Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1879 — Historical Position of Palestine. [ARTICLE]

Historical Position of Palestine.

The position of Palestine on the map of the world has fitted it and its successive peoples for a remarkable place in history. Here is a little country, with only 8,000 square miles, or 2,000 less than our State of Vermont, which, if we measure it by the scope of its history, the remote antiquity of its literature, and the great forces it has-started into irresistible movement, we must place among the foremost in the ancient family of nations. It is practically the meeting-place of three continents —Africa, Asia, and Europ3. If Belgium is.the “cock-pit of Europe,” w.ere many of the chief battles of modern times have been fought, Palestine holds the same relation to the an* cient world. Her plain of Esdraelon nas been the battle-ground of nations aDd civilizations from Abraham’s day to Napoleon Bonaparte’s. This little country was the pathway of the nations on land, while on the sea it was her Phoenicia which planted colonies all around the shores of the Mediterranean, created Carthage, rival of Borne, and dared to send her*hips as far north as Britain. . There is something, too, akin to magnetism in this wonderful little land. It gave a certain measure of historical importance, and, indeed, of immortality to every people and land it touched. Take from our knowledge of Egyptian history all we have learned from the Mosaic narrative, and there will be a marvelous diminution of the fund. It is only where Assyria in an early day came into relations with Syria that we get something of a definite knowledge of that great Oriental power. We find Bawunson, in his “ Five Monarchies,” and’ Wilkinson, in his “ Manners and Customs of the Egyptians,” constantly appealing to and leaning on the scripture history, iu order to treat the subject in hand in consecutive form. It is Palestine that brings all great ancient countries within our vision. It is our best telescope for a view of the remote past. We read the fortunes of other peoples through her. Of right she did not possess the Greek language. It was foisted upon her through Alexander’s conquest, and yet so carefully did she learn the new tongue that it became the receptacle for the new faith from Him of Nazareth, and the medium of its communication to the remotest shores known to men. Palestine long resisted Borne, and finally suffered destruction through Titus. Her acres and faith were bartered like a piece of merchandise, and were, in turn, owned by Canaanite, Jew, Assyrian, Greek, Syrian, Maccabsean and Boman. But in three centuries we find Bethlehem supplanting Borne, Christianity held the scepter on the Seven Hills, and paganism became a thing of the country village, or pagus. — Harper's Magazine.