From the Nile to Norway and homeward

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From the Nile to Norway and homeward.

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FROM THE NILE TO NORWAY.

BY THE REV. T. L. CUYLER.

I. POINTED PAPERS FOR THE CHRISTIAN

LIFE. i2mo $1.50

" Dr. Cuyler holds steadily the position which he reached years ago, as the
best writer of pointed, racy, religious articles in our country. This voliune
contains many such papers." — Presbyterian.

II. XHOUGHT-HIVES. i2mo, with portrait . . $1.50

" Good-nature, human sympathy, and Christian zeal kindle all Mr. Cuy-
ler's pages into a magnetic warmth. Genial, open-hearted, and fascina-
ting in his style, both spoken and written, he has made for himself a land-
wide reputatioo, and written his name everywhere as a household word."
N, y. Evangelist.

III. FROM THE NILE TO NORWAY AND

HOMEWARD. Illustrated $1.50

IV. THE EMPTY CRIB. Gilt edges .... $1.00

"A real gem; the outpouring of a stricken parent's sorrows into the very
bosom of the Saviour." — Christian Advocate.

V. THE CEDAR CHRISTIAN. l8mo .... $0.75

VI. STRAY ARROWS. l8mo $0.60

ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
New York.

Nile to Norway.

RICHARD COEUR-DE-LION

and the
PALACE OF WESTMINSTER.

FRONTISPIECE.

FROM

The Nile to Norv^ay

AND HOMEWARD

BY

THEODORE L. CUYLER

PASTOR OF LAFAYETTE AVENUE CHURCH, BROOKLYN

NEW YORK
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS

530 Broadway
1882

Copyright, 1881,
By Robert Carter & Brothers.

CAMBRIDGE: ST. JOHNLAND

PRESS OF stereotype FOUNDRY,

JOHN WILSON AND SON. SUFFOLK CO., N. Y.

THE BELOVED FLOCK

WHOSE GENEROUS KINDNESS SENT ME ON THIS TOUR
THIS VOLUME IS

draMnllg |itstrihb'.

CONTENTS,

CHAP.

I. OUTWARD BOUND

n. THROUGH ENGLAND AND FRANCE .
rn. CRUISING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
rV. THE LAND OF THE PHARAOHS
V. LIFE IN CAIRO
TL LAST YIEWS IN EGYPT,
■yn. TO THE HOLY LAND
Vm. WAiKS ABOUT JERUSALEM .
IX. THE DEAD SEA AND THE JORDAN
X THE OLD AND THE NEW
XI. BEYROUT AND THE SJTRIAN MISSIONS.

TTT . OHIO AND A VISIT TO EPHESUS

xm. ON THE BOSPHORUS
XIV. ATHENS ....
XV. SUNRISE ON THE PARTHENON .
XVI. FROM ATHENS TO THE TYROL

XVn. PRAGUE DRESDEN.

XVm. THE LAND OF LUTHER
XIX. HAMBURG TO COPENHAGEN
XX. THE CITY OF THORWALDSEN.

9

19

27

43

65

65

78

87

97

108

127

139

149

160

171

181

191

201

210

219

viii CONTENTS.

CHAP.

XXI. NORWAY.

XXn. STOCKHOLM

XXm. THE WABM HEABTS 01" SWEDEN

XXIV. THE GREENTH OE ENGLAND.

XXV. DRIVES ABOUT LONDON .

FAGB.

. 227
. 239

. 249
, 262

. 271

XXVI. CAMBRIDGE THE SAVOY ^MR. SPITBGEON . 281

XXVn. DEAN STANLEY ....•• 292

XXVin. THE DRINK-QUESTION IN MANY lANDS . . 300

XXIX. EXCURSIONS IN ENGLAND. .... 313

XXX. A RUN INTO WALES ..... 335

XXXI. HOMEWARD 345

FROM THE NILE TO NORWAY.

oi<«o

OUTWARD BOUND.

Near Queenstown, April 2, 1881.

TT was a raw March morning on which the
-*- stout ship "Bothnia" threw off her hnes,
and a cutting wind smote in the faces of the
kind friends who gave us a parting cheer
from the Cunard wharf. The vessel also was
very cold for a few hours, but when the
steam warmed up her iron ribs, she became
thoroughly comfortable. As we steamed
down the Bay, the other passengers were
busy in getting off letters for the pilot; but
my eyes were held fast to the spire of
Lafayette - avenue Church, and when that
beautiful and beloved landmark dropped
out of sight behind Greenwood, I, went be-
low, and felt that the last link to home

10 The Nile to Norway.

was broken off. The russet hills of Staten
Island slowly disappeared; then the paste-
board palaces on Manhattan Beach; then we
passed the light-ship, and were out on the
great wide sea.

It has not grown any narrower since I
first crossed it in the packet-ship "Patrick
Henry" thirty-eight years ago, when I was
a college-youth; but steam has put a car-
peted cabin across the waves in half the
time. In those days the "Independence"
made a great run, under canvas, in fifteen
days; but the average time was about twen-
ty-five, except in winter; then old Boreas
often boxed them about for forty days.
The Bothnia is not famous for speed; but
she is spacious, stout, and sociable. Cap-
tain McMickan's genial face throws a sun--
shine on her deck on the darkest morning,
and Engineer Brown's violin can make the
roughest night merry as a Christmas feast.
We have four hundred and twenty feet for
promenade, and a very genial company to
keep step with in our daily walks. The

Outward Bound. 11

steamer runs as true as a clock, and hardly-
varied from three hundred and twenty miles
a day after we left Sandy Hook. At the
Captain's table we have Greneral Richmond,
Consul at Rome, Colonel Richard Lathers,
the Hon. Mr. Maxwell, and several other
good sailors, who put in an appearance at
every meal. My kind friend Mr. Howard
Gribb, a Broadway merchant, presided at the
opposite table; for he has crossed so often
in the Bothnia that he has the freedom of
the ship.

The most enjoyable time on board is the
evening. Then a party of us assemble in
Purser Wallace's room, and the Captain tells
his full share of the lively stories which keep
the room in a roar. Later in the evening
we adjourn to the room of the chief engineer,
Brown, who is a typical Scotchman, worthy
of a place in one of Sir Walter's romances.
Brown is not only a staunch Presbyterian,
but a master of the violin; and the sight of
him when he is pouring forth such old Scotch
melodies as "Bonnie Doon," "John Ander-

12 The Nile to Norway.

son, my Jo," and "Come under my plaidie,"
reminds one of the "Last Minstrel" when
he played before the Duchess in old Brank-
some Tower. He puts his whole soul into
the instrument whether the strains be grave
or gay. So popular are his performances
that his cabin is packed, and some of the
ladies are glad to join our party and enjoy
these delightful " nichts wi' Burns." More
than one of my clerical brethren have lively
memories of the Scotch stories and strains
of Highland melody in the cosy room of
Engineer Brown.

Last Sabbath was a day of storm. I fear
that but few of our passengers greeted the
morning with the familiar Unes " Welcome
sweet day of rest^ The deck was spattered
with the rain, and washed with the stray
seas that combed over the bow. Only half
the passengers were able to join with the
Captain and crew at the morning service
in the main saloon; even some of them beat
a hasty retreat before the service was over.
While the sailors were standing up to sing

Outward Bound. 13

the psalm to old "Dundee," they swung to
and fro like pendulums; and while I was
preaching I had to hold on with both hands
to the table. My theme was the " four anch-
ors " which Paul's shipmates threw out during
the tempestuous voyage to Rome. Nowhere
do the good tidings of the Gospel sound
more gladsome than on a dark and stormy
day; and no souls have welcomed this Gospel
more heartily than the men of the sea. It
is a real luxury to preach to the blue-jackets
in Mr. Williams' chapel at our navy yard;
a sailors' prayer-meeting is a model for free-
dom and fervor. I trust that some fragments
of divine truth may have been caught and
retained by some of my auditors who held
steadfastly to their seats in the uneasy cabin.
One thing I feel sure of, and that is that
no man ever preaches God's simple Word
of life to even a handful of auditors without
some results. No message faithfully spoken
is left wholly unblest; no word returns to
the divine Giver unless it have at least im-
posed a new responsibility on the souls that

14 The Nile to Norway.

hear it. The old English hturgy is the com-
mon vehicle of devotion at all the services
on these vessels; we aU meet on the common
ground of the Apostles' Creed, the Psalter,
and Chrysostom's sweet, simple prayer; and
as staunch a Presbyterian as my Scotch
friend, Mr. Hugh Stirling, could join in the
responses as heartily as my Episcopal neigh-
bor. Colonel Lathers. On shore I prefer
voluntary extemporaneous devotions; at sea
I can appreciate Professor Hitchcock's argu-
ments for a Book of -Common Prayer.

Many of the passengers, in spite of the
uneasy sea, occupy themselves with read-
ing; but in addition to guide-books, the
only volume that I have looked into is
Froude's " Reminiscences of Carlyle." It is
wonderfully characteristic ; but the finest
things in the book are his impassioned trib-
utes to his " bonny little Jeannie," who
shone around his grim head like an aureola,
and whose bright look turned everything to
gold. Just imagine the grizzly old bear of
savage criticism (who did not spare even

Outward Bound. 15

Dr. Chalmers) breaking out into such lovely-
outbursts as this: '"God reward thee, dear
one ! now when I cannot even own my debt.
Thanks, darling, for your shining words and
acts, which were continual in my eyes, and
in no other mortal's. ! was it not beau-
tiful, aU this that I have lost forever ? "
Yes, it was beautiful ; and ten thousand
harsh and rasping utterances of Carlyle's
pessimism can all be covered by the grace-
ful mantle of his devoted, husbandly idolatry.
Amid aU the shams and " simulacra " of this
degenerate world, the one bit of solid gold
was the woman of his home and heart. We
can forgive aU the old growler's anathemas
when we see him, at the age of fourscore,
lying on the grave of his wife in Haddington
kirk-yard, and kissing the turf that covered
her.

