Wall of Tiberias
In this view we are looking toward the west. The picture was taken on the 8th of May, 1894. This is one of the highest walls remaining in Tiberias, and we see that it is rapidly crumbling. What man has done is going to ruin. Nothing here indicates life and hope but nature, which annually renews itself. And all the memories of Jesus here give no hope for the race He came to redeem. To stand upon the crumbling walls of Tiberias, which were once so formidable, but which have for long centuries been in a sad state of dilapidation; to close one’s eyes upon the ancient ruins, “the relics of a brighter, happier day,” and go back over the centuries to the time “when cities girdled all the smiling lake;” to recall the days when it was the central point of the life and works of our Redeemer—all this is a privilege the experience of which can not be described. Even a vivid imagination fails to paint the charming picture. The narrow strip of unfrequented beach, sometimes receding into a sloping field, sometimes contracting into a mere rugged path, the water rippling round the ruined battlements, “the pale blue lake in its more distant aspect,” with its glassy surface here and there gently stirred by some unseen gust from a mountain gorge, or in crystal-like calmness mirroring the sea-birds which lazily flap their wings over the lake or dip in the refreshing waters, make a picture of rare beauty. And it is hard to realize that this little strip of country was the theater of such great and far-reaching events as those we trace in the study of the life of the Man of Galilee.
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