THE WONDERFUL LIFE. CHAPTER I. THE HOLY LAND. VERY far away from our own country lies the land where Jesus Christ was born. More than two thousand miles stretch between us and it, and those who wish to visit it must journey over sea and land to reach its shores. It rests in the very heart and centre of the Old World, with Asia, Europe, and Africa encircling it. A little land it is, only half the length of England, and but fifty miles broad from the Great Sea, or the Mediterranean, on the west, to the river Jordan, on the east. But its hills and valleys, its dusty roads, and green pastures, its vineyards and oliveyards, and its villagestreets have been trodden by the feet of our Lord; and for us, as well as for the Jews, to whom God gave it, it is the Holy Land. The country lies high, and forms a table-land, on which there are mountains of considerable height. Moses describes it as 'a good land, a land of brooks of water, of |