A little to the north-west of Beeroth, we approach an Arab village, standing on the ridge of a hill with a valley on either side. To the eastward the ridge rises considerably, giving an extensive view over the Jordan valley. A desolate moorland, strewn with ruins, stretches away to the north. As we enter the village, the first of the wretched and squalid houses which comprise it, makes some pretension to architectural decorations in a form not uncommon through central Palestine—over the doorway a couple of willow-pattern plates are let into the wall. The modern name, Beitîn, is but a reminiscence of its ancient and venerable one BETHEL. But except the name there is little to remind us that we are on a spot so memorable in Jewish history. A large reservoir, similar to those at Solomon’s Pools and Hebron,—three hundred and fourteen feet long by two hundred and seventeen wide, constructed of massive Jewish masonry, may not improbably go back to a very early period. It is now empty except after heavy rains; but it was formerly filled by the springs at which Abram doubtless watered his flocks and herds when, entering the land of Canaan, “he pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east, and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.”[177] The patriarch after his journey into Egypt, returned “unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first, and there Abram called upon the name of the Lord,” for wherever he pitched his tent there he built an altar—an example to all future ages of household piety and domestic worship. It was here and now that the strife occurred between his herdsmen and those of his nephew Lot. Standing on the high ground already spoken of, the younger man “lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of the Jordan that it was well watered everywhere ... even as the garden of the Lord ... then Lot chose him all the plain of the Jordan, and Lot journeyed east; and they separated themselves the one from the other.” As one contrasts the barren rocky hills around us with the rich and fertile plain of Sodom, the self-denial of “the Father of the faithful,” becomes very striking and instructive. A new meaning is thus given to the promise which followed upon the choice of Abram: “And the Lord said unto him, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up thine eyes, and look from the place where thou now art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.... Arise, walk through the land, in the length of it and in the breadth of it; for I will give it unto thee.”[178] The blessing which thus came upon “faithful Abraham,” will surely be inherited by all who, like him, are content to forego present advantages in the service and at the call of God.