Haifa, Palestine

Sept 5, 1894

Edward and Wealthy

Dear Brother and Sister,

With pleasure I do address you. This is really September. The summer will soon be gone and I can scarcely realize it. Am still looking as it were for haying and harvesting to begin. The gathering of grapes is the principal business here and Mt. Carmel yet looks
beautiful with the side, which is towards me clothed with vineyards and its back hidden in shrubbery still green. The fig and olive and sycamore are growing at its feet and above amongst the grapevines. If all Carmel is as lovely as this section here it indeed excelled. Isaiah (C. XXXV v 2) said, in predicting the futures of Israel and their country that to this desert which should rejoice and blossom as the rose, should be given the "excellency of Mt. Carmel." The Mt. Is about twenty miles long, one thousand eight hundred feet high at the end running seaward and six hundred feet high at the other end. It is
very rocky and many walls have been put up in forming the terraces on which the fruit is grown. On the uncultivated land there are still to be seen the thorns and briers referred to by Isaiah and the curse pronounced by Amos (11,2) (sic should be 1,2) is at present time traceable. I love to gaze from my open window on these hills where Elijah, also others of the Lord's prophets, worked miracles, which they were, as we are now preaching the Gospel of Christ. One thinks
he can feel the influence of the departed spirits prompting him to greater diligence in serving the Lord. Although it has not rained during the summer months much of the vegetation is yet fresh and green. The weather still remains warm, the nights are cooler than
they have been. My health is good, sea bathing is delightsome and I indulge myself nearly every morning. Am enjoying very much my labors here. AM training as best I can my mouth and tongue and
throat to the Deutsche language. The throat is principally concerned. It is said that during the confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel a gob of mud, dropped from an elevation of considerable height into a man's mouth. The noise introduced in expelling it received the name