sacred City were increased by telegraphic news received from Jaffa.
The telegram stated that the weather was stormy and the waves running
high, and that if the sea did not subside we might not be able to
embark. This information caused considerable anxiety among the timid
members of the party and many surmises were made as to the developments
of the following day. As u