I have been surprised that we have sighted
so few vessels during this passage — not more
than one or two each day. The reason prob-
ably is that the Cunard steamers have a
track of their own, about fifty miles south

16 The Nile to Norway.

of the great thoroughfare to Liverpool. The
travelling public can well afford to take the
longest route, when it affords them such an
additional guarantee of safety. Well has this
veteran line earned its crown of supremacy
for perfect discipline, staunch steamers, and
preservation of every single human life that
has been committed to its charge for forty-
one years !

I began this letter four days ago, when
the winds were prosperous and the stout
ship was pushing finely toward the " desired
haven." But on Tuesday a savage head-
wind took us by the throat, dashed the
brine into our faces, and riled up the tem-
pers of some of the passengers sadly. The
rain and wind banished most of them from
the deck and drove us down below to culti-
vate the grace of patience. I found it nec-
essary to go around and visit my parishioners
and cheer them up with all those consola-
tions which have become stereotyped at sea
in rough weather. Thanks to a free use,
every morning, of Saratoga water, and to

Outward Bound. 17

a careful diet, I have not been sea-sick.
The traditional nonsense about warding off
this dreaded malady by a liberal use of
champagne or toddy, ought to be exploded.
In this case, too, " wine is a mocker, and
whoso is deceived thereby is not wise." A
good aperient, light digestible food, and
fresh air, are worth more than all the alco-
holic potations ever concocted.

The horrible head-wind — which has thrown
us thirty hours behuid time — has not relaxed
its grasp ; but we are in sight of old Ireland
— pride of aU Irish patriots, prey of aU Irish
demagogues, and puzzle and plague of all
English statesmen. The question now is
whether she will allow Gladstone to help
her out of her bottomless bog of difificulties.
Patrick may well have a warm side for
America ; but for the relief that emigration
to us has given to her surplus crowds, and
for the myriads of "one-pound notes" sent
hither by servants to the old folks at home,
the Irish peasantry would have starved out
long ago.

18 The Nile to Norway.

Grateful is the sight of her emerald shores.
This chill, moist atmosphere brings no scent
of April on its wings. England, Rome, the
Alps, Athens and the Orient — aU lie hidden
beyond that wall of thin mist which over-
hangs the British Channel. May He who
has brought, us across the stormy sea, guide
us through and beyond that veO., until our
feet stand within thy gates, Jerusalem !

II.

THROUGH ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

MdrseiUes, France, April 7, 1881.

TN" all ages an east wind seems to have
''- had a bad name. The Old Testament
makes it a synonym for barrenness, and
the New Testament a synonym for tempests;
on the sea of G-alilee it nearly wrecked the
disciples, and on the Mediterranean, it hm-led
the Apostle Paul and his fellow -voyagers
upon the beach among the broken fragments
of their ship. The wind that took our
steamer "Bothnia" by the teeth off the
southern coast of Ireland, belonged to this
unamiable family. It would not even allow
us to halt, and leave our mails at Queens-
town. So the Captain threw up signal-
rockets, and we buffeted our way on to-
wards Tuskar light in the face of the gale.
By morning it had blown itself out of
its passion; the sea grew quieter, so that

19

20 The Nile to Norway.

the cabin was well filled at the Sabbath
service; we entered the mouth of the Mer-
sey at night-fall in a calm, and anchored
there for the next rise of the tide. It was
no pleasant thing at Liverpool to part from
a genial company of passengers who could
warm the wintriest day and cheer the dark-
est night in Lapland. Captain McMickan
is a king on a quarter-deck.

We set off immediately for London by
the North Western Railway which passes
through some of the finest counties of
England. The farmers were busy with
plough and harrow; I fancied also that I
saw shrewd "Mrs. Poyser" joggmg along
in her market-cart. It always thrills me, —
when passing over this road — to look at
the towers of Lichfield Cathedral in Dr.
Johnson's early home, and at Lord Mar-
mion's tower at Tamworth — and dear old
Rugby School, famous for Dr. Arnold and
Tom Brown — and at Berkhampstead, where
Cowper first saw the light in the world he
came to bless. We ran close to the hill

Through England and France. 21

of Harrow, from whose school went forth
the wayward Byron, and the wise Sir Robert
Peel. In five hours we were in roaring
London. When I first saw London it con-
tained two millions of , people; now its utter-
most hmits contain four millions and a half
My beloved friend the Rev. Newman HaU
was waiting to take me to his pleasant home
on Hampstead Hill — a home once shadowed
by peculiar trials, but now brightened with
sweet domestic joys.

In the evening I went to the prayer-
meeting of his congregation at Christ Church
Westminster Road. Their edifice, — with its
lofty Lincoln Tower, and its adjoining Hawke-
stone Hall — is more spacious and imposing
than I had expected. The original founder
of the church was Rowland Hill, and the
remains of that eccentric but devoted min-
ister of the Word have lately been removed
from old Surrey Chapel, and deposited under
the vestibule of the Lincoln Tower. A tablet
in commemoration of our Martyr President
is inserted in the waU; the Tower itself was

22 The Nile to Norway.

erected by the joint contributions of the
people of America and Britain. Mr. Hall
took me up into the " Wilberforce Room"
and the "Washington Room," which are
used for Bible-classes. On the wall of the
latter hangs a copy of our Declaration of
Independence. Christ Church seats aljout
two thousand, and it is usually full. The
prayer-meetings are held in the portion of
the building called Hawkestone Hall; on
Monday evening last a large company were
gathered, and we had an animated season
of hand-shaking afterward, for that congre-
gation and my own have long had an "evan-
gelical alliance " on our own hook. Mr. Hall
has a prodigious capacity for work, and on
an average, dehvers two or three discourses
— over England — during every week, in ad-
dition to the charge of his large congrega-
tion, and its city-missions. After the deliv-
ery of His Sunday evening discourse, he goes
out and preaches to an audience in the street.
As we drove back over Westminster bridge,
the Thames embankment was ablaze with the

Through England and France. 23

new electric lights; and one also shone
from the top of the tower of "Westminster
Palace to indicate that Parliament was in
session. In fact while we were passing, Mr.
Gladstone was just delivering his speech on
the Budget to a crowd so dense that any
attempt to get into the House of Commons
were futile. The oratorical powers of the
great Premier show no signs of decay; his
campaign in Mid Lothian nearly two years
ago may well be regarded as the grandest
feat of pohtical oratory in this century.
During the time that the dexterous D 'Israeli
was astonishing the world with his juggleries,
I often ventured the prediction, in public
addresses, that Gladstone would again become
the Premier of Great Britian. He owes his
return to power very largely to the zealous
support of the Presbyterians in Scotland,
and the Nonconformists in England.

My stay in London was very brief, as I
hope to revisit it in July. On Tuesday even-
ing I took my share of the tossing in the
termagant Channel on board of the boat

24 The Nile to Norway.

for Calais. We reached Paris behind tinie
and I hastened to the station for Marseilles.
I had but a few moments at the station
for conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell
two faithful members of my church who are
deeply interested in the evangelical move-
ment now going on in Paris. Being desirous
to see the most I could of them, I suggested
that they should go through the ticket-door,
and finish our talk in the car. The uni-
formed gateman stopped them, as they had
no tickets. I promptly said to him, "Mes
amis sont Americains. Vive la Repubhque."
The man swung his hand enthusiastically
and responded, " Yive la Eepubhque!" and
passed them through in an instant. I have
found the word American to be an "open
sesame" to more than one door in foreign
lands. In every part of the world one can
travel more pleasantly, and with more cer-
tainty of kindness from both the high and
the humble if he lets it be known that he
is a citizen of the United States. Occasion-
ally I have met an American (of the shoddy

Through England and France. 25

species), who was very anxious to conceal
his nationality — to the very great credit of
his country.

My journey to Marseilles was by the
lightning- express, which brought me five
hundred and thirty -six miles in thit-teen
hours, running time ! "We ran through
some of the most fertile and famous por-
tions of La BeUe France. From the car-
window I saw ancient Dijon, the capital
of Burgundy, the city of Charles the Bold
and the birthplace of Bossuet. The door of
the venerable cathedral was standing open,
through which the great orator must have
often passed in the days of his boyhood.
We passed, quite too quickly, the his-
toric reliques of Avignon, and the antique
Aries with its Roman amphitheatre. The
country was in all the glories of spring. At
Dover, thirty-six hours ago, the trees were
leafless. At Paris a faint touch of green
began to appear. At Monteneau, the cher-
ries and apricots were in full bloom. Above
Lyons, the beautiful banks of the Saone were

26 The Nile to Norway.

gorgeous with verdure and flowers. Here at
Marseilles, everlasting spring abides, and the
air is soft and balmy.

France is another land since that crowning
mercy of Sedan. Never did a military defeat
bring richer benefits to any land. The Ex-
Empress cannot blind her eyes to the fact
that France is vastly more happy, peaceful
and prosperous under repubhcan government
than under the rule of her husband, the im-
perial charlatan. Protestantism is awaken-
ing to new hfe in many districts, and a
new day is beginning to dawn upon the
land of Oohgny, and Lafayette and the Hu-
guenots. The chief hindrance to the spread
of Bible religion is the fact that so many of
the thoughtful and cultivated classes asso-
ciate the very name of Christianity, with
the mummeries and priestcraft of ultramon-
tane popery. Acute intellects in fleeing from
superstition are carried . over to infidelity ;
they make the transition too in almost ut-
ter ignorance of the sohd middle ground
of evangelical faith.

III.

CRUISING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.

Bay of Naples, April 9.

TT was quite tantalizing to be hurried away
"*- so soon from beautiful Marseilles, which
far surpassed my expectations. It is finely
biiilt, has 320,000 inhabitants, and a portion
of it is Paris on a smaller scale. The Bourse
would be a fine model for our public edi-
fices. Of ancient cathedrals one sees a plenty
in France; but the Cathedral of Marseilles
is a new and magnificent structure in the
Byzantine style. Perched on a lofty rock
stands? the "Notre Dame" — a church look-
ing like a Gothic hghthouse; spiritually, the
light is as darkness. The glory of the city
is the park and its surrounding chS,teaux
on the lofty heights which overlook the
Mediterranean for many a league. The rich
merchants enjoy up there what they earn
in the town below.

