A GLIMPSE OF HARAN

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pale yellow limestone. Inside, I fear I must call it hideously plain, of the exaggerated type. Only half of it even is carpeted, though, I doubt not, many of the people have Persian carpets in their houses. Having no seats, they must be content with the cold floor, which even at this season, not unlike the English April, must be a little damping except to very warm hearts! As the Holy Communion is They have not even a Lord's Table.

only held once in three months, they perhaps think it needless, Yet with all that they are which so far is sound logic and sense.

doing a good work, and many of the hearers go to their own old churches for their ritual and Sacraments, and to the Presbyterians for their teaching, an arrangement I was unprepared for, but which seems both at Oorfa and Diarbekir to be rather usual than uncommon, only it turns the Presbyterian chapel into a preaching hall!

I felt disposed to be a little excited at the sight, through a telescope of Mr. Abool-Hayat, of the ancient pillar or minaret of Haran, the great patriarch's so long abode! I could scarcely believe my eyes; yet there it was and no mistake, and here at Bir he crossed the Euphrates doubtless: and though I could not think my journey the last two days was over the same ground, foot for foot as Abraham travelled, when he went from Ur of the Chaldees, or from Haran, yet it must have been almost identical. The wilderness I traversed seemed strangely transformed in parts with flowery meads such as I have seldom or never seen in English scenery even, some portions of the plain being whitened with English daisies, others saffroned with buttercups, dandelions, the wild mustard flower, and other old familiar flowers, blue-dyed here and there with periwinkles and perhaps forget-me-nots, crimsoned with poppies, and English swallows wheeled their flight around our horses for miles, as if delighting in human society. What we saw that was un-English was some miles of young unformed locusts swarming on the ground-(six miles at least their army spread its scourge)-before them an Eden, behind them a wilderness, as the prophet says so picturesquely and aptly!

To MRS. MOULSON.

Aktarim Village, one day's march from Aleppo on the

Diarbekir road. April 29, 1888.

We are resting in a small khan by the wayside, 'on the Sabbath day, according to the commandment.' . . . This is a singular little village, the houses all of bee-hive type and build, yet not mere mud bee-hives like some of the African villages, but, though coated with mud and earth outside, yet well and scientifically built within. with layers of bricks ascending pyramidally at welladjusted angles, with strong stones at the top to make the key of the arched dome-like structure strong. For security from heavy

rains penetrating the roof I cannot think of any shape or fashion more perfect. There must be some hundreds of these bee hives, some houses having six or eight, surrounded with a court and strong wall. . . . Nine hundred out of my thousand miles' ride are now completed, for which you will praise God with me. The season has been more favourable than when I was in Persia. Even here from the Euphrates to Aleppo, where I expected dry sandy wastes and blazing suns, the country is richly verdant with crops, and particoloured with many English and foreign flowers, skies cloudy, and breezes refreshing. My dragoman never fails to get me milk and eggs, and most often a little mutton stewed or made broth of. My Arabic and Syriac are certainly improved. These desert journeys enable me to keep better in mind the dear home circles in England, and to picture them more vividly than I could in the midst of the crowd of cares at Lahore. I can see no reason for thinking that the step I took (in resigning) was at all precipitate; except, perhaps, the Archbishop of Canterbury, I hardly know of any who has doubted the soundness of my judgement in so doing. I love to think of all my dear children's steadfast, faithful labour, while I am a wanderer!

At Aleppo the bishop found little of any interest, but he could not resist turning aside to visit Antioch (Antakieh), with its grand missionary history.

'The plain of the Orontes,' he said, 'is partly a marsh now, since the old Syrian, Greek, and Roman monarchs passed away, and engineering processes have long since ceased.

The city has come down from 500,000, as in the Emperor Justinian's time, or 250,000, as in Augustus' time, to some 20,000 or 25,000 souls, and if ever the glory of a city departed, this city has been shorn of its pride. Still it can never lose the depth of its interest to those to whom the history of the Acts is ever fresh and inspiring, and who have ever profited by the great discourses preached here by the most perfect almost of human preachers, St. Chrysostom, in the fourth century. It is strange that so very little survives however of its proverbial splendour. Much of this is owing to the series of earthquakes which, at different ages, have demolished all its fabrics which were at all perishable. The massive walls of Justinian, which are carried over the lofty hills above it, have been constantly picked to pieces for new buildings, and but scant and sparse fragments of them survive, sufficient to show of what colossal and cyclopean strength and dimensions they were originally built. .. We entered the city last Saturday by an old paved road, of which a portion still remains in a very rent and shattered state: once it was a colonnade two miles long with four rows of pillars, embellished with rich statuary by order of Tiberius. The two central rows were roofed in with slabs of

granite by Antiochus Epiphanes. Augustus built a circus of great dimensions, besides public baths, and in other ways made costly improvements. An excellent Irish missionary Mr. Martin and his wife (Presbyterians) offered me quarters, and it would be more comfortable, for they have a charming country residence in the suburbs, but I wanted to see all I could of the town, and the khan seems more like the place St. Barnabas must have brought St. Paul to, when he fetched him from Tarsus to Antioch, and for a year they taught much people. Alas! all the best of the churches, which cannot be later well than Justinian's (or possibly Theodosius') time, are appropriated by the Mohammedans for mosques and schools. The Orontes valley is a most tempting site for a great capital; its long soft slopes from the river banks to the lofty dark heights of the Amanus range opposite the city offering all facilities for villas and gardens, with small terraced plateaux, and groves running up into the hills. South of the river is the Mount Sylpius. I climbed yesterday with some pains to visit the vestiges of the walls and towers. One tower alone remains, and that partially in ruins. Through its carved and finely planted gate almost at the summit you look to a wholly new scenery, and hill ranges beyond, behind one of which stood Daphne, which was a place dedicated to Venus' worship, and was as richly embellished as Antioch or more so, and with better existing monuments, I believe, but such as I do not care to see.

