102

ANCIENT POPULATION.

the fruit of it." And of the inhabitants they said, "We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." So disheartened were the people by the report of the spies concerning the greatness and prosperity of the promised land, that they were ready to rebel, choose them a captain, and return in despair to the bondage of Egypt.

This warm and vivid picture of the ancient glory and fertility of Palestine, which is so often set before us by the sacred writers, is corroborated by the testimony of the profane historian. Though the judgments of God seemed to concur with the prejudices of the East, to prevent our knowledge of its ancient statistics, we may still believe that the inhabitants of the land, in its highest prosperity, were scarcely less in number than four or five millions. To support this vast population on a territory comparatively small, the whole country must have been a garden, and as such it is always described. It is well known that the Oriental nations are far more abstemious than ourselves; and this is especially the case with those who dwell near the tropics. The climate and the conformation of Palestine were peculiarly adapted to produce in the greatest abundance those fruits in which the people of the East have always found their principal nourishment, leaving to the dwellers in a colder clime the grosser sustenance of animal food. Hence the fertility of the country is chiefly

ABUNDANCE OF FRUIT.

103

set forth by descriptions in which the fruits of a southern sky occupy a prominent place. Its hills, as we have seen, were cultivated to their summits, and rejoiced in the fatness of the olive and the richness of the vine. Its plains teemed with abundance of wheat, and the eye roamed over a very "wilderness of fertility." The rich soil of the valleys and the hills basked in a perpetual summer, and yielded successive harvests without stay or stint. The majestic cedars of Lebanon and the strong oaks of Bashan waved on the mountains above the olive-orchards, the vineyards, and the fig-trees, which clothed the hill-sides with richness, while below them still the plains and the valleys were stored with an abundance of bread. Everywhere the little rills ran among the meadows, and the leaves of the trees were green that were "planted by the rivers of water." The prayer of Isaac when he gave his blessing to Jacob, was indeed answered; for God gave his children "a field which the Lord had blessed-the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine." "The sun smote not by day, nor the moon by night; the birds sang among the branches; the dew lay thick in Hermon. There was balm in Gilead. The lign-aloe drooped from the riverbank. Kedron and Jordan poured forth their streams, the rain also filled the pools. Lakes glistened in the landscape, and cooled the drought.

104

PRESENT DESOLATION,

Beautiful for situation was Mount Zion. The cattle browsed on a thousand hills. The 'excellency of Carmel' and 'the glory of Lebanon' set their pinnacles against the deep azure of Canaan's sky. The year was crowned with goodness. The Lord God cared for that land, and his eye was always upon it."

But alas! how changed is all this prosperity, this glory, this fruitfulness, this wealth of her children! "How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!" The beauty of the land, her sacred hills, her famous rivers, her memorable places, may remain, but the beauty of Israel is departed! The cold and forbidding winter upon the head of Lebanon continues. unchanged, and a few of his matchless cedars still remind the pious traveller of that grove of his God; but the promise of spring, the maturity of summer, and the fulness of autumn, are there no longer! There is yet a rose in Sharon, a lily in the valley, but few grapes at Eshcol. The fragrance of the spikenard, the myrrh, and the camphire, is wafted no longer from the gardens of spices! The vineyards upon the hill-sides have been neglected and have perished; the olive trees are cut down, and the fig-trees are blasted and withered! The terraced gardens of the hills have disappeared, the

rich mould is washed away, and sterile and arid rocks deform the landscape. Instead of fields waving with luxuriant green, or yellow with a golden promise, or already "white unto the harvest," the traveller crosses a waste covered with heaps of stones, or is impeded on his melancholy way by the weeds, and thorns, and briers which beset his path. The pastures are no longer clothed with flocks; but a few sheep and goats pick a scanty subsistence from the ungrateful plains and the barren hills. The ploughman no longer overtakes the reaper, nor the treader of grapes him that sowed the seed. The wretched inhabitants are not filled with the finest of the wheat; the barns are not burdened with plenty, nor do the presses burst out with new wine. The joy of the little hills has ceased, the song and the laughter of the valleys are gone, and the clouds drop their fatness no more upon Palestine!

And why is all this? whence so sad a change? The answer is at hand. It is enough for the Christian pilgrim to know, that this melancholy picture is the visible witness to the certainty of prophecy. The Holy Land is at this moment a double monument of the justice and the truth of God. "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured by the sword: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." (Isa. i. 19, 20.)

106

CAUSES OF CHANGE.

All reasons, therefore, for the barren, wasted, and unhappy condition of Palestine, may be summed up in one, Disobedience. For the sin of disobedience, the whole nation lingered forty years in the wilderness, until that generation had passed the boundaries of the grave, but not the fords of Jordan. Nor did the children learn wisdom from the example and the ruin of their fathers. Disobedience marked their entrance into the land which was to be the reward of their loyalty to Jehovah; for they had scarcely crossed over the miraculous river, before they dissembled with God, and were punished for their avarice by falling before the men of Ai. Thus was the first bloodshed, from which that doomed land has never long been free, directly caused by their sin. God had commanded them to destroy the idolatrous nations, and establish his pure worship; but, after a while, they forgot his words, "were mingled among the heathen, and learned their works." They were strictly enjoined to make no marriages with the people of the land, lest this also should be a snare to turn them away from the true God; but they gave little heed to the command, and were punished with pestilence. Nor was it the voice of pity to which they listened; for there is no record that they ever hearkened to the cry of humanity when it interfered with their avarice, their interest, or their pleasure. They were ever disobedient, to serve selfish ends.