27

28 The Nile to Norway.

We steamed out of the harbor of beau-
tiful Marseilles at twelve o'clock on Thurs-
day. As everybody is coming away from the
Orient at this season of the year, and no-
body is going, the eastward-bound boats run
empty. In the spacious first-class saloon of
this large steamer I am to-day monarch of
all I survey. I have thirty or forty state-^
rooms at my command. The polite steward,
who jabbers French at me, devotes his ex-
clusive labors to keeping my sohtary room
in order. He rings the bell for breakfast
long and loud at 9 a. m., and for dinner at 5
p. M.; and all this superfluous racket is made
in order to summon one diminutive parson
to the table. When there, I am supported
on the right, by the captain — who wears
three stars on his coat-collar — and on the
left hand by the purser in his jaunty blue uni-
form, but no stars at all. They rattle away in
French, and leave me to my meals and my med-
itations. The captain occasionally shies a bit
of broken Enghsh at my head, and I fire back
a small volley of equally broken French.

Cruising in the Mediterranean. 29

While I am quite alone in the first cabin,
there are seven passengers in the second
cabin — whose accommodations are just as
good but not quite as showy as in the first.
One of these is a very genial Welshman,
Mr. Humphrey Jones, who is going on com-
mercial business to Alexandria. There are
two French Jesuit priests on board, who
"having no place" in France, are bound
for Cairo and Abyssinia on a mission to
the natives. They are bright cheerful fel-
lows (whose adopted names since they were
admitted to the "Society of Jesus," I have
not learned), and they are very constant in
the study of their guide-books. The younger
one is handsome, affable, and looks as if
he could not twist a thumb-screw, if he had
one. They are picking up English, and are
very much inchned to be sociable. I could
not but pity the poor wifeless homeless crea-
tures as they go roaming around the world
on their embassies of craft, at the bidding
of their ecclesiastical superior.

For two days we have enjoyed the poetry

30 The Nile to Norway.

of voyaging over a sea as smooth as New-
York harbor, and in view of shores that
were famous in the days of Coesar and Vir-
gil. Yesterday morning I looked out of my
window — or " port " more properly — and saw
the villages and mountains of the island of
Corsica. Snow-clad peaks crowned the cen-
tre of the island, On the southern end, in
the town of Ajaccio, a man-child was born
(in August, 1769), who was destined to turn
this world upside down in his mad ambitions.
This whole region was vivid with memories
of Napoleon. The afternoon previous we
had saUed past Toulon, where in his youth
he had learned how to blow his fellow-men
into eternity from the mouth of a cannon.
The artillery practice he learned at Toulon,
he perfected at . Austerlitz and Jena. Soon
after leaving Corsica, we ran close in by a
wild volcanic island on whose mountain-sides
were a few scattered vineyards. That bleak
and desolate spot was the famous Elba, to
which the man of blood was banished in
1814. What fools the Alhes were to suppose

Cruising in the Mediterranean. 31

that they could keep the Minotaur chained
up on the island which was almost in sight
of France. The bleak chffs of Elba wore
an aspect to me of sullen gloom, as if the
portentous shadows of Waterloo were still
brooding over them.

What a blessed thing for France it is
that the last bubble of Bonapartism has ex-
ploded, and the race has run out forever !
One thing is pretty certain, there can be
no more revival of the Napoleon dynasty,
and no more tricks played under the dis-
guise of the famous cocked hat and gray
riding-coat. France has got a taste of the
cup of constitutional hberty, and she is not
likely to return to a wallowing in the mire
of ImperiaUsm. Great advance is being
made in popular education. Railways are
bringing new ideas into the rustic secluded
regions. The press is free. Best of all, the
buried roots of Protestant Christianity are
beginning to sprout up again into a new
life — ^to be nourished and watered by the
zeal and the prayers of such men as McAU

32 The Nile to Norway.

and Fisch and Rgveillaud. Our brother, Dr.
Hitciicock, is doing his full share in this
noble work — and has well earned the holi-
day vacation he is about to take in America.
Give him the welcome he deserves.

All day we ran from Corsica southward
through a succession of picturesque islands.
Nearly every one bore marks of volcanic
origin. Some contained nothing visible but
a single hghthouse. Others were sprinkled
with a few houses and vineyards. One of
them showed a town with church-towers, and
sails in its tiny harbor. They he along the
great pathways of war and commerce since -
the days of Hannibal, and the times when
the Roman galleys went off through these
seas to the conquest of the East. Yet they
are almost unknown to the busy world of
these days, which still sails past them and
leaves their fishermen and vine-dressers to
their primitive seclusions.

Thus far I am very much pleased with
this route to Egypt. The steamer "Moeris"
is one of the fleet belonging to the " Mes-

Cruising in the Mediterranean. 33

sageries Maritimes," a French compariy who
are the Cunards of the Mediterranean. Their
boats are excellent in aU their appointments,
well manned, with large state-rooms and
every luxury with which the leviathan of
sea-hfe is tamed and domesticated. They
leave Marseilles on every Thursday, and
reach Alexandria in six days. This is a
preferable route, on some accounts, to the
one by Briudisi. It affords a view of some
of the finest scenery of the Mediterranean,
and avoids the stupid journey down the east
side of Italy. A halt is also made for six
hours in the peerless Bay of Naples. From
that point we head southward to the Straits
of Messiaa, run iu sight of Stromboli and
Mount ^tna, and take the track of the great
Apostle on his way to Rome. Yesterday
we were on the pathway of Napoleon; to-
day we are on the track of Paul. God
never created two more richly endowed
men than they; but in the last great day
of reckoning, oh what a difiference !
We are approaching Naples. Old Vesu-

34 The Nile to Norway.

vius keeps hrs signal-fires blazing — except
while his wrath smoulders within his ribs,
and sends out a suUen smoke. His crest
looked down on Paul the prisoner when he
landed at yonder Puteoli and was led away
towards Rome. Through what changes have
I passed in a single week ! Six days ago
on the cold, stormy Atlantic; since then,
Liverpool, the hedgerows of England, Lon-
don, Paris, the orchards and vineyards of
sunny France, the distant glimpses of the
Alps, the islands of the Mediterranean, and
now in the morning light Naples opens her
Gate Beautiful to give us welcome ! Like
the old voyager of eighteen centuries ago
when he landed here, let us " thank God
and take courage."

AprU 13.

The tourist who wishes to preserve the
jesthetic illusion which overhangs Naples had
better remain on board, and not venture on
shore; the man must have studied the city
from the water who first said, " See Naples,
and then die." Having never seen it, I de-

Cruising in the Mediterranean. 35

cided to make the venture, especially as so
many urgent invitations were shouted at me
from every side.

As soon as we had tied up to the buoy
in the magnificent harbor, we were sur-
rounded by a swarm of clumsy little boats,
filled with that indescribable class of hu-
manity called the "lazzaroni." " Dese are
vot you call de vagabonds" said the Neapol-
itan guide to me as we pulled off for the
shore. In the same boat with us were the
two Jesuits, and a flap-hatted nun, who left
us at Naples. The Jesuits went on shore
to pay their respects to the Archbishop
and to attend the service of mass.

As soon as we landed I pushed in among
the narrow, crowded, filthy streets, not over
a dozen feet wide, and blocked up with
swarms of men, women, children, and don-
keys. Not one of the rabble looked as if
he, she, or it had ever seen a square inch
of soap. They were a vagrant mass of un-
mitigated nastiness. How the creatures live
is a mystery; but cheap fruits and maccaroni

36 The Nile to Norway.

constitute their chief subsistence at a cost
of a sixpence a day. Emerging from these
narrow gangways I reached the Corso To-
ledo, which is the principal street of Naples.
Thence I went on to the San^ Carlo Opera
House and the Royal Palace. This latter
superfluity is only used now when Hum-
bert, the king of united Italy, pays a
visit to his southern territory. It used to
be the residence of the villainous King
Bomba; and up on the hill above stands
the ancient Castle of (§an~ Remo) which he
used as a Bastile, and which Garibaldi broke
open to the daylight. Beyond the Palace
I came down to the handsome street which
faces on the bay, and is lined with the prin-
cipal hotels. This part of the city is modern,
and comparatively clean.

Naples does not compare with Marseilles
for architectural beauty. None of its two
hundred and sixty churches is remarkable
for anything but gilded and frescoed ceil-
ings, pictures by the square rod, and crowds
o£ ill-clad VirorsMppers. It is the paradise

Cruising in the Mediterranean. 37

of Popery, with swarms of idle priests, who
lord it over an idle populace. When the
millennium comes, Naples wUl be one of the
last to yield to the gospel.

But from the steamer's deck the city was
brilliant with color and picturesque forms.
It stretched before us Uke a crescent, with
its hUls crowned with villas and pines; at
either extreme were Posillippo with its cav-
ern, and Sorrento with its vineyards and
ohves. I sat on the deck for three hours,
a,nd feasted on the magnificent panorama.
The beauty of the whole was wonderful —
the dirt of the details was invisible from
that distance. Vesuvius curled up his lan-
guid smoke gracefully to the clouds. Pom-
peii — ^which must have been a cultured Sod-
om in its obscenity and idolatries — ^lies at
its southern base. Capri hfted its rocky
crest out of the smooth sea.

We enjoyed this peerless panorama un-
til two o'clock, and then the last of the
lazzaroni pulled off in his clumsy Jboat,
we hoisted anchor, and steamed down the

38 The Nile to Norway.

Bay. In an hour we were abreast of the
island of Capri, where the Emperor Tiberius
had his palace and his revelries. Away off
to the northeast we could dimly discern Pu-
teoli, the spot on which Paul set foot when
he was greeted by the brethren, who be-
sought hini to tarry with them seven days.
"We were now fairly upon the great Apostle's
track.

