History without Geography is incomplete and unsatisfactory. The duty of the historian is, not only to record the events of his narrative, with their causes and consequences, but to sketch the attending scenes and circumstances, so as to present a clear and living picture of the whole. For this purpose, Geography comes to the aid of History, to delineate the scenery of the historical narrative, to describe the city or country where the event recorded transpired, to depict the mountain, plain, or valley, the ocean, sea, or river, the lake or fountain that blend in the surrounding landscape. Nothing so effectually aids us to call up from the tomb the figure of the past and reinvest it with its former lineaments, as these changeless features of nature. These alone give reality and life to the picture. More than all else they carry us back to live in the bygone days of history, and to become living actors in its stirring scenes.
Zion is still beautiful for situation, as in the days of the Psalmist; the hills stand about Jerusalem now as they did when their picturesque beauties inspired the song of the royal bard. There is the Mount of Olives, and Mount Moriah, with the deep, silent valley below; and there is "Siloa's brook," still fresh and full, as when it flowed "fast by the oracle of God." The heights of Hebron, the grazing-grounds and wells of Beersheba, are the same as when Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob tended there their flocks. Lebanon and Carmel, Tabor, Hermon and Bashan, the Lake of Galilee and its winding shores, are clad still in all the varied beauties which held and charmed the eye of Jesus of Nazareth. These, contemplated in vivid mental conception, carry us back to walk with Jesus by the silent, solemn shore of that lake, to commune in spirit with the sweet singer of Israel, and to converse with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob on the tented field.
Thus History and Geography are inseparably associated together, and should ever be studied in connection. Each, by association, lends new interest to the other; and both are learned with more ease than either when studied separately. Read with careful reference to geographical and chronological data, locate in time as in history, and in space as in geography, the events of the past, trace upon chart and map the shifting scenes of the narrative, and what was before insipid and profitless, becomes, like the "expressive canvas" and the "speaking marble," instinct with life and spirit. What was crowded in confusion upon the mind, spreads out in distinct and beautiful perspective, leaving an impression clear and abiding as the landscape of the painter.
