Jordan

“ The Jordan is born among the hills, having its source at the base of Hermon, from which it bursts forth like the streams that issue from the glaciers of the Alps, with all the fury of a mountain torrent. ”

“ Blessed, praised and glorified be the Uthras who dwell at the Jordan. You Jordan be gentle for these souls who have descended into you. And healing be to them for the sake of truthful speech and the raising of the Jōkabar-Zīwā. And life is victorious. ”

“ A few miles more of riding along the flanks of the mountains bring us to a place where we turn a corner suddenly, and come upon the full view of the upper basin of the Jordan; a vast oval green cup, with the little Lake of Huleh lying in it like a blue jewel, and the giant bulk of Mount Hermon towering beyond it, crowned and cloaked with silver snows. ”

“ Remain with me, dear friend, remain ever by my side, and with thy love, thy constancy, thy truth, and thy sincerity, help me to establish what is good, and to punish the evil; to acknowledge and promote what is noble and expose the unworthy to shame and confusion. Oh, Jordan! God has perhaps called me to be a great king; remain by me, and help me to be a good and simple-minded man. ”

“ Here descending the precipitous hill to the plain or terrace below, they came once more upon the banks of the Jordan.
Numerous black tents occupied the green and richly cultivated plain, or were scattered here and there, close to the river bluff, half hidden by the pale green willow and the deeper shadow of the tamarisk. Here they pitched the tents and waited for the boats — the whole population crowding round them in speechless admiration of all that transpired. ”

“ The Jordan is not a little river to be loved: it is a barrier to be passed over. From its beginning in the marshes of Huleh to its end in the Dead Sea, (excepting only the lovely interval of the Lake of Galilee) , this river offers nothing to man but danger and difficulty, perplexity and trouble. Fierce and sullen and intractable, it flows through a long depression, at the bottom of which it has dug for itself a still deeper crooked ditch, along the Eastern border of Galilee and Samaria and Judea, as if it wished to cut them off completely. ”

“ And thou shalt command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When ye are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, ye shall stand still in Jordan.
And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come hither, and hear the words of the Lord your God. And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan. Now therefore take you twelve men out of the tribes of Israel, out of every tribe a man. ”

“ Very well, thank God you are out of the Egypt of sin, that the wilderness journey through justification is behind you, and that Canaan, that fair land where milk and honey flows, lies just before you. Only the Jordan intervenes. Of course the Jordan always is running strong and out of its banks every time, it seems, when souls are to cross, just as it was for Israel in Joshua's day. But this is only a necessary test to prove the sincerity and valor of the soul.
Thousands have made bold to strike their feet in Jordan's waters in the name of God and start across. ”

“ On the day when they created the olive staff for Mandā d-Haijē, its splendor rose above the Jordan. When the Jordan saw the splendor of the staff of Mandā d-Haijē, he leaped and rejoiced in the splendor of Mandā d-Haijē and said to him:
"As your Jordan is rich, so shall the fruit, grapes, and trees on it be constant. Let your splendor be rich, and let your root be preserved in a perfect way." ”

“ All day we ride along the hills skirting the marshy plain of Huleh. Here the springs and parent streams of Jordan are gathered, behind the mountains of Naphtali and at the foot of Hermon, as in a great green basin about the level of the ocean, for the long, swift rush down the sunken trench which leads to the deep, sterile bitterness of the Dead Sea. ”

“ When this generation, which is so restless, so brilliant, so full of vitality, seems to tell me that I am but a survival of a phase which now is nought, I say to it, ‘So be it, my children, but where is the William Jordan among [14] you? I would have you show me his peer before I yield.’”
The boy, whose nature was like the strings of some miraculous instrument which are not only susceptible to the slightest human touch, but are also responsive to the delicate waves in the air, knew that some strange emotion was overwhelming his father, although none could have perceived it but himself. ”

“ At the top of the stairs William Jordan encountered James Dodson, who was ascending them.
“My God, Luney, you must be mad!” cried his mentor, giving one half-tragic glance at the face of the young man.
William Jordan passed down the stairs as though he had neither seen nor heard him.
For a considerable time Mr. Octavius Crumpett meditated upon his course of action. He was a humane, enlightened, high-principled, liberal-minded gentleman; a notable product of that which a long-established society had achieved in the way of civilization. In respect and solicitude for his kind he yielded to none. ”

“ Hear me, my Father, hear me, raise me up, great one, son of the mighty (life) , our father, son of life, Šilmai and Nidbai, the lords of Jordan. Hear me, Jordan and its two banks. Hear me, hear me, Hibil-Zīwā, whose power rests over the Uthras, his brothers. ”

“ There are no pleasant places along its course, no breezy forelands where a man might build a house with a fair outlook over flowing water, no rich and tranquil coves where the cattle would love to graze, or stand knee-deep in the quiet stream. There is no sense of leisure, of refreshment, of kind companionship and friendly music about the Jordan. ”

“ You have a touch of the magic; you are a born evangelist; you go into regions where none can follow.”
“Nature has spoken,” said William Jordan softly. “At dawn I obey her decree.”
“No, no, no!” cried his comrade, “your work lies here. You were born for this. Nature formed you to labour for your kind; and you must labour for them all your days.”
“You speak truly,” said William Jordan, “but then my labours are not yet begun.”
“Are not these your labours?” cried his fellow-worker. “Can you not wield your power upon those whom we others know not how to approach? ”

“ The whole of God's people passing over Jordan. On one side, on that of the Wilderness, a crowd pressing down, and going into the deep river bed, on the other, those who had traversed, rising out of it, and spreading out on the high bank, looking down and watching those who descend into the bed, and cross through it to rejoin them. They stand in a blaze of light. ”

