WE longed to see “the city that men call beautiful,” but before we started on our journey we visited the house which has the reputation of being on the site of that of Simon the Tanner. One circumstance which occurred there was indeed calculated to make me think of Peter going to the housetop to pray. We had reached the flat roof of the house, and were exploring the little surroundings, when I discovered that I had done something which provoked the anger of the owner of the house, who was with us. My friend Mr. El Karey soon explained that my offence consisted in having trod upon the carpet on the housetop on which they kneel to pray without having first taken off my boots. The two Scriptures “Take thy shoe from off thy feet,” and “Peter went up upon the house-top to pray,” were thus strikingly brought to my mind. The meaning of the name Joppa is “Beauty.” What a lovely name for the place of our first walk together in Palestine! And where can we find beauty but in Him who is the Chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely? It is the seaport for Jerusalem. It was there the timber of cedarwood from Lebanon was landed, to be taken up to Jerusalem and built into the Temple of Solomon. I can truly say I found it a place of beauty, for in many other things which I have not yet mentioned it brought to my mind the words and miracles of Him “who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil.” Among other circumstances, I particularly noticed the blind beggar by the wayside, calling out, as did Bartimaeus of old, when he heard the footsteps of the travelers passing by. We could not help him as to his blindness, but let his cry, Ateeni, Allah ya terk (“Give to me and God will give to you”), awaken in us the desire to be more ready to tell unto all that Name of Power and Peace: “JESUS,” that gives sight to the “inly blind,” joy to the “mourners,” life to the “spiritually dead.”
In keeping with its name of “Beauty,” Joppa is indeed richly environed, with the sea on its front and the orange groves and gardens in the rear. We did not enter the latter, but could see something of them from the housetop, and as we left the city for a night’s ride to Jerusalem, we could form some little—it was but little—impression of their luxuriant beauty. Much more might I say of Joppa, but the horses are saddled and the mule laden. In the house of Mr. Floyd, where on the 11Th of the month already referred to we knelt together and commended ourselves, and those dear to but distant from us, to the keeping and guidance of the Lord, we afterwards, on the 21St, gave thanks to Him, as faithful to His word and promise, who had kept us on our going out as well as our coming in to the land made beautiful with His beauty, as Mr. Cheyne writes of the Sea of Galilee—
“Graceful around thee the mountains meet,
Thou calm, reposing sea:
But oh, far more! the beautiful feet
Of Jesus walked o’er thee.”
Let us rise from our knees, and as we bid farewell to our kind entertainer take our seats in the saddle and set our faces towards Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem, whither the tribes go up” (Ps. 122:4). We too would say: “Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem” (verse 2). Let us do so by the aid of “recollections.” We had not proceeded many miles along the Ramleh road after clearing the orange groves and vineyards of Joppa before we came upon a party of Jewish pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem: they were halted on account of the sickness of one of their number. This and many other subsequent circumstances of our journey through the country brought to remembrance different Scripture narratives of the healing of the sick, especially those in the Gospels and the Book of Acts. We did not “pass by on the other side,” like the Priest and Levite in Luke 10, but felt that in our conduct we came very far short of the “certain Samaritan” who “came where he was.”
S. J.