Palestine or the Holy Land From the Earliest Period to the Present Time
Excerpt
In giving an account of the Holy Land, an author, upon examining
his
materials, finds himself presented with the choice either of
simple
history on the one hand, or of mere local description on the other;
and
the character of his book is of course determined by, the selection
which
he makes of the first or the second of these departments. The
volumes on
Palestine hitherto laid before the public will accordingly be found
to
contain either a bare abridgment of the annals of the Jewish
people, or a
topographical delineation of the country, the cities, and the towns
which
they inhabited, from the date of the conquest under Joshua, down to
the
period of their dispersion by Titus and Adrian. Several able
works have
recently appeared on each of these subjects, and have been, almost
without
exception, rewarded with the popularity which is seldom refused
to
learning, and eloquence. But it occurred to the writer of the
following
pages, that the expectations of the general reader would be more
fully
answered were the two plans to be united, and the constitution,
the
antiquities, the religion, the literature, and even the statistics
of,
the Hebrews combined with the narrative of their rise and fall in
the
sacred land bestowed upon their fathers.
