Daisy In The Field

"And difficult climbing, Mr. Dinwiddie."

"Very difficult. Broken stairs and dizzy galleries, and deep

precipices, with the vultures floating in air down below me."

"What a place for men to live!"

"Fitter for the doves and swallows which inhabit the old

hermits' houses now. Yet not a bad place to live either, if

one had nothing to do in the world. Sit down and rest and let

us look at it."

"And I have got some luncheon for you, Mr. Dinwiddie. I should

have missed all this if you had not been with me. Papa would

never have come here."

There were many places in front of the cells where seats had

been cut out in the rock; and in one of these Mr. Dinwiddie

and I sat down, to eat fruit and biscuit and use our eyes; our

attendant Arab no doubt wondering at us all the while. The

landscape in view was exceedingly fine. We had the plains of

Jericho, green and lovely, spread out before us; we could see

the north end of the Dead Sea and the mouth of the Jordan; and

the hills of Moab, always like a superb wall of mountain

rising up over against us.

"Do you know where you are?" said Mr. Dinwiddie.

"Partly."

"The site of old Jericho is marked by the heaps and the ruins

which lie between us and our camp."

"Yes. That is old Jericho."

"Over against us, somewhere among those Moab hills, is the

pass by which the hosts of the 'sons of Israel' came down,

with their flocks and herds, to the rich plains over there, -

the plains of Moab."

"And opposite us, I suppose, somewhere along there in front of

old Jericho, is the place where the waters of the river failed

from below and were cut off from above, and the great space

was laid bare for the armies to pass over."

"Just over there. And there - Elijah and Elisha went over dry

shod, when Elijah smote with his mantle upon the waters; and

there by the same way Elisha came back alone, after he had

seen his master taken from him."

"Those were grand times!" I said, with a half breath.

"They were rough times."

"Still, they were grand times."

"I think, these are grander."

"But, Mr. Dinwiddie, such things are not done now as were done

then."

"Why not?"

"Why, how can you ask?"

"How can you answer?"

"Why, Mr. Dinwiddie, the river is not parted now, this river

nor any other, for the Lord's people to go over without

trouble."

"Are you sure?" said he, with the deep sweet look I had

noticed. "Do they never come now, in the way of their duty, to

an impassable barrier of danger or difficulty, through which

the same hand opens their path? Did you never find that they

do, in your own experience?"