During the evening we passed Stromboli,
the dull red glare of whose volcano is visible
for many leagues. Vesuvius commonly emits
but a faint flame; Stromboh seems to have
a larger supply of fuel. On Sabbath morn-
ing we were running close to the coast of
Calabria, and the "Rhegium," toward which
Paul's captain "fetched his compass," was on
our left. The coast is rocky, but here and
there small towns nestle among the cliffs
and the stretch of faint green slopes. Then
we passed between Scylla and Charybdis,
and the shores of Sicily appeared on our
right. It was too misty to catch a glimpse
of Mount ^tna, although its crest rises above

Cruising in the Mediterranean. 39

ten thousand feet. A little to the south of
it lies old historic Syracuse, where Archi-
medes first cried "Eureka!" where Athens
fought her great naval fight, and where
Paul landed and tarried for three days. It
was a source of real regret to me that the
steamers of this line do not take Malta in
their way. We were intensely anxious to
see the island on which Paul and his ship-
wrecked fellow- voyagers escaped safe to land,
some on boards and some on broken pieces
of the ship. The spot is now known as
"St. Paul's Harbor" and the soundings at
the present day correspond exactly to those
which are described in the twenty-seventh
chapter of the Acts. The monks of Malta
pretend to show the cavern in which the
Apostle found refuge. It is rather remark-
able that they should not exhibit the origi-
nal viper that fastened on his hand, well-
preserved in a bottle of spirits.

But, if we did not see the site of Paul's
shipwreck, we had a small taste of his expe-
rience. All the way from Puteoli we had

4:0 The Nile to Norway.

a gentle southerly breeze and tranquil seas,
but soon after we entered the mouth of the
Adriatic (or that part of the Mediterranean
which was anciently called " Adria") a fierce
east wind began to blow. If it was not as
violent as the "Euroclydon," it came from
the same quarter. All day on Monday we
were tossed "up and down in Adria." The
seas ran so high that my half-dozen feUow-
passengers were glad to betake themselves
to their berths, and I experienced the only
taste of genuine sea-sickness that I have suf-
fered from since I left New York. The
two Jesuit priests — -who are on their way
to Egypt to conduct some ecclesiastical di-
plomacy on the Upper Nile — did not make
their appearance on deck during the whole
day. With some faint show of courage, I
came to the dinner-table, with the captain
and purser; but, after a few spoonfuls of
soup, I was glad to retire to private life.
Unless Paul had a miraculous preservation
from sea-sickness, I will warrant that his
heroic stomach had some terrible qualms

Cruising in the Mediterranean. 41

when he was weathering through that four-
teen days of tempest. His water-soaked bis-
cuit must have gone down rather toughly,
when I found it so difficult to manage dainty
soups, and broiled chickens, and oranges.

Towards evening on Monday the east
winds abated. We were "sailing close by
Crete," over the very waters which the
great Apostle traversed before the Eurocly-
don burst forth in its fury. Although so
close to the shore, we could only catch a
faint view of the mountains of the island.
" Salmone " is still the name cf the cape at
the eastern end. Soon after midnight we
sighted the lighthouse on the southern shore
of the island, and as its twinkling lantern
sunk down behind the waves we lost sight
of the last spot that is identified with the
old hero on our present route. We leave
Cyprus far to the north; and, although ours
is a "ship of Alexandria," its sign is not
" Castor and Pollux," and it carries one
Presbyterian parson and two popish priests,
instead of an apostle to the GentUes.

^3 The Nile to Norway.

Yesterday the sun came out brightly. We
have been running over seas that danced and
sparkled in his rays. From the deck we can
look out over the waters which were once
traversed by the ships of Tyre, by the gal-
leys of proud Rome, and by the fleets that
brought the wealth of the Orient to Venice.
All these are forgotten; but the world will
always hallow the memory of that one old
corn-ship, which was tossed about in these
waves for many dark nights, and yet could
not sink while it upheld the life of the glori-
ous man who was yet to "stand before
Caesar."

IV.

THE LAND OF THE PHARAOHS.

Cairo, April 15.

C~\^ "Wednesday morning — our sixth from
^-^ Marseilles — we came in siglit of Pom-
pey's Pillar and the tall lighthouse, which
mark the site of Alexandria; but it lies so
low on the sands that it seems to sleep on
the surface of the sea. It gives one a keen
thrill to see the famous old city which was
the scene of the exploits of Alexander the
Great and Julius Caesar in ancient times,
and of Napoleon and Lord Nelson in mod-
ern times — the city in which the Septuagint
was completed, and Origen and Cyril and
Athanasius delved in theological lore. The
Alexandria of to-day is a busy, bustling
combination of all ages, customs, tongues
and nationalities. In the same street you
may see a Mohammedan mosque, a tasteful,

43

44 The Nile to Norway.

Parisian-looking mansion, and an " American
Bar-room " for the sale of juleps and sherry-
cobblers ! The entrance to the harbor is
picturesque. Napoleon's windmills on the
sandy shore — still whirling briskly — and the
tall pillar built by Pompey, the Roman pre-
fect, are among the most conspicuous objects.
We swung round the end of the breakwater,
and shot in among some Egyptian war-ves-
sels and the Khedive's large and superb
steam-yacht, which is said to run over twen-
ty miles an hour.

Swarms of Arab boats put off to meet,
us — a half dozen boats to each passenger.
I soon detected a crew of fellows on whose
white tunics was embroidered" ' ' Cook's Boat-
men." I hailed them at once; Cahphia Has-
sein, their pohte Arab captain, in blue gown
and red tarboosh, took me in charge and
pulled me away rapidly to the Custom House
wharf. I was put through the passport and
customs offices in a twinkling, and in twenty
minutes from the time that I left the deck
of the "Moeris" I was snugly fixed in the

The Land of the Pharaohs. 45

Hotel d'Europe on the Great Square of Me-
hemet All. Here let me say that I am
travehng through the East with Cook's tick-
ets, and I find three good arguments for
using them. They are economical, they
insure prompt attention everywhere, and
they save you often the vexation of buying
tickets from railway and other officials who
speak in unknown tongues. The senior
Thomas Cook is an old friend, and fellow-
worker in the Temperance movement for
twenty years.

But what a sensation is the first half hour
which an American spends in an Oriental
city! The "Arabian Nights" of our boy-
hood are all reproduced before us. Here
are the water-carriers and the cross-legged
tailors, and the old turbaned Turk selling
his shibooks; here is Patima peering with
her black eyes over the outlandish veil that
hides her brown visage; and here is Aladdin
himself, in blue gown and a jaunty, red sash
twisted around his saucy head. Hundreds
of costumes appear — no two exactly alike

46 The Nile to Norway.

- — from an European suit, crowned by a
red-tasseled fez cap, to a white - shirted
Nubian, and so on to the identical garb
that Abraham iiiay have worn on the plains
of Mamre. The streets, the markets, the
bazaars are a perfect kaleidoscope of novel-
ties and fun. Bunyan's "Mr. Despondency"
could not have refrained from a laugh if
he had seen that huge Arab in white robe
and green tujrban, and with his bare, brown
legs, as he trots briskly by on a donkey not
three feet high. I did nothing but laugh
while in the streets of Alexandria, and I do
not expect to stop till I leave Cairo. It is
enough to cure a chronic dyspeptic.

I took the train for Cairo at two o'clock,
and found it a very fair reproduction of
English management in a land where a lo-
comotive seems as much out of its lati-
tude as a camel in Broadway. I observed
that the engine bore the mark "Stephen-
son & Co., Newcastle-on-Tyne." That was
the early home of the celebrated Stephen-
son, the father of modern railways. The

The Land of the Pharaohs. 47

train was largely occupied by Egyptians,
and the third-class cars were a perfect
menagerie of Nubians, Arabs, and every
variety of people in every variety of outr4
costume. They were a merry crowd, laugh-
ing, gabbling and smoking. The road runs
through the Delta which is the garden of
Egypt — producing at this season vast crops
of barley, wheat, millet and various vege-
tables of whose name and nature I have
no idea. Palm-trees skirt the way, with
long hues of tamarisk. Occasionally the
minaret of a mosque came in sight across
the broad fields — ^which are even more level
than Long Island is about Rockaway and
Jamaica.

All the way to Cairo presented a series of
charming pictures that to my unpractised eye
was a perpetual delight. ' Here was a group
of peasant women filling their water-jars
from one of the innumerable small canals;
some walked off Uke Rebekahs in flowing
robes with the jars upon their heads. Here
was a buffalo slowly turning the water-wheels

48 The Nile to Norway.

that irrigate the level fields. Then came a
procession of ambhng camels, laden with
enormous loads of green fodder: a grinning
Arab boy perched on the load. Then trot-
ted past a turbaned Copt, or a half dozen
Arabs on their diminutive donkeys, each
rider sitting as near the animal's tail as
possible without being "left astern." Some
respectable towns were passed, like Tantah
and Birket es-Sab, each of which displays
a flashy palace of the Khedive. But the
most remarkable objects are the Arab vil-
lages — mere agglomerations of mud-hovels,
packed closely together, with apertures for
the Fellaheen and their brown children to
creep in. At a distance they looked hke a
lot of magnified prairie-dogs dodging into
their holes. Around each of these rude vil-
lages were a few date-palms, and often a
small minaret rose above the heaps of mud.
Yet these peasants were a happy, and often
a fine, bright -looking class; aU seemed to
be busy with their primitive husbandries of
ploughing, irrigating, driving then- camels,

The Land of the Pharaohs. 49

or tending their small flocks of sheep and
goats. We crossed both branches of the
Nile, on fine iron bridges, and I felt like
doffing my hat in reverence to this most
venerable of all the rivers on the globe.
If it was as muddy in the times of Moses,
he must have needed a well-caulked ark of
bulrushes.

