and would take earth's paradise, prepared by stony law, and transform it into a spiritual heaven.

Mount Sinai, the mount of Moses' law, was near the Red Sea, the dividing gulf from heathen darkness and sinful oppression; and in a wilderness; and only glared to the Israelites for a short time with deterring lightnings. But the Mount of Beatitudes was in the Promised Land, and shines to this day with the winning smiles of Jesus' love.

MOUNT GILBOA

We leave the Mount of Beatitudes and go southward, leaving the Sea of Galilee on our left. Then we may pass Mount Gilboa, made famous by the death of Saul, the king of Israel. It is this event which prompted the poet Byron to write the "Song of Saul before His Last Battle," in such a way that the poet's genius casts a kind of glamour over the character of this king, who, to the end of his long reign, was like an artless boy, either self-willed and stubborn, or superstitious and chivalrous. Byron makes him speak as follows to his troops before his last battle with the enemies of his country, notwithstanding his flight in Mount Gilboa, and his suicide there:

"Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword

Pierce me in leading the hosts of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, tho' a king's in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

"Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,

Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet! Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.

"Farewell to others, but never we part,
Heir to my royalty, son of my heart!

Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day."

But the romantic touch of Lord Byron could not make Mount Gilboa even seem to be the scene of events that turned the destinies of mankind, like other mountains mentioned in the Bible. And we tarry only long enough to find in our Bible the curse uttered by David against Mount Gilboa, because of the death there of Saul and Jonathan :

"Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places! How are the mighty fallen!

Tell it not in Gath,

Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon;
Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
Ye mountains of Gilboa,

Let there be no dew or rain upon you, neither fields of offerings:

For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast

away,

The shield of Saul, as of one not anointed with

oil."

MOUNT MORIAH

We resume our journey to the southward, bearing a little to the west, that we may pass Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, celebrated as the mountains over against each other where the Hebrews assembled. Almost between them, in the valley, was probably the well where Jesus met the Woman of Samaria. When she talked about worshiping God in that mountain (Ebal or Gerizim,) Jesus insisted that locality was not the chief element in worship, but "truth and spirit"; for God is spirit.

But let us go down (or up, as the ancients would say) to Jerusalem. It was a city of mountains. The Psalmist (125:1-2) said:

"They that trust in Jehovah

Are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abideth forever.

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem,
So Jehovah is round about his people

From this time forth and forevermore."

There we find Mount Moriah, Mount Zion, Mount Calvary and the Mount of Olives. But let us imagine and meditate concerning Mount Moriah.

The name is said to signify that Jehovah

provides, or sees, or chooses. And we fancy that the name may have been given, because on that mountain God provided the victim for the faithful Abraham, whom he had commanded to offer his son as a sacrifice.

Destructive critics have taught that Abraham was mistaken in thinking that God had given this commandment; that Abraham was rather infected by the contagion of the surrounding idolatrous influences; and they have thus done away with revelation in what they call "the story." But we do not follow them. Let those whose lives are comparatively barren in spiritual effectiveness be modest in contradicting statements of spiritual giants concerning experiences and events recorded in honest records preserved by a race of mankind that has produced not merely one religious leader, but a procession of mighty prophets through the ages. They have done things, and known things, and felt things, that critics can no more understand than common mosquitos can comprehend of the working of a steam engine.

On Mount Moriah Abraham, in obedience to God, was about to sacrifice his son, when the angel's call stayed his hand, and another victim was provided. How often God provides for the needy! It could not have been far from Mount Moriah that God provided the "Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world."