Don Carlos Janes

“ For over forty years my voice has been heard in the preaching of the Gospel of the Grace of God. For close on thirty years all my time has been given to the proclamation and defense of New Testament truth as held by us as a people. Every year has added strength to the conviction that God has led me to take my stand among the people who of all the people on the earth are making the best and most consistent effort to get back to the religion established by Christ and his apostles. ”

“ Some of the smaller stones have holes cut in them, as if for bars, levers, or something of that kind, but the faces of these big blocks are smooth. "A man must visit the spot, ride round the exterior, walk among the ruins, sit down here and there to gaze upon its more impressive features, see the whole by sunlight, by twilight, and by moonlight, and allow his mind leisurely to rebuild it and re-people it, ere he can comprehend it."—McGarvey. ”

“ We have not lost faith in the Bible. There is no need for doing so. The word of the Lord will endure forever. But meantime, brethren, let us be faithful, prayerful, and cautious, and be not easily moved from the rock of God's word by the pretensions of "scholars" or of science, falsely so called.
I do not know that there is any necessary connection between the two, but a belief in evolution and scholarly doubts about large portions of the Old Testament, as a rule, go together. You must not profess to know anything of science in many quarters if you doubt evolution. ”

“ Where our Kings are crowned, their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk over their grandsires to take the crown. There is an acre sown with royal seed, the copy of the greatest change, from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched coffins, from living like gods to die like men. There the warlike and the peaceful, the fortunate and the miserable, the beloved and despised princes mingle their dust and pay down their symbol of mortality, and tell all the world that when we die our ashes shall be equal to Kings, and our accounts easier, and our pains for our sins shall be less. ”

“ I first went out to the Mokattam Heights, lying back of the city, at an elevation of six hundred and fifty feet. From the summit an extensive view can be obtained, embracing not only the city of Cairo, with its many mosques and minarets, but the river beyond, and still farther beyond the Gizeh (Gezer) group of the pyramids. The side of the Heights toward the city is a vast quarry, from which large quantities of rock have been taken. An old fort and a mosque stand in solitude on the top. ”

“ When days and years are no more, let me enjoy, in the NEW JERUSALEM, the blessedness that remains for those that have loved the Lord.
"And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God: and he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more ”

“ At one place in the ruins I saw a well-executed picture of a chained dog in mosaic work. It is remarkable how well preserved some things are here. In the Museum are petrified bodies in the positions they occupied when sudden and unexpected destruction was poured upon them, well nigh two thousand years ago. Some appear to have died in great agony, but one has a peaceful position. Perhaps this victim was asleep when the death angel came. I saw the petrified remains of a dog wearing a collar and lying on his back, and a child on its face. ”

“ It is a small lake, thirteen miles long, lying six hundred and eighty-two feet below the level of the Mediterranean. The depth is given as varying from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and sixty-five feet. It is really "Blue Galilee," and the sight of it is an agreeable change to the eye after one has been traveling the dry, dusty roads leading through a country almost destitute of green vegetation. In the spring, when the grass is growing and the flowers are in bloom, the highlands rising around the sea must be very beautiful. ”

“ There perhaps never was a theory before believed by as many educated people without proof as the theory of evolution. It is an unproved theory; there is not a fact beneath it. That you have low forms of life, and forms rising higher and higher till you get to man, is fact. But that a higher species ever came from a lower is without proof. ”

“ It is a meeting of heaven's freemen to consider the best means of advancing the will of God among men. While met, may we all act in a manner worthy of the great object which brings us together.
Faith, forbearance and watchfulness will be required as long as we live, if we wish to keep the unity of the faith in the bond of peace. All those who set out for a complete return to Jerusalem have not held on their way; some have gone a long way back and others are going. ”

“ I saw and heard a man playing a violin near the monument. When I went down the road toward the new bridge and looked over into the garden, I saw a couple of persons executing a cake-walk, and an old man with one leg off was in the cemetery that surrounds the ruined church, reciting selections from Burns. Such is the picture I beheld when I visited this Ayrshire monument, raised in memory of the sympathetic but unfortunate Scottish poet, whose "spark o' nature's fire" has touched so many hearts that his birth-place has more visitors per annum than Shakespeare's has. ”

“ I was back in Nazareth by ten o'clock, and spent some hours looking around the city where the angel Gabriel announced to Mary the words: "Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee" (Luke 1:28) . These hours, with what time I had already spent here, enabled me to see several places of interest. Tradition points out many places connected with the lives of Joseph and Mary, but tradition is not always reliable, for it sometimes happens that the Greeks and the Romans each have a different location for the same event. ”

“ For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because thou hast rejected the word of Jehovah, he hath also rejected thee from being king." The dark picture of Saul's doings is here and there relieved by the unadulterated love of Jonathan and David, "which, like the glintings of the diamond in the night," takes away some of the deepest shadows.
The next king, Jesse's ruddy-faced shepherd boy, was anointed by Samuel at Bethlehem, and for seven and a half years he reigned over Judah from his capital at Hebron. ”

“ As years roll on, it becomes more easy to believe and harder to doubt. Knowledge, reason, and experience now supply such varied yet harmonious and converging lines of evidence that a doubt seems impossible. Difficulties we may have, and perhaps must have, as long as we live, but we can certainly rise above the fog land of doubt. ”

