The Holy Land and the Bible; . lders, like Hagar,^ repair to them, likewise, for theirhousehold supply. Yet Siloam must have been far livelier than nowin the olden times, when a fine church rose over the spring, and pil-grims bathed in a great tank beneath it. Where this was, there arenow gardens. Already, in the days of Christ, perhaps from thethought of the healing powers of the pool as issuing from MountMoriah, it must have been the custom to wash in it, else the blindman would hardly have been directed in so few words to do so.^ Buteven if washing was then common, one can only hope it was
The Holy Land and the Bible; . lders, like Hagar,^ repair to them, likewise, for theirhousehold supply. Yet Siloam must have been far livelier than nowin the olden times, when a fine church rose over the spring, and pil-grims bathed in a great tank beneath it. Where this was, there arenow gardens. Already, in the days of Christ, perhaps from thethought of the healing powers of the pool as issuing from MountMoriah, it must have been the custom to wash in it, else the blindman would hardly have been directed in so few words to do so.^ Buteven if washing was then common, one can only hope it was a littlemore thoroughly carried out than it is to-day. South of Siloam there is an open space at the union of the Kedron, Tyropoeon, and Hinnom valleys. Here, in ancient times, David and Solomon had their royal gardens,^ and Jerome tells us that in his time it still boasted of delightful gardens, watered by the Fountain of I JHeh. iL 13. 2 Gen. xxi. 14. 3 John ix. 7. 4 Neh. iii. 15. Jos. AnL, vii. 14,4; be. 10,4. i-filiiii lid. ^ XXIV.] ROUND 345 To-day, the hollow, and even the lower slopes at the sides,are still covered with gardens, watered by countless rills from the pool,so that every bed of flowers or plants is constantly raoist. When theheat of summer has burned up the landscape, till rock and soil alikeare mere yellow stone, these gardens and terraces, fed and quickenedby the never-ceasing flow, are richly green. Such cool, refreshingverdure, springing up in the hot months in the midst of universal bar-renness, must have been a delight age after age, filling the soul of thegodly Israelite of old with sweet imagery, such as the race has alwayslov^ed. It may have been from these very gardens that Jeremiah, wholived most of his life in Jerusalem, had the touching words suggestedto him : Blesseil is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hopethe Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and thatspreadeth out her roots by the river
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