MARK TWAIN

of God ascending and descending upon it! Above that
ladder he saw the vision of the Holy One and heard a
voice: "I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and
the God of Isaac; the land wherein thou liest, to thee will
I give it, and to thy seed." And here the promise was
made him that he should be kept in all fiis ways, and
brought again in safety to this land. He awoke from this
strange vision. "Surely," said he, "the Lord is in this
place, and I knew it not. . . . How dreadful is this place!
This is none other but the house of God and the gate of
heaven."

Early in the morning Jacob rose up, took a stone he
had used for his pillow, set it up for a memorial and
dedicated it to the Lord,—and he called the name of that
place Bethel, house of God.

Time passed on—Jacob returned with his wife, chil-
dren, servants, flocks and herds. Again the Lord appeared
unto him: "Arise, go up to Bethel and make there an altar
unto God." Again Jacob and all his household dwelt upon
this ground—again he built an altar and worshiped God.

And he called the place El Bethel—God, the house of
God.

So when Jacob wanted a farm he only had to dream.

Here Deborah, Rebecca's nurse, died and they buried
her beneath Bethel, under an oak.

What a history this place has! How strange to stand
here on the camping-grounds of the patriarchs.

Bethel in Joshua's time was a royal city, governed by
a king. Here Samuel held one of his circuit courts (was he
a circuit judge?) when he traveled the circuit and judged
Israel. The Ark (of the Covenant, not Noah's) seems to
have been kept here at one time.

In the separation of the kingdom, after the death of
Solomon, Jeroboam, fearing to have the people go up to
Jerusalem to worship, lest they should go back to their old
allegiance, established idolatrous worship, made 2 golden

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