The cities of refuge Author:John Ross MacDuff Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: City— Shechem was situated at the extremity of a valley among the hills of Ephraim. The famous mountains of Ebal and Gerizim rose on either side, from the slo... more »pes of which the blessings and the curses of the law were proclaimed in the ears of assembled Israel. If Jerusalem was the greatest and the grandest of the cities of Palestine, Shechem was perhaps the most beautiful. It is still spoken of by travellers as one of the loveliest spots in the Holy Land, with its orchards of olive, fig, and pomegranate, and its flocks of singing-birds, whichhave made the inhabitants give to the graceful slope on which it looks down, the name of the " Musical Valley." I don't know if the streets in the olden time resembled what they are now. The following is the recent description of a traveller familiar with them:— "The streets are narrow and vaulted over, and in the winter time it is difficult to pass along many of them on account of brooks, which rush over the pavement with deafening roar It has mulberry, orange, pomegranate, and other trees mingled in with the houses, whose odoriferous flowers load the air with delicious perfume during the months of April and May." You do not require to be told that Shechem " The Land and the Book." is a very ancient city, and that many interesting events in sacred story took place in connexion with it. The earliest mention made of it is when the patriarch Abraham slept under its oaks, (the Terebinths of Moreh,) when he came to Canaan from distant Chaldea, and erected his first altar under their shade ; and one of the last Bible notices regarding it, is in connexion with the woman of Samaria, when Jesus sat with her at " the well of Sychar," and spoke to her of the better fountain, "springing up to everlasting life." t What does the name Shechem...« less