“ It is the career of the river Jordan rising like any other stream from the springs among the mountains only to fall after a brief existence into the Dead Sea. For their vital force had spent itself more than a millennium ago. Already, then, their civilization had in its deeper developments attained its stature, and has simply been perfecting itself since. We may liken it to some stunted tree, that, finding itself prevented from growth, bastes the more luxuriantly to put forth flowers and fruit. ”

“ Down to the ghor of Jordan the terror-stricken Arabs fled and along the bank for many a mile, harassed in the difficult ground by the Hebrews who know every yard of it. At the fords there is dreadful work. Those who cross at the highest point near Succoth are not the main body, but the two chiefs Zebah and Zalmunna are among them and Gideon takes them in hand. Away to the south Ephraim has its opportunity and gains a victory where the road along the valley of Jordan diverges to Beth-barah. For days and nights the retreat goes on till the strange swift triumph of Israel is assured. ”

“ And we achieved peace, an honorable peace and a lasting peace. He had courage, he had vision, and he had a commitment to peace, and standing here, I commit before you, before my people in Jordan, before the world, myself to continue with our utmost, to ensure that we leave a similar legacy. And when my time comes, I hope it will be like my grandfather's and like Yitzhak Rabin's.
May your spirit rise high and may it sense how the people of Jordan, my family, the people of Israel, decent people throughout the world feel today. So many live and so many inevitably die. ”

“ But the man was there, Jordan; the man who could charm the terrors from the hearts of a fear-stricken crew; who could convert a meteor's fall into an augury of good instead of an omen of terror; who could quell the mutinous spirit which was awakened by a varying needle and raging storms. ”

“ The only clear opening from the Jordan to the Mediterranean is the Plain of Esdraelon. Standing on Jordan’s bank below Bethshan and looking westward, you see before you a valley whose farther end shows nothing but sky. Many streams cut their way down its slopes beside a green morass, and hold in their embrace the ruins of a strong city. You must follow them up westwards for some ten miles before you reach sea level, and soon after that you cross the watershed in a wide valley with mountains rising to north and south. ”

“ Jordan was at present fairly dazzling on the subject of the way that, in the practice of her fairy art, as she called it, she more than peeped in—she penetrated. There was not a house of the great kind—and it was of course only a question of those, real homes of luxury—in which she was not, at the rate such people now had things, all over the place. ”

“ I not only took him into my service, I made him my confidant and my friend—I loved him sincerely. And what is my reward? He is ungrateful, and he hates me with a perfect hatred; he is now sitting in his room and cursing his king, who has done nothing more than protect him from the withering ridicule which his childish and mad pursuit was about to bring upon him. Jordan, Jordan! kings are always repaid with ingratitude."
"Yes, sire; and God, our heavenly Father, meets with the same reward," said Jordan, with a painful smile. "God and the king are the two powers most misunderstood. ”

“ The old man seemed to avert his face from that of the boy’s father in a kind of dismay; and his voice pierced the boy with an emotion that he had never felt before.
“It is thirty years since you saw me last,” said the boy’s father.
“In the flesh as an eager-faced young man,” said the school-master. “But every night as I sit by the fire, I summon William Jordan to lead the pageant of my experience. When my spirit is like clay you stand before it, the first among the valiant, so subtle yet so brave. ”

“ We have within the scope of our vision a mountain whose name is accepted as a word of beauty, a valley of great natural fertility, and the arena of mighty deeds done by men whose record is found in the "Book of books," and whose God is the Lord. Here young Jordan springs into life and links its destiny with the waters of Merom, and onward the eye stretches to that now placid sheet where in a dark and stormy night the chosen band were troubled, and where a compassionate Saviour allayed their fears. ”

“ The river Jordan is four leagues to the east of Jericho. On this side Jordan is the region called Judea, as far as the Adriatic Sea, that is, to the port which is called Joppa; on the other side Jordan is Arabia, most hostile to Christians, and hateful to all who worship God, in which is the mountain whence Elijah was carried into heaven in a fiery chariot. ”

“ To one who has never studied the geography of Palestine or to whom books of travel are strangers, that first sight of the Jordan must bring far greater disappointment than to one in 50a way prepared for the dark, muddy stream whose swift current hurries on ceaselessly, gathering silt as it goes. ”

“ She had the look of a goddess: young, brilliant, queenly, with a noble fire in her glance. Her clothes in their ample majesty and her jewels in their lustre made those of Chrissie appear almost tawdry by comparison. Never until that moment had William Jordan divined, not even in that [186] remote and ill-starred adventure of his childhood, that actual authentic goddesses still walked the earth, clad in their ravishing flesh and blood. As this vision burst upon his gaze William Jordan could scarcely repress an exclamation of awe and wonder and delight. ”

“ Jordan alone separates thee from the promised inheritance. O, watch and pray, that thou come not short of the glory of God. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death; see then that the sting of death, which is sin, be extracted from thy soul, that, being justified by Christ's blood, thou mayest be made an heir according to the hope of an eternal life. Amen, amen. "I will bring you into the Wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face, like as I pleaded with your fathers in the Wilderness of the land of Egypt. ”

“ Their first crossing of Jordan began their national life in Palestine and cut them off from the desert. So, to the end, the Jordan stood for this to them, and that was much. Jordan created no great city as Abana created Damascus; but it streamed down the side of the east, flinging, as it were, a great arm round the land, claiming it from the desert, and proclaiming this to be oasis and the home of men. Disraeli characteristically writes: “All the great things have been done by the little nations. It is the Jordan and the Ilyssus that have civilised the modern races.” ”