All recent explorers of Palestine speak in glowing terms of that "solemn eastern background," with its mellow tints of blue and purple, rising conspicuous, as if a wall built by giants, from the deep gorge or valley of the Jordan. This mountain range, and especially the hills of Gilead, with their rugged ravines and forests of sycamore and terebinth, are full of blended memories of joy and sadness. From one of these slopes, the Father of the Faithful obtained his first view of his children's heritage. On another, the Angels of God--the two bright celestial bands--greeted Jacob on his return from his sojourn in Syria.[2] From another, trains of wailing captives on their way to Babylon, must oft and again have taken through their tears their last look of "the mountains round about Jerusalem." Nigh the same spot, the footsteps of our blessed Redeemer Himself lingered, when death was hovering over the couch of the friend He loved at Bethany. Martha and Mary, from their Village-home, must have lifted their eyes to these same "hills," from whence they knew, in the extremity of their anguish, their "help" alone could come. While, at a later period, the same spot was rendered illustrious as the locality of _Pella_, the mountain fortress and asylum whither their Lord had admonished His followers to flee, when the Imperial Eagles of Rome were gathered by Titus around the devoted city.[3] [2] Gen. xxxii. 1. [3] See Mr Stanley's chapter, in his "Sinai and Palestine," on "Peræa and the Trans-Jordanic Tribes," in which these different references are graphically grouped together. "The Peræan hills are the 'Pisgah' of the earlier history: to the later history they occupy the pathetic relation that has been immortalised in the name of 'the long ridge,' from which the first and last view of Granada is obtained. They are the 'Last Sigh' of the Israelite exile."--(P. 328.) This "land beyond the Jordan" still further derives an imperishable interest from being the exile-retreat of the sweet Singer of Israel in the most pathetic period of his chequered life and reign. There is no more touching episode in all Hebrew history than the recorded flight of David from his capital on the occasion of the rebellion of Absalom and the defection of his people. Passing, barefoot and weeping, across the brook Kedron, and thence by the fords of Jericho, he sped northwards with his faithful adherents, and found a temporary shelter amid these remote fastnessess.