“ Wallace has written: "The Church of the Holy Sepulcher gives the non-Christian world the worst possible illustration of the religion of Him in whose name it stands."
As I was going through the city, I saw a camel working an olive press. The poor blindfolded animal was compelled to walk in a circle so small that the outside trace was drawn tightly over its leg, causing irritation; but seeing the loads that are put upon dumb brutes, and men too, sometimes, one need not expect much attention to be given to the comfort of these useful servants. ”

“ And ye see and hear that not alone at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away much people, saying that they are no gods that are made with hands: and not only is there danger that our trade come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana be made of no account, and that she should even be deposed from her magnificence, whom all Asia and the world worshipeth. ”

“ David was a fighting king, and his "reign was a series of trials and triumphs." He not only subdued the Philistines, but conquered Damascus, Moab, Ammon, and Edom, and so extended his territory from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates that it embraced ten times as much as Saul ruled over. But his heart was made sad by the shameful misconduct of Amnon, followed by his death, and by the conspiracy of Absalom, the rebellion following, and the death of this beautiful son. "The story of David's hasty flight from Jerusalem over Olivet and across the Jordan to escape from Absalom is touchingly sad. ”

“ I spent a night in Philadelphia, after an absence of more than four years, and enjoyed a meeting with the church worshiping on Forty-sixth Street. It was very pleasant to meet those I had known when I was there before, some of whom I had been instrumental in bringing to Christ. In New York I made arrangements to sail for Glasgow on the S.S. Mongolian, of the Allan Line, which was to sail at eleven o'clock on the fourteenth of July, and the voyage was begun almost as promptly as a railway train leaves the depot. ”

“ It seems that all kinds of rubbish are thrown into the streets, and the dogs are scavengers. Perhaps no other city has so many dogs. At one place up along the Abana, now called the Barada, I counted twenty-three of these animals, and a few steps brought me in sight of five more; but there is some filth that even Damascus dogs will not clean up. Some of the streets are roughly paved with stone, but in the best business portion of the city that I saw there was no pavement and no sidewalk—it was all street from one wall to the other. ”

“ The throne room and reception room are both open to visitors, as is also the ball room, which seemed to be more elaborately ornamented than the throne room. There is a little park of orange and other trees before the palace, also a small fountain with a marble basin. The highest point about the city is the Lycabettus, a steep rock rising nine hundred and nineteen feet above the level of the sea, and crowned with a church building. From its summit a splendid view of the city, the mountains, and the ocean may be obtained. ”

“ On the second day I entered the Pantheon, "the best preserved monument of ancient Rome," built by Marcus Agrippa, and consecrated to Mars, Venus, and others. It was burned in the reign of Titus and rebuilt by Hadrian, and in A.D. 608 Pope Boniface consecrated it as a church. The interior is shaped like a vast dome, and the only opening for light is a round hole in the top. Raphael, "reckoned by almost universal opinion as the greatest of painters," lies buried in the Pantheon behind one of the altars. I went to Hadrian's Tomb, now the Castle of St. Angelo, and on to St. Peter's. ”

“ We are met in conference as subjects of the kingdom of God, as heirs of everlasting glory, having a hope greater than the world can give, and a peace that the world can neither give nor take away. To preside over such a gathering, met to consider the best means of spreading the Gospel of Christ among men, is a token of respect upon which I place a very high value. ”

“ In these mountains are vineyards and groves of figs, olives, and mulberry trees, but most of the ground was dry and brown, as I had seen it in Southern Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. Beyond the mountains is a beautiful plain, which we entered about noon, and when it was crossed, we came to the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, and reached the old city in the evening. Damascus, with its mixed population of Moslems, Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, Jews, and others, is the largest city in Syria, and it has probably been continuously inhabited longer than any other city on earth. ”

“ Most of the streets in Smyrna are narrow and crooked, but there is one running along the water front that is rather attractive. On one side is the water, with the numerous vessels that are to be seen in this splendid harbor, and on the other side is a row of residences, hotels, and other buildings. The people turn out in great numbers at night and walk along this street, sometimes sitting down at the little tables that are set in the open air before places where different kinds of drinks are dispensed. ”

“ The processions of worshipers, as they marched out of the city to the temple, passed by this row of coffins, the inscriptions on which were constantly proclaiming the noble deeds of the mighty dead." The canal and artificial harbor, which enabled the ships of the world to reach the gates of the city, have disappeared under the weight of the hand of time. In some places the ground is literally covered with small stones, and even in the theater, weeds, grass and bushes grow undisturbed. ”

“ I have been called upon to defend our faith, when attacked, times not a few. Whatever may be the effect that I have had upon others, my own confidence has been increased at every turn. To-day I am certain that if the New Testament is right, we can not be far wrong ”

“ After dinner, eaten in front of the hotel in Jericho, we drove over to the Dead Sea, a distance of several miles, and soon we were all enjoying a fine bath in the salt water, the women bathing at one place, the men at another. The water contains so much solid matter, nearly three and a third pounds to the gallon, that it is easy to float on the surface with hands, feet and head above the water. One who can swim but little in fresh water will find the buoyancy of the water here so great as to make swimming easy. ”