The Black
Gnarled Trees Of Gethsemane Lie At The Foot Of Olivet, And The
Yellow Ramparts Of The City Rise Up On The Stony Hills Beyond.
But the happiest and best of all the recollections, perhaps, are
those of the hours passed at night on the deck, when the stars were
shining overhead, and the hours were tolled at their time, and your
thoughts were fixed upon home far away.
As the sun rose I once
heard the priest, from the minaret of Constantinople, crying out,
"Come to prayer," with his shrill voice ringing through the clear
air; and saw, at the same hour, the Arab prostrate himself and
pray, and the Jew Rabbi, bending over his book, and worshipping the
Maker of Turk and Jew. Sitting at home in London, and writing this
last line of farewell, those figures come back the clearest of all
to the memory, with the picture, too, of our ship sailing over the
peaceful Sabbath sea, and our own prayers and services celebrated
there. So each, in his fashion, and after his kind, is bowing
down, and adoring the Father, who is equally above all. Cavil not,
you brother or sister, if your neighbour's voice is not like yours;
only hope that his words are honest (as far as they may be), and
his heart humble and thankful.
Footnotes:
{1} Saint Paul speaking from the Areopagus, and rebuking these
superstitions away, yet speaks tenderly to the people before him,
whose devotions he had marked; quotes their poets, to bring them to
think of the God unknown, whom they had ignorantly worshipped; and
says, that the times of this ignorance God winked at, but that now
it was time to repent.
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