A magnificent moonlight flooded the domes
and minarets of Cairo as we approached this
wonderful city. At the station the large
carryall of Shepheard's Hotel met the train,
and we were driven through streets brilliant-
ly lighted and among crowds of noisy donkey-
drivers to the west side of Bsbekeeyeh Park.
This hotel — the rendezvous of English-speak-
ing tourists — is an Oriental-looking establish-
ment, with an interior garden filled with
palms, figs, and pomegranates. One of the
polite landlord's first salutations was, "Ah,
sir, I have seen your name in the Neio
York Herald in a letter to Mons. Crosby.''
How far those twain candles have thrown
their beams !

50 The Nile to Norway.

Yesterday was comfortable, although a week
ago the "khamseen," or sorocco, scorched
Cairo with a temperature of ninety-five. I
expect some hot work before I get out of
the Levant. My first step here was to look
up my old friend General BatcheUer," who
is a member of the staff of Judges who
preside in the court in yonder Palace of
Justice. Greneral BatcheUer is the Ameri-
can member of that tribunal. I was piloted
to his residence, in the elegant modern quar-
ter, by Ah Hassan, my donkey-sergeant,
and one of the most voluble of the sons of
Ishmael. He pointed with pride to a squad
of donkeys, and said, "Yonder black donkey
is de one you shall ride, sar; he be berry
easy, and his name be Yankee Doodle
Dandy." I suspect that the little brute
changes his name to suit the nationality
of his rider. Outside of Ireland there is
nothing that can surpass the vivacious blar-
ney of a Cairo dragoman or donkey-boy.

In the afternoon Q-eneral BatcheUer drove
me to the lofty citadel of Cairo (built by

The Land of the Pharaohs. 51

Saladin in 1160), which commands the finest
view of the city and the Pyramids. Close
by it is the superb mosque of Mohammed
Ah — whose pillars are of solid alabaster, and
whose walls are faced with the same ma-
terial. Some criticise this structure as too
gorgeous, but as the light poured into the
gUded dome through the stained glass, it
seemed to my eye a perfect dream of Ori-
ental poetry wrought in gold and alabaster.
On our way through the crowded ' ' Moos-
kee " we met a wedding procession, headed
by a band of music, and followed by a troop
of Arab boys. The bride was hteraUy en-
cased in a flashy suit of vermihon and silver
— ^not an eyelash visible ! She was led by
the hand under a crimson canopy, and an
hour after we met the procession again, still
"toiling on" through the crowded streets.
Last evening the bridegroom set out on his
march, with lamps and torches, to wed the
young wife whom his eyes had never beheld !
lie had won her by bargains, and not by
courtship. That picturesque procession going

62 The Nile to Norway.

forth to meet the bridegroom was but an
other photographic scene from Scripture,
such as pass before one every day in these
ancient birth-lands of the Bible. After night-
fall I set out on a stroU through Cairo and
was struck with the quietness and good
order of every part of the city which I
traversed. It is said that a stranger can
go anywhere at night without any danger
of molestation; if he loses his way he has
but to caU one of the ubiquitous donkey-
boys who will soon trot him back to his
hotel. I saw no dram-shops filled with ca-
rousers, and encountered no abandoned char-
acters making night hideous with their har-
lotries. If Cairo is infected with the "social
vice," it hides the leprosy from public view.
Mohammedanism degrades woman in many
ways, but it does not put her- to the open
shame which so shocks us in the thorough-
fares of London or Liverpool or of too many
towns in America.

In front of the brightly lighted caffes I
saw groups of smokers enjoying their cigar-

The Land of the Pharaohs. 53

ettes, or languidly puffing their narguil^hs.
In some of the smaller cafbs a story-teUer
was entertaining a group of listeners. The
Arab is as fond of Ustening to marvellous
tales as he was in the times when the "Ara-
bian Nights' Entertainments " were composed.
Even those stories themselves about " Sin-
bad" and about the "Forty Thieves" are
stiU eagerly welcomed. They will devour
anything and everything that takes the form
of a story. Sometimes one of our mission-
aries drops in at a caffe, and tells the story
of Joseph, or one of the parables of the New
Testament, and always finds a most respectful
and attentive audience. This fact throws its
side-light upon the genuineness of Scripture;
for as the Oriental tastes of to-day are the
same as in ancient times, it explains to us
the frequency with which narratives and par-
ables were used by the prophets and by the
Divine Teacher himself.

These first two days in Egypt have brought
with them an excitement that scarcely al-
lows me to quiet down to sleep. It seems

54 The Nile to Norway.

like an exhilarating dream that I am actually
in the land of Moses, and the Pharaohs —
that the turbid stream which I saw from the
citadel to-day was grandfather Nile — and that
these streets have echoed to the hoofs of
Saladin's cavalry. We must make the most
of such antiquities as Egypt now contains;
for the Arabic art of to-day seems as inca-
pable to reproduce such a structure as the
Mosque of Sultan Hassein as it is to build
another temple of Luxor, or to pile another
Pyramid.

LIFE IN CAIRO.

ShephearcHs Sold, Cairo, April 18.

A FRIEND of mine, who had travelled
"^-^ widely over the world, said to me,
" The most fascinating city on the glohe is
Cairo." If we except the peculiar charm
which Jerusalem possesses for every Chris-
tian heart, my friend was right in his esti-
mate. I have been nearly a week in Cairo,
and the excitement which its novel features
produce is almost an intoxication. There are
really several Cairos — as there are several na-
tionalities among its 700,000 people. South-
west of this spacious old hotel is the new
or " Ismaileeyeh " quarter. This is like
Paris, a region of elegant modern residences.
Here live the Jewish bankers, the mer-
chants, the Europeans, and some of the
rich Pashas. On every Friday afternoon

55

56 The Nile to Norway.

(which is the Mussuhnan Sabbath) the fine
equipages roll in from this quarter, many
of them bearing the beautiful Circassian la-
dies of the Pashas' harems, half veiled, and
yet revealing bright eyes and lovely com-
plexions. Before the carriage runs;a nimble
young Arab footman, in white tunic bound
with an embroidered sash, and carrying a
staff in his hand. The endurance of these
graceful forerunners is wonderful; they wiU
keep out of the way of a pair of horses on
a round trot for several miles !

Yesterday afternoon his Royal Highness,
the Khedive, drove by with a fine pair of
dark bays, and his minister, Zuylfekah Pasha,
by his side; behind him rode a half dozen
guards in white uniforms. The Khedive
looks about thirty, has a fine eye and clear
olive complexion, and wore a light over-
coat and red tarboosh, or fez cap. Moham-
med Tewfik is a less adventurous man than
his father, Ismail, who abdicated two years
ago; he is more under the control of Eng-
iand and France, who now hold Egypt's

Life in Cairo. 57

purse-strings. The Khedive is a man of
good purposes, and I was glad to put my
eye on the grandson of the great warrior,
Ibraham Pasha, and— the successor of the
Pharaohs.

Every morning early, while the air is
cool enough at this season for an overcoat,
I love to sally off into the old narrow
streets of Cairo, around the " Mooske,"
which look now just as they did in the
"Arabian Nights." The streets are about
twelve feet wide, some of them only seven
or eight. As we pass through, old "Ali
Baba" meets us in a white turban, trotting
along on a donkey; and "Fatima" steals
by us wrapped in a black silk mantle, her
eyes peeping out above her veil. A camel
comes ambling through the narrow streets,
laden with a small stack of green clover;
on him rides one of the Fellaheen, or farm-
ers, from the other side of the Nile. Pres-
ently a herd of goats push by us, followed
Dy an old man in blue gown and white
turban, who sings out a monotonous cry.

58 The Nile to Norway.

He is the milkman on his morning rounds;
his customers come to their doors, and he
halts and milks for them enough for their
day's supply. After him comes the water-
carrier, with a goat-skin bag slung over his
shoulders, filled with the precious fluid.

Egypt is the joy of us teetotalers, for
cold water is king. I have not seen scarcely
a dram-shop, and nobody drunk. But water
is everywhere — whether it be drawn up by
a bufiklo in water-wheels and poured over
the thirsty fields, or whether it be carried
in jars on women's heads, or sprinkled from
goat-skin bags through the dusty streets, or
whether it be drank eagerly from the beau-
tiful public fountains in the thoroughfares.
He is 9, public benefactor who erects a
stately marble fountain to which " who-
ever is athirst may come and drink the
water of life freely." Some of these foun-
tains are so large that in the room above
them a small Arab school is held. Every
drop of water in Egypt comes from yonder
Nile. It is rather low to-day, but the an-

Life in Cairo. 59

nual inundation will begin in June and reach
its highest mark in September. Then it will
sweep for seven miles across yonder fertile
valley, until it reaches to the Pyramids and
the Sphinx, and touches the yeUow sands of
the great Sahara. What a beautiful type
of the Gospel is the abounding Nile, for
wherever its delicious water does not come,
aU is left to desert and desolation.

Last Friday I mounted my donkey, "Yan-
kee Doodle Dandy " (though I suspect the
httle beast bears another name when an
BngUshman rides him), and my Arab guide,
Ali Hassan, took me to see the " Dancing
Dervishes." They are a small Persian sect,
and their mosque is in the Helmeyeh, a nar-
row street not far from the Citadel. These
singular creatures perform their weekly whirl
or dance at two o'clock every Friday. I
found about twenty -five of them seated
around a small circular floor. They wore
a tall brown hat — ^that looked like a flower-
pot turned upside down — and long gowns of
either brown, green, purple or black. An

60 The Nile to Norway.

old sheykh acted as a sort of marshal, and
at his signal they arose and began to march
around the ring, stopping to make a low
bow when they reached the sacred prayer
carpet. Presently they threw off their cloaks,
stepped out into the ring and began to whirl
like tops. Bach man stood mainly on his
left foot, spread his arms out straight, shut
his eyes and spun around at a rate that was
perfectly astonishing. This whirl, or waltz,
was accompanied by two flutes and a tam-
bourine, in a small upper gallery. I timed
them with my watch, and the fellows whirled,
without becoming dizzy or dropping from
vertigo, for full twelve minutes. While they
were spinning, the skirts of their white robes
stood out like mnbreUas. The whole unique
performance lasted about one hour, and the
spectators left a small "backsheesh" with the
doorkeeper.

