MINE OWN COUNTRY
is still destined to conquer and redeem. And although her garden-walls crumble on one side into desert waste and on the other into barren strands, her heritage is the Cross and a sea of flowers. Syria the land of roses, Syria the cradle and the tomb of the gods! When Byblos adored Tammuz, when Baalbek worshipped Jupitor-Ammon, when Galilee conquered Judea, when Arabia overcame Galilee, thou wert then a Fountain of the Spirit toward which turned a thirsty world. Thy temple was the temple of the universe, thy voice was the voice of God. From the Tigris to the Red Sea, from the Taurus to the Hijaz, thou hast ever been the garden of revelation and the battlefield of the creeds. But if the Prophets no longer thunder on thy mountains, the bulbuls still sing in thy dells and dales, the roses still blow on thy rugged brow, and the cedars, from their snowy heights, still cast their shadows over the golden sands. Syria the land of roses, Syria the cradle and the tomb of the gods, if thou wert to become a howling desert
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