Church at Gilgal
In the above view we have a picture of a church built in Jericho by the Greek Christians. There is nothing of special interest on the plains between the Judean Mountains and the River Jordan. Were it not for the historic memories of Abraham, of Joshua and of Jesus, pilgrimages would not be made. The place is about twenty miles from Jerusalem. In reaching it one makes a descent of thirty-eight hundred feet over a rocky road. The historic associations make the region rich in suggestions. One thinks here of Joshua, the Israelites crossing the Jordan, the encampment in Giigal, the keeping of the Passover, the man whom Joshua saw standing over against him with sword drawn in his hand, the conquest of Jericho; and here one recalls Elisha and Elijah. Indeed, one goes back to the days of Abraham and Lot, as he looks out on this now deserted landscape. It is doubtful whether the name Gilgal was applied at first to a city or to an open place for encampment. If one walks from Riha in a southeasterly direction he will, in about twenty minutes, reach some foundations of hewn stone and a low mound covered with ruins. These are supposed to be the remains of convents which formerly stood in the plain. Ruins fill the plain to-day, but the everlasting hills are the same, the morning and the evening, the day time and the harvest; and always the swelling flood of the Jordan rushes between its narrow banks or flows upon the fields of its broad valley until they “stand dressed in living green.”
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