After this holy waltz — which is certainly
more chaste and innocent than the same
performance usually is in an American ball-
room— we rode up to the famous Citadel.

Life in Cairo. 61

This stands on a lofty elevation, and was
founded by the renowned old Saladin in the
time of the Crusades. The view of Cairo
and its minarets, and of the distant Pyramids
toward sunset is one of the most ravishing
in the world. It is a dream of Oriental
poetry — made all the more glorious by the
rosy tints of the clear Egyptian sky. Close
by the Citadel stands the modern Mosque
of Mohammed Ali, which is the pride and
boast of aU the Moslem realm. A descrip-
tion of this gorgeous mosque with its lofty
minarets, its columns and interior walls of
alabaster, and its swinging lamps and colored
windows is impossible. We entered its sa-
cred precincts — after drawing on some clumsy
slippers over our shoes — and enjoyed the
study of its marvellous splendor, until we
almost expected to see its famous old founder,
Mohammed Ali, come out from his tomb in
the corner, and bow toward Mecca for his
evening devotions. Just outside the walls is
the very spot where this old hero — the Na-
poleon of the present dynasty — slew the Ma-

62 The Nile to Norway.

melukes in 1811, and established the throne
on which his great-grandson, the present
, Khedive, now sits. He was the greatest
man the Orient has produced during the
present century, and it is a great pity that
the European powers did not allow him to
go on until he had overthrown the Sultan
and cleared the "unspeakable Turk" out of
Europe.

From the Citadel Ali Hassan takes me
through the Bazaars which line the narrow
pic|;liresque streets of the old quarter of
Cairo. 0, what a crowd of divers colors
and tongues and nations — coal-black Nu-
bians, brown Arabs, black-eyed Jews, red-
capped Copts, turbaned Turks, Syrians and
PYanks, press and surge around us! In one
bazaar gold and silver wares are made and
sold. In another, slippers of various bright
hues. In the Tunis bazaar we came upon
a handsome young merchant seated in his
stall selling shppers. He wore the most
beautiful robes of rich yellow silk — ^between
a canary color and orange — that I have yet

Life in Cairo. 63

seen in Cairo. I told him that if he would
come to New York he would draw a thou-
sand ladies around him in ten minutes. He
laughed very heartily. Beside some of the
dealers, their wives were sitting, closely
veiled, but peeping out over their ' ' bur-
kos" and hstening to the talk of their hus-
band to his customers.

I am deeply indebted to the kindness of
my old friend General Batcheller, formerly
of Saratoga, and now the American judge
in the "Mixed Court," which is composed
of judges appointed by the English, Amer-
ican, French, German, Itahan, Dutch, and
Russian Governments. This Superior Court
sits in the Palace of Justice and takes cog-
nizance of all cases between various nation-
alities, and of aU suits against the Egyptian

Government. General B speaks very

encouragingly of the rapid progress which
Egypt is making in introducing political and
social reforms. New ideas are pouring in;
by and by comes the Gospel!

Yesterday I enjoyed my visit to the Sun-

64 The Nile to Norway.

day scliool in the noble building of the Amer-
ican Presbyterian Mission. It made my eyes
water to see those bright groups of Coptic
and Arab boys and girls — ^in such clean,
tasteful dresses — rise up and repeat, in
Arabic, the International Series of Lessons.
They were reciting the same Scriptures
which my own blessed and beloved school
in Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, would re-
peat in a few hours — as soon as the Sab-
bath sun in its course reached our American
skies. I made them a brief address, which
was interpreted into Arabic, and I came
away happy — and homesick, too.

VI.

LAST VIEWS IN EGYPT.

Shepheard's Hold, Cairo, April 21.

1 7YERY hour brings some new object of
-*— ' interest in this wonderful city — which
is a microcosm of all lands, ages, and civiliza-
tions. The camel which has just passed my
window is such an one as Moses rode here on
the banks of the Nile in the time of the
Pharaohs. Before the fine carriage of a
Pasha that has just passed ran two lithe
Arabs in white tunics, with embroidered
sashes around their loins and staves in
their hands; just so ran. the prophet Elijah
before the chariot of King Ahab. Yonder
woman, who is carrying a jar of water
on her head, is like the woman of Sychar
whom our Lord met beside the Samarian
well. Nubians, Abyssinians, Greeks, Per-
sians, Jews, and Englishmen mingle in the

65

66 The Nile to Norway.

crowds that pass under city gates built eight
hundred years ago.

But a modern gas-lamp shines before this
hotel, which is occupied by Britons and
Americans. My friend General Batcheller
called the other day to take me to the Pal-
ace of Justice, in which he occupies a seat
on the bench of the High Court, as the rep-
resentative of America. On our way we
walked through the beautiful Ezbekeeyeh
Park and public gardens, in which I saw
banyan-trees with thek limbs sending down
new trunks into the soil, and pomegranate-
trees, and flowering figs, and flaming flow-
er-beds of crimson and orange hues. The
Palace was once occupied by the Khedive,
and its rooms are gorgeous with chandeliers,
gilding, and rich upholsteries. The court-
room was much like that of the Supreme
Court at Washington. When we entered, the
Italian Judge was presiding, and beside him
sat the Holland and Austrian judges and two
Egyptians. An interpreter stood before the
bench, and the case that was on was brought

Last Views in Egypt. 67

by a Persian plaintiflf. The business was
conducted in Arabic. Some veiled -women
were sitting on the floor in the outer hall,
waiting to be called as witnesses; and an
Englishman stood by smoking a cigar. Amid
such a mixture of nationalities I should hard-
ly have been astonished if a newsboy had
come into the vestibule and shouted "'Ere's
an extra Herald — another fire in Chicago!"
But the ancient predominates — and it is
as unchanged as yonder Pyramids and the
Sahara. On Monday I mounted my don-
key, and with our Consul's "kawass" and
Mr. Vandyke rode up to the venerable
Mosque el Azhar, which is nine centuries
old. In this picturesque old mosque is held
the famous Mohammedan University, which
contains, on an average, 10,000 students
from the whole Orient. It is the Vatican
of Moslemism. As the place is accounted
too holy to be trodden by shoes, we were
obhged to draw on a pair of clumsy slip-
pers; but in the neighboring Mosque el Has-
saneyn (in which a portion of the bodies of

68 The Nile to Norway.

two of Mahomet's grandsons are buried) we
had to walk over the rich rugs in our stock-
ings. The vast floor of the "Azhar'" pre-
sents a remarkable spectacle. At least two
thousand young men, in white turbans and
blue gowns, were seated on the mats, study-
ing algebra, or the Koran — each man swing-
ing to and fro, and rattling away in Arabic,
so that the building hummed like an im-
mense bee-hive. In one part of the mosque
persons were praying with their faces toward
Mecca. In another part, a professor of the-
ology was lecturing to a group of thirty or
forty students gathered around him. Many
of these are to be missionaries to the interior
of Africa or elsewhere, . for the old tree of
Islam is not dead either at root or top.
I observed in one separate room a class of
blind students under instruction. These men
will officiate at funerals and repeat the Koran
as the procession moves through the streets.
Last Sabbath was full of interest to me.
At eight o'clock I went over to the noble
building of the American Presbyterian Mis-

Last Views in Egypt. 69

sioii to attend the Sabbath-school; the Cai-
renes are early risers. What a delightful
spectacle was that roomful of bright-eyed
boys and girls; some of them in dress and
complexion looking as if they might belong
to that beloved school in Lafayette Avenue.
The boys wore their red tarbooshes or fez
caps, but the girls sat uncovered. Brother
Watson was teaching the whole school, be-
fore a blackboard, from the "International
Series " of lessons, and Miss Johnson (a
teacher from Behnont County, Ohio,) had
the especial charge of the girls. I ad-
dressed them a few words, but it was not
easy to speak through an interpreter; and I
confess that the sight of that Sabbath-school,
recalling home as it did to me, gave me
rather a large "lump in my throat." The
main work of our Mission here is to instruct
the young, both on the Sabbath and during
the week. Our day-schools number over one
hundred and fifty scholars. Many of these
are children of the Copts, who are an in-
fluential class in Egypt; they furnish nearly

70 The Nile to Norway.

all the accountants, book-keepers, and post-
masters, throughout the kingdom.

I stepped in at half past nine to the Coptic
Cathedral, which was weU filled with a well-
dressed assembly. Up in the double row
of galleries the female worshippers were
caged behind a lattice-work of metal, painted
green. I am afraid that there would not be
so many costly wardrobes in our Yankee
churches if all the finery was hidden behind
a brass screen. It was Palm Sunday in the
Coptic calendar, and in the church and court
in front were hundreds of boys waving palm-
branches, and recalling the scene of our Lord's
entry into Jerusalem. The service was a
mixture of Romish ritual and censer-swing-
ing, and of Protestant preaching. I was
very sorry that I was obliged to leave before
Mr. Fostaille, the eloquent Coptic priest,
mounted the pulpit. He is their most cele-
brated preacher, and is quite evangelical.

From the Cathedral I hastened back to
our Mission building, where Dr. Lansing was
preaching to a good congregation in Arabic.

Last Views in Egypt. 71

The men and women were separated by a
crimson curtain three or four feet high. I
was struck with the inteUigent countenances
of Brother Lansing's auditors; he tells me that
one of his church-members (a produce dealer)
is an annual contributor of about seven hun-
dred dollars to the Mission and its work !
That looms large alongside of the benevolent
contributions of our average church-members
at home. At eleven o'clock I preached to a
congregation which embraced seven different
nationalities; a few native converts who un-
derstand English being present. The Mis-
sion is under the direction of the "United
Presbyterians," and uses the Psalms of David
in aU their services. There is a "Presby-
tery of Egypt " which embraces four central
churches — at Cairo, Alexandria, Mansoora,
and Assiout — and forty preaching stations.
It numbers about eleven hundred communi-
cants, mostly converts from the Coptic faith.
A few Mohammedans have been converted,
but the difficulties in reaching and moving
the foUowers of the Prophet of Mecca are

72 The Nile to Norway.

as yet very great. Dr. Lansing informs me
that- the late meeting of their Presbytery,
held at Fahyoom, was very pleasant; there
were thirteen pastors and eleven elders pres-
ent. Our polity, seems to work very smooth-
ly among these descendants of the very people
who were the taskmasters of Israel thirty-
seven centuries ago. Presbyterianism is like
cold water — good for any latitude.

