Читать книгу The Thistle and the Cedar of Lebanon - Habeeb Risk Allah - Страница 3

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In presenting the British public with the following pages, containing a brief sketch of my life and travels, together with a description of the customs and present condition of my native land, I am actuated solely by motives which, I trust, a careful perusal of this work will prove to be disinterested.

All nations are more or less patriotic; none more so than the inhabitants of the British isles. With them the inducements to this love of home are all-sufficient, for their religion is the purest, their government and laws the best in the world, and they are second to no people in the enjoyment of privileges and blessings, such as could be only enjoyed by a “peculiar people,” under the immediate protection of the Almighty Benefactor. Next to them we may rank, as promoters of freedom and enlightenment, the citizens of the United States, those other scions of a noble stock.

Yet so peculiar is that innate love of man for the particular country and people with which are associated the early years of his childhood, that even the son of utter darkness, born and bred a savage, inured to every hardship and privation, who boasts of no city, scarcely professes a religion, whose home is the desert waste, his bed the warm sands of Arabia, even he, the wild Bedouin, in his untutored heart, sets boundless store by the place and people to which early attachment has rivetted his affections. Separate him from these and from his beloved mare, and no riches or pleasures could compensate him for the loss. This is also applicable to the humble and oftentimes oppressed natives who dwell in the towns and villages of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. Though for centuries they have been subjected to the heavy yoke of bondage, and of late years, like the Israelites of old, were bondsmen to Egypt; however much they may have deplored their hard fate, none have ever dreamt of quitting the dear land of their forefathers—those ancestors who were coeval with the patriarchs. Some till the ground where Abraham once tended his flocks; others cut timber where the men of Hiram and Solomon once hewed cedars for the temple at Jerusalem; but the boast and glory of all these is, that they dwell in the land where the Promise was fulfilled. One may be by birth a Nazarene, another a townsman of Cana. A day or two’s journey enables him to reach that very Bethlehem where the blessed Redeemer was born, to track His holy footsteps in His pilgrimage of mercy from place to place, to weep and bemoan Him on the site of the last closing scenes of His holy life, and to raise up their hearts with grateful thanksgivings for the great salvation wrought out for their souls by His glorious resurrection.

Apart from these cherished associations of the spiritual with the temporal world, the native of the Holy Land is fondly attached to his country, because its climate is congenial to his manners, its soil productive, its inhabitants hospitable, its waters the purest, air the freshest, sun the brightest, fruits the most delicious, and flowers the sweetest and most wildly profuse. All these gifts in the greatest luxuriance are to be found within the Lebanon range—that Lebanon of which the inspired bard, the wisest of men and the best of kings, sings in his beautiful metaphor on Christian love. [3] “Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits. . . A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.”

With such a past to dwell on, it is not surprising that the poor, neglected peasant of Syria may still proudly vaunt himself of his birthright and country. I, too, hope, kind reader, for your sympathy in my sharing this national characteristic, and for endeavouring, as far as in me lies, to promote the welfare, both temporal and eternal, of my fellow countrymen and native land. The former, alas! are gradually sinking deeper and deeper into the meshes of superstition and idolatry; the latter groans under a heavy yoke, rendered still less supportable by the grossest ignorance. The indefatigable propagators of the Romish faith are arousing the people from their pristine ignorance, only, I fear, to plunge them into a more fearful vortex of errors.

I rush to the rescue; for God has blessed me far above my countrymen, by shedding the true light of the Gospel around my pathway, through the instrumentality of good and holy men, whom He has chosen for His especial service, and who have bestowed on me the priceless boon of a Christian education. I am willing and anxious to devote every hour of my life, and all my poor means, to the furtherance of His cause. Yet, though much may combine in my favour, I am inadequate to the accomplishment of the good I desire for my country, without the aid, wise counsel, and support of the Christian inhabitants of Great Britain.

Reader! in the following pages I have endeavoured to depict as clearly as I can the evil and the remedy. I have glanced over the leading features of my life, to show how circumstances, trivial in themselves, appear to have combined in my favour, that I should be an humble instrument in the hands of my Maker, to work out a brighter and better hope for dear Syria.

That “pearl of great price,” pure Christianity, has been cherished and nurtured within these isles till the true faith has reared itself up like a mighty mirror, reflecting the glorious light of the blessed truths of the Gospel far and wide. May one beam of charity, reflected from thence, alight upon the mother church of Syria—that church now sunk in misery and degradation, but from which (remember, O Christian of Great Britain) was derived the glorious knowledge of an eternal salvation.

“The Thistle that is in Lebanon” is the harassed, weak, yet simple disciple of the Eastern Church; and “the Cedar that was in Lebanon” is the true Church of Christ, whose seeds were first derived from those Holy shores, and are now firmly rooted in England. The Thistle has sent to ask thy daughter, Enlightenment, in marriage to her son, Simplicity. O refuse her not lest the wild beast in Lebanon should tread down the Thistle and obtain the ascendancy.