'On the whole, Antioch appears somewhat reviving, and to have a pushing, thriving, striving population, the manufacturers and mechanics of the place being mostly Moslems, and a fair portion of the trade in Christian hands of rather a low and degraded type. Of its ancient churches the most interesting is one mostly hewn out of the live rock, the Church of St. John. . . A Church of the Twelve Apostles, which Justinian spent much in restoring and decorating, must be one of several in the place which the Mohammedans have appropriated by force.

'The court of the mosque has a wondrously beautiful specimen of stone paving. A large Moslem school (with a small body of moollahs) is held in a series of buildings adjoining. What would I give if I had £1,000 to spare to get the Moslems to sell me that church and school for a new centre, which the two great Apostles, from their rest in the Spirit World, might tune their harps to a fresh song of joy and praise to thank God for ! but alas! these bright dreams are of the impracticable and romantic as appears. But I do feel a little envious, I confess, of every Christian body that has got a settlement in a city of such singularly glorious and almost divine antecedents.

Sunday last was the Greek Easter, and I hoped in the early morning to find at least a specially solemn service being conducted; but I am sorry to say that it turned out to be quite otherwise. The Mass had begun shortly after midnight, and

must have lasted some hours. At a second service the cathedral was turned into a complete bear-garden, and given over to a kind of saturnalia, such as I should have thought impossible in a Christian church anywhere. Boys and young men were running about firing pistols, and letting off crackers, and diverting themselves in the most unseemly manner, and the only excuse made was that this only happened once in a year!'

From Antioch the bishop went a hard day's ride to Beilan, whence he descended by the fine carriage-road to Scanderoon, and embarked on board a Russian steamer for Beyrout, the goal of his long journey. And thence on May 15 he wrote to Mrs. French :

Mr. Mentor Mott's House, Beyrout, May 15, 1888.

I am sitting again in a charming, elegantly and sumptuously furnished upstairs room, with the Lebanon above me and the blue Mediterranean below me; lovely villas and gardens all round me, only interspersed with large reddish sand heaps piled up in mounds, and which tornadoes occasionally toss about in clouds, so that at such times doors and windows must be hermetically sealed. The villas have the bright colours of the French watering places; the finest among them being those occupied by educational institutes. There are Jesuit Latin colleges and nunneries, a Russian school and hospital, an American college of the most advanced standards, under Drs. Bliss and Vandyke, men of great distinction, and recently a fine Greek college, rather an antagonistic effort to the Americans. Mrs. Mott says, caustically, that for the Greek ladies it is better at least they should have something to think of (even if it is fighting) than spend their lives in their usual empty frivolities and habits of gambling. Altogether the place is more striking than I expected, and has a dignity and imposing, august appearance which wins respect, and entitles it to the name of an eastern capital of considerable promise. The Christian buildings, especially the Protestant and Jesuit, outstrip all the rest in stateliness: and I can scarcely wonder at the jealousy of the Moslems, which led to a recent riot, arising from the sense that the Christians were becoming too predominant. We arrived about 5.30 a. m. yesterday, and reached the Motts' palatial residence soon after 7. I could scarcely believe my eyes when I looked at the snow-white sheets and damask curtains, richly carpeted daises, &c., and all the luxuries of civilized life again, after the long exchange of them all for desert life; and then to think that without touching land again I might be at your very door in London! . . . As to my own future there is nothing to show any divine leading any whither at present; and I must be prepared to wait a while in patience.

THE EASTERN CHURCHES

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ADDITIONAL NOTE UPON THE EASTERN CHURCHES.

Though it seemed better not to interrupt the journal of the bishop's travels by introducing any wider questions, his comments on ecclesiastical affairs will be made clearer to the reader by a bare outline of the history and present status of the various communities of Oriental Christians.

In writing from Bagdad to Cyril on February 19, 1888, the bishop himself said :

'It is very difficult to learn which is which (as regards the names and the special lines taken) amidst the varied coloured pieces which are spread over the chess-board in almost hopeless confusion: Syrian and Chaldean, Jacobite and Nestorian, RomanSyrian, Roman-Chaldean, besides Armenians, Maronites, Greeks and Romans proper. I hope I shall get a clearer notion of who they all are, and whether there are any living branches of the True Vine amongst them.'

The educated English layman has as a rule it may be feared but small acquaintance with the history of Eastern Churches, yet in these it is that the great doctrinal questions that underlie our Western creeds have been fought out for us.

In the main doctrine of the Blessed Trinity all branches of the Eastern Church are well agreed. All would condemn Arius, who said there was a time when Christ was not, and recognized in Him a merely secondary Deity and all would condemn Macedonius, who is said to have doubted the Deity of God the Holy Ghost.

When these great controversies had been settled at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, the minds of men turned to the subtle questions that surround the mystery of the true union of Godhead and Manhood in the Person of our Lord and the great rival schools of learning struck out divergent lines of thought.

The two chief schools were Antioch and Alexandria. From Alexandria came Athanasius, the champion against Arius: from Antioch there came forth Chrysostom.