Beeroth is situated on a rocky ridge, and contains a population of 800 Moslems and thirty Christians. It is mentioned in connection with the league formed between the embassadors of Gibeon and Joshua, but aside from this it has no scriptural significance. During the reign of the Latin kings it rose to importance, and the remaining ruins attest the antiquity of the site and the former elegance of the place. In the northwest part of the village is the old Gothic church, built by the Knights Templars centuries ago. It is a beautiful ruin, and reminds one of the ruined abbeys of Southern Scotland. The walls, the eastern apse, and the sacristy are standing, and inclose an area 100 feet long and sixty-three wide. The material is limestone well dressed, and the interior may have consisted of a nave, two lateral aisles, and three recesses in the eastern end. The finish of the architecture is exquisite. The apses are crowned with beautiful domed roofs, and the partition walls are ornamented with pilasters, the capitals of which are well preserved. The side walls are divided into sections by pilasters, and are decorated with a rich cornice. But it is now a green ruin. The grass grows where, of old, knights knelt in prayer, and where robed priests chanted their Ave Marias. On leaving the church I witnessed a beautiful illustration of our Lord’s parable of the “good shepherd.” Three shepherds were leading their flocks to pasture, and, though near each other, there was neither confusion nor intermingling. Such is the richness of the native language in adjectives, that a shepherd gives to each member of his flock a name descriptive of some characteristic, which is as familiar to the sheep as to himself. A lamb had lingered behind picking the fresh grass of spring, and, though other voices were sounding at the time, the truant lamb heard its shepherd’s voice and ran to the fold. “The sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name.”[456]