The weather of Egypt is as peculiar as
its landscape and its costumes. For the last
five days it has been very cool; when the
Khedive drove by our hotel on Sunday af-
ternoon, I observed that he wore an overcoat
buttoned up to his chin. The week before
our arrival the thermometer — under the south
wind or sorocco — stood at 95. The air is
exceedingly clear and dry, and reminds me
of a California Summer. Gen. Batcheller
tells me that he has never known it to rain
on more than seventeen days in a whole
year ! When the rain does come it makes
sad work with the mud villages of the Fel-
laheen; their houses, like a bankrupt "go

Last Views in Egypt. 73

into liquidation." N"o need of rain is felt
in Egypt while yonder Nile yields its abun-
dant supplies.

Thus far I have not met a single American
tourist since I left Liverpool ! But I en-
counter plenty of pleasant Englishmen and
Scotchmen. My companions out to the Pyr^
a-mids and the Sphinx were one of the physi-
cians to the Queen and a bright young artist
from London. The drive from Cairo is now
over a fine road well lined with acacias. On
one side I watched the Fellaheen raising water
with the shadoof for their barley and ripen-
ing wheat; in a field upon the other side was
a large herd of camels grazing. After the
many admirable descriptions of the Pyramids
and their ascent, I need not add any account
of my own. I found only one in£w thing,
and that is a lately opened pavement or
causeway of solid smooth stone leading from
the temple beside the Sphinx up towards
the second Pyramid. It may have been the
causeway over which the stones were slid
up to build the pyramid, or it may have been

74 The Nile to Norway.

an inclined street for travel. A nimble Arab
offered to climb to the top of the great pyra-
mid of Cheops and descend again in eight
minutes, for a franc. The fellow scrambled
up the huge stones Hke a sailor up a main-
mast, and won his wager. I was deeply
impressed with my first view ,of these won-
derful mountains of solid stone, still more
by the mysterious Sphinx, but most of all
by the vast, awful Sahara that stretches away
to the west. It looked as if it were blasted
by the hot breath from the nostrils of the
Almighty ! One can understand better the
terrible imagery of the Hebrew prophets
after seeing the Egyptian deserts and the
wild desolations of the Sinaitic peninsula.

On Tuesday Dr. Lansing called for a drive
to the Museum, where we examined the rich
treasures collected from Luxor, Karnak, Ta-
nis, etc., and arranged by the great Egyptol-
ogist, the late Mariette Bey. A monument
to Mariette has just been erected in front
of the Museum. Mummie? which once were
used for fertilizers, hsive now become so

Last Views in Egypt. 75

scarce that it is difficult to secure one for
the offer of two hundred dollars.

From the Museum we drove to that won-
derful region of antiquity " Old Cairo,"
which lies three miles from the present city.
It was built as an Arab city right after Ma-
homet's death; but even then an old Roman
town stood there, part of which was called
"Babylon." It seems quite probable that
the Apostle Peter wrote his epistles in that
ancient Roman town — or ia the part settled
by a colony from the Persian Babylon. We
rode through the spot where this Babylon
stood, and gazed with awe upon the sohd
Roman bastions which have withstood both
the sieges of the CaUph Omar and of time
itself. Inside of those walls, what dehcious
oddities of antiquity ! We threaded our way
through streets just six feet wide, with the
quaintest balconies almost meeting over our
heads. We penetrated into the cellar of an
extraordinary httle Coptic church, far more
than a thousand years old, which was as rude
as a barn, and yet contained some ex;quisite

76 The Nile to Norway.

mosaics of marble and mother-of-pearl! On
the old reading-desk lay an illuminated pray-
er-hook, written in the days of "Magna Char-
ta." An Arab girl hghted a candle and took
us down to a subterranean chapel, and showed
us the spot where, it is claimed by the Copts,
Joseph and Mary rested during their flight
into Egypt. However absurd may be that
tradition, it is quite certain that that chapel
goes back to the early centuries of Chris-
tianity, and is one of the few sacred places
yet preserved that may have been occupied
by the contemporaries of St. Jerome and
Origen. That single church, with its sur-
roundings of queer old fossils of architecture
and humanity, was worth a joxirney to Egypt.
In an antique synagogue near by is kept a
rare old copy of the Pentateuch, which the
Jews claim was transcribed by the hands of
Ezra. We hammered long and loud at the
gate, but the Jewish custodian was "out";
and so, hke our friend Dr. Schaflf, we missed
a sight of the sacred relic.

From all the manifold marvels of Egypt

Last Views in Egypt. 77

it is hard to break away. Cairo divides with
Jerusalem and Rome the honor of being the
most fascinating city of the globe. One week
of diligent research has only made me hungry
for more. But to-morrow I must be off to
join Dr. Barr and Dr. Stewart at Ismailia,
and with them to Jaffa and Jerusalem.

VII.

TO THE HOLY LAND.

Mediienarumn Hold, Jerusalem, AprU 27.

nnHB day before I left Cairo, a "kham-
■*■ seen," or hot sirocco, from Ethiopia
began to blow, and its breath was the breath
of a furnace. It was not unhealthy, but it
was egregiously uncomfortable. We came
by rail to Zagazig, and there entered the
Israehte's land of Goshen. When we reached
.Rameses — which is generally regarded as the
starting point of the children of Israel on
their exodus — ^we found it to be the vanish-
ing point of arable land, and were soon in
the desert which reaches to the Suez Canal.
Brugsch Bey has published an ingenious ar-
gument to prove that Moses started from
Tanis, or Zoan, and led the Israelites through
the rushes of shallow Lake Menzaleh, instead
of the Red Sea. But his argument is not
much deeper than the Lake.

78

To THE Holy Land. 79

At Ismailia, after a scorching ride of six
hours, we were glad to take a tiny steam-
boat, and enjoy a cool sail to Port Said, fifty
miles. The canal seems like a straight river
of three hundred feet in width and twenty-
six in depth; it is a splendid monument to
De Lesseps — whom I saw riding through the
streets of Cairo hke a field-marshal. We met
some large ocean-steamers moving at the
rate of six miles per hour. At Kantarah
we crossed the ancient highway over which
Jacob brought his household, Alexander led
his Macedonians, and Napoleon his French
squadrons. At midnight we ran into Port
Said, which .is a product of the brain of De
Lesseps also. It has about ten thousand in-
habitants, large warehouses, and is a dissolute
place, abounding in dram-shops and dance-
houses. There is an increasing tendency
among Mussulmen there and in Jafia to in-
dulge in strong drink. If Mahomet's follow-
ers give up their total abstinence practices,
they wUl surrender their chief virtue. They
need a reenactment of " Prohibition."

80 The Nile to Norway.

On Saturday evening we went on board
the Austrian Lloyd steamer, and on Sabbath
morning caught our first view of the Holy
Land. Ancient Joppa — or Jaffa — rises very
picturesquely on a bluff, and its suburbs to the
south look very attractive from the water.
We ran in close to the reef, and soon a swarm
of Arab boats was raising a Babel about us.
Mr. Clark, an intelligent young American from
New Hampshire who now acts as the agent of
the Cooks, came out to meet us with his uni-
formed crew of '-' Cook's boatmen," and we
were soon at the landing where Jonah set off
for Tarshish. After a short walk beyond the
city walls, we found ourselves nicely fixed in
the "Jerusalem Hotel" — surrounded by or-
ange-groves and the neat dwellings of a Ger-
man colony.

In the afternoon I preached to quite a
congregation, in the chapel of the "Mary
Baldwin Mission," • an American institution
for the native children. Miss Arnot, who
conducts the celebrated school in Jafia, was
present. After service we walked into town,

To THE Holy Land. 81

througli groups of women carrying water-jars
on their heads, and fair Jewesses who looked-
hke Ruths and Rebekahs, and found our way
to the "house of Simon the Tanner." It is
an ancient building, close to the sea, and
very possibly stands on the site of the origi-
nal house where Peter lodged. We too went
up on the flat roof, and looked away over
the Mediterranean, as the apostle looked out
over that tranquil sea eighteen centuries ago.
The ill-starred ship of Jonah was nowhere
in sight — only an Austrian steamer in the
offing. All around the roof on which we
stood, were families enjoying the evening
air, and some of them their evening meal
on their housetops.

Early on Monday morning we set off for
Jerusalem in two wagons; our party consist-
ing of Doctors Barr and Stewart of Phila-
delphia, officers of the United Presbyterian
Foreign Mission Board, a gentleman from
Australia, another from California, and my-
self. Mr. Clark rode beside us to point
out the localities, and he has also rendered

82 The Nile to Norway.

us immense service as a guide in Jerusa-
lem. He is well -educated, speaks Arabic
fluently, and has the genuine tact of a
Yankee. The first half-mile led through
orange-groves laden with ripe fruit. Then
we came out on the broad, superb Plain
of Sharon, which at this season of the year
is in all its glory. Behind the cactus hedges
were olive-orchards and gardens of figs; far
away spread luxuriant crops of barley soon
to be ready for the harvest. Scarlet pop-
pies flamed over every field. Along the
road we met caravans of pilgrims returning
from the Greek Easter festival at Jerusalem
— some on foot, and more mounted on cam-
els, horses, and mules. It was a picturesque
spectacle and recalled the days when the
highways were thronged by Jews going up
to Jerusalem to the Passover. One ana-
chronism spoiled the illusion; the whole road
was hned, alas! with the telegraph-poles of
the "Eastern Company"! Only imagine
Peter sending a message to Dorcas over
the wires !

To THE Holy Land. 83

At Ramleh we halted to ascend the lofty-
Saracenic tower, and to enjoy the wide
view which extends for sixty miles over a
stretch of luxuriant verdure, almost equal
to that of England. Palm-trees waved their
fronds; ohve-groves in pale green mingled
with the deep hue of the figs and the barley,
and the orange -orchards were illuminated
with their bright fruit ' ' like lamps in a
deep green night." To the northeast arose
Mount Ebal. To the south we caught a dim
view of Gath and Azotus. Truly it was a
land flowing with milk and honey; it was
ancient Canaan once more as it kindled the
eyes of Caleb and Joshua.

Soon after leaving Ramleh, we crossed
the lower end of the valley of Ajalon,
above which Joshua commanded the sun
to halt in the heavens. Then we entered
upon the series of mountains that rise to-
wards Jerusalem, and slowly toiled our
way upwards. One beautiful picture on
the road I can never forget. It was an-
cient Kirjath Jearim — ^where the ark abode

84 The Nile to Norway.

for twenty years in the time of David — with
its square buildings, its ancient church, a
palm-tree rising above its roofs, and a train
of camels moving up its narrow street. That
was a photograph of thirty centuries ago.

At Kolonieh — ^which claims to be the orig-
inal Emmaus — we made our last halt. One
more long climb up the rough locky moun-
tain, a half mile farther on, and lo ! the
Mosque of Omar rose in sight, and beyond
it the green brow of Olivet! Jerusalem was
before us. We rolled rapidly through' the
new suburbs — ^through a street lined with
modern mansions, Russian hospitals, Greek
convents, and stately institutions — and then
entered the Jaffa gate and were on Mount
Zion. Peace be within these walls, and
soon the hght of Messiah's Gospel upon
yonder OUvet once more!

Yesterday was a day of enchantment.
We took a walk about Zion; we gazed
over at the mountains of Moab; we caught
our first view of sacred Gethsemane. We
stood by "Robinson's Arch," and strolled

To THE Holy Land. 85

among the ruined walls of the old rallying-
place of the Knights Templars. We threaded
the narrow streets and studied the pictur-
esque crowds that reproduced the days of
Solomon and the days of Godfrey of Bouil-
lon. In one respect Jerusalem has suffered
great injustice. Most tourists describe it as
surrounded by wild, bleak desolation. I ex-
pected to see only- mountains of glaring white
hmestone. But these travellers came at the
wrong season of the year. April is the Sum-
mer of Palestine; although the air yesterday
was dehghtfully cool. As I stood on Mount
Zion, the Hill of Evil Counsel and the
mountains toward Bethlehem were clothed
with verdure. The gardens under Moriah
were bright with flowers. Olivet was green,
except for the white Jewish tombs on its
southern end. Scarlet poppies flamed among
the stones of the ancient walls. When we
went out of the Damascus gate, and stood
on the low hill which many regard as the
true site of Calvary, the whole country to-
wards Samaria was luxuriant with waving

86 The Nile to Norway.

barley and with olive-orchards. So must it
have looked when the blessed Master led
his disciples among those very fields, and
went towards Galilee. So must the land
have smiled when over aU its terraced hills
and among its rich valleys it supported a
population as teeming as the population of
Egypt to-day. I thank Grod that I have
seen His goodly land of Canaan — not dreary
and desolate as I feared, but arrayed in the
bright robes of Summer, and with these
everlasting hUls wearing a verdant crown
of beauty.

VIIL

IVALJCS ABOUT JERUSALEM.

Mediterranean Sold, Jerusalem, May 3.

"TTYER since the days of David, Jerusalem
'^-^ has been a centre for pilgrimage. When
on our way up hither from Joppa, we met
caravans of Greek pilgrims (returning from
the sacred farce of " the fire " on Easter
night), some on foot and some on donkeys
and camels. On Sunday, at the English
Church service, I recognized in the congre-
gation, converted Jews, Arabs from the
Bishop's school, Germans, Americans, and
Austrahans; in fact as many nationalities
as Peter addressed at Pentecost. Jerusa-
lem is a small city; it has only 25,000 in-
habitants, and does not cover as much space
as Poughkeepsie; yet all the world flocks
thither. There is only one carriage road to
it — from Joppa — but if a railway were pos-

87

88 The Nile to Norway.

sible over these rocky heights, the rush
hitherward would be prodigious. The com-
mon mode of travel in Palestine is either on
foot, or on the back of some quadruped; it
is difficult to decide which rides the hardest.
•During the last week I have taken some
delightful and instructive walks about~~the
city and environs, and every foot of ground
contains some Scripture history or illustra-
tion. My convoy has been Mr. Frank Clark,
the conductor for " Thos. Cook & Son";
he has resided in Palestine many years, and
speaks Arabic as weU as a born Bedawee.
My hotel stands on Mount Zion, close by
Hezekiah's Pool, and within a few yards
of the Tower of David. Starting south-
ward from our hotel door, we soon reach
the Armenian Convent, and the building in
which the Last Supper is reported to have
been celebrated by our Lord with his dis-
ciples. This is certainly a fiction; for all
Jerusalem has been piled over with the
debris of twenty sieges since the time when
Christ trod the sacred city. Every street

Walks about Jerusalem. 89

he walked through is from twenty to sixty
feet below the present surface. There is
a Jebusite, a Jewish, a Roman, a Sara-
cenic, and an early Turkish Jerusalem all
lying under our feet here to-day. All that
is left from the age of our Lord that is
now visible are a Roman pavement, the low-
er walls of the Temple, David's Tower, the
pools, the rock-tombs, and the glorious, ever-
lasting hQls like Olivet, Scopus, and ancient
Zion.

Standing on the brow of Zion and looking
down toward the valleys of Hinnom or Siloam
you see a series of terraces, which are now
covered with gardens, barley patches and
fig-trees. The rains are over; the cisterns
that supply Jerusalem with all its drinking
water for the year are filled; the fields are
waving for the harvest; and the verdure and
fohage are at their best. We wind along
outside of the city wall to Mount Moriah,
and just under the "Haram," or site of the
ancient Temple, we find a path that leads
down to the Pool of Siloam. There are two

90 The Nile to Norway.

pools that bear this name, but they are really
one; for the water from the upper pool (now
called "The Virgin's") runs by a subterra-
nean passage to the larger pool below. Dr.
Edward Robinson and Capt. Warren both
crept through this dark passage for several
hundred feet on their hands and knees. I
am inclined to think that the real fauntain-
head of this celebrated water-flow is up near
the spot where Pilate's Judgment Hall once
stood. When I went down under a Cathohc
Convent up there, and stood on a remnant
of the old " pavement of Oabhatha," I found
the water rippling audibly in a deep vault
beneath us.

The upper pool of Siloam is reached by
descending twenty-nine steps. Down at the
foot is a small basLa — -not much bigger than
a bath-tub — filled with clear cold water.
While we were there, a pilgrim came down
the steps, threw off his uttermost garment,
and literally " washed in the pool of Siloam."
When our Lord commanded a certain blind
man to do that same thing, he probably

Walks about Jerusalem. 91

sent Mm to the lower pool. It is a walled
reservoir, fifty-three feet long, eighteen wide
and as many in depth. Not much of the
stream runs into this reservoir now; but is
carried off in a channel alongside. It in-
terested me to watch the Arab women come
with their earthern jars on their heads, or
their goat-skin bags on their backs and fiU.
them from the stream. One bright -eyed
young woman asked me for "backsheesh,"
and when I shook my head (for the beggary
here is indecently disgraceful) she muttered
out in Arabic, ' ' May you be struck with
bUndness ! " If she had known what havoc
the catarrh had made with my hearing, she
certainly would have spared me my eyesight.
These Orientals are as profuse in their bene-
diction and their curses as they were in
ancient times. Commonly they are polite
to strangers ; and the Bedawy chieftain who
escorted us through the wilderness of Judea
last week, was a model of both courtesy and
fine horsemanship. As he dashed away on
his steed along the shore of the Dead Sea,

92 The Nile to Norway.

he presented a vivid picture of the Jethros
and the other Sheikhs mentioned in the Old
Testament.

From Siloam we go up the valley of Je-
hoshaphat. To the right stands the tomb
of Absalom. We too flung our stone into
the heap that surrounds the handsome young
scoundrel's grave. "We walk along by the
banks of the brook Kedron, but it is already
dry. During the rainy season it runs brim-
full. Col. Wilson, our Consul, tells me that
when the Autumn rains " begin and the Ke-
dron fills up, the people of Jerusalem throng
down there with songs and shouts to welcome
the coming of the water. In the Orient
water is counted as God's richest blessing.
Why should not we in America learn wisdom
from these, our ancestors? We go a few
rods up Kedron and there before us is a
walled enclosure; above the wall we see the
tops of two cypresses and a few venerable
olive-trees. That enclosed spot is sacred
Gethsemane. Down yonder hill- side from
that city gate the Man of Sorrows walked,

Walks about Jerusalem. 93

on that awful night to his struggle with
the powers of darkness, on this hallowed
.ground.

I expected to find Gethsemane desolate
and neglected. Instead of that I found it
in beautiful order — with an elegant inner
iron railing, and laid out in tasteful flower-
beds. Alongside of the ancient olive-trees
— many hundreds of years old — grow a pro-
fusion of roses, carnations, marigolds, helio-
tropes, and many varieties of fragrant plants.
The air was loaded with sweet odors; and
the courteous gardener (from a neighboring
convent) allowed us to pick as many flowers
as we chose. This adorning of the scene of
my blessed Saviour's agony was grateful to
me. Why not? Did he not bear the grief that
we might taste the sweetness of the blessing
of redemption? I rejoiced to see these fra-
grant tributes blooming so thick and rich and
beautiful, as tokens of the heavenly hopes
that have sprung up from G-ethsemane's soil
once steeped with tears.

From the sacred garden, a travelled road

94 The Nile to Norway.

that has been a thoroughfare for twenty