Palestine is a small strip of land between the mountains of Syria and the green waters of the Mediterranean. It has been inhabited since time immemorial, but we do not know very much about the first settlers, although we have given them the name of Canaanites.

The Canaanites belonged to the Semitic race. Their ancestors, like those of the Jews and the Babylonians, had been a desert folk. When the Jews entered Palestine, the Canaanites lived in towns and villages. They were no longer shepherds but traders. Indeed, in the Jewish language, Canaanite and merchant came to mean the same thing.

Canaanites had built themselves strong cities, surrounded by high walls. They did not allow the Jews to enter their gates, but they forced them to keep to the open country and make their home amidst the grassy lands of the valleys.

After a time, the Jews and the Canaanites became friends. This was not so very difficult, for they both feared a common enemy, and only their united strength could defend their country against these dangerous neighbors, the Philistines.

The Philistines were Europeans, and their earliest home had been in the Isle of Crete. When they settled along the shores of the Mediterranean is quite uncertain, because we do not know when the Indo-European invaders had driven them from their island home. But even the Egyptians, who called them Purasati, had feared them greatly. When the Philistines (who wore a headdress of feathers just like our Indians) went upon the warpath, all the people of western Asia sent large armies to protect their frontiers.

As for the war between the Philistines and the Jews, it never came to an end. The Philistines always proved themselves more than a match for the Jews and never allowed the Hebrew people to get hold of any of the harbors of the Mediterranean.

The Jews therefore were obliged by fate to content themselves with the valleys of eastern Palestine and there, on the top of a barren hill, they erected their capital.

The name of this city was Jerusalem and for thirty centuries it has been one of the most holy spots of the western world.

In the dim ages of the unknown past, Jerusalem, the Home of Peace, had been a little fortified outpost of the Egyptians who had built many small fortifications and castles along the mountain ridges of Palestine, to defend their outlying frontier against attacks from the East.

After the downfall of the Egyptian Empire, a native tribe, the Jebusites, had moved into the deserted city. Then came the Jews who captured Jerusalem after a long struggle and made it the residence of their King David.

At last, after many years of wandering, the Tables of the Law seemed to have reached a place of enduring rest. Solomon, the Wise, decided to provide them with a magnificent home. Far and wide his messengers travelled the world seeking rare woods and precious metals. The entire nation was asked to offer its wealth to make the House of Jehovah worthy of its holy name. Higher and higher the walls of the temple arose guarding the sacred Laws of Jehovah for all the ages.

Alas, the expected eternity proved to be of short duration. Themselves intruders among hostile neighbors, surrounded by enemies on all sides, harassed by the Philistines, the Jews did not maintain their independence for very long.

They fought well and bravely. But their little state, weakened by petty jealousies, was easily overpowered by the Assyrians and the Egyptians and the Chaldeans and when Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, took Jerusalem in the year 586 before the birth of Christ, he destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, and the Tablets of Stone went up in the general conflagration.

At once, the Jews set to work to rebuild their holy shrine. But the days of Solomon's glory were gone. The Jews were the subjects of a foreign race, and money was scarce. It took seventy years to reconstruct the old edifice. It stood securely for three hundred years before a second invasion took place. Once more, the red flames of the burning temple brightened the skies of Palestine.

When Jerusalem was rebuilt for the third time, it was surrounded by two high walls with narrow gates and several inner courts were added to make sudden invasion in the future an impossibility.

But ill-luck pursued the city of Jerusalem.

In the sixty-fifth year before the birth of Christ, the Romans under their general Pompey took possession of the Jewish capital. Their practical sense did not take kindly to an old city with crooked and dark streets and many unhealthy alley-ways. The Romans forced their modern improvements upon an unwilling populace. They cleaned up this old rubbish (as Romans considered it) and built new barracks and large public buildings and swimming-pools and athletic parks.

The temple which served no practical purposes (as far as the Romans could see) was neglected until the days of the Roman king Herod, whose vanity wished to renew the ancient splendor of the bygone ages. In a half-hearted manner, the oppressed people set to work to obey the orders of a master who was not of their own choosing.

When the last stone had been placed in its proper position, another revolution broke out against the merciless Roman tax gatherers. Herod's temple was the first victim of this rioting. The soldiers of the Roman Emperor Titus promptly set fire to this center of the old Jewish faith. But the city of Jerusalem was spared.

Palestine, however, continued to be the scene of unrest.

The Romans, who were familiar with all sorts of races of men and who ruled countries where a thousand different divinities were worshipped, did not know how to handle the Jews. They did not understand the Jewish character at all. Extreme tolerance (based upon indifference) was the foundation upon which Rome had constructed her very successful Empire. Roman governors never interfered with the religious belief of subject tribes. Roman governors did demand that a picture or a statue of the Emperor be placed in the temples of the people who inhabited the outlying parts of the Roman domains. This was a mere formality, and it did not have any deep significance. But to the Jews, such a thing seemed highly sacrilegious, and they would not desecrate their Holiest of Holies by the carven image of a Roman potentate.

The Jewish people refused to place the picture of the Roman Emporer in their temple.

The Romans insisted.

In itself, a matter of small importance, a misunderstanding of this sort was bound to grow and cause further ill-feeling. Fifty-two years after the revolt under the Emperor Titus, the Jews once more rebelled. This time, the Romans decided to be thorough in their work of destruction.

Jerusalem was destroyed.

The temple was burned down.

A new Roman city, called Aelia Capitolina, was erected upon the ruins of the old city of Solomon.

A temple devoted to the worship of Jupiter was built upon the site where the Jewish people had worshipped Jehovah for almost a thousand years.

The Jews themselves were expelled from their capital, and thousands of them were driven away from the home of their ancestors.

Once again, the Jewish people became wanderers upon the face of the Earth.

But the Holy Laws no longer needed the safe shelter of a royal shrine.

Their influence had long since passed beyond the narrow confines of the land of Judah.