New Paths through Old Palestine

Old Palestine still lies between the great desert and the seas. The women still grind the corn, stand gossiping about the well, and wrap their babies in swaddling clothes. The shepherds wander through the bare hills with their sheep and lead them, when spring comes, to the green pastures and the still waters. But there are New Paths Through Old Palestine. They cross age-worn desert-ways, go down into the shadows of deep valleys, climb hoary mountains, follow Elijah’s chariot through great spaces of the sky. The new paths bring new days fraught with possibilities. In time they may bring a new Palestine: not the mystic land of the Zionists but the promised land of which the prophets and poets of Israel sang. Old Palestine died in nineteen-fourteen with the rest of the world that was and will never be again. New Palestine is born. What its future shall be depends upon the souls of those who follow the new paths. They may lead only to temporary triumph, to the selfish goals of the kingdoms of men: they may lead to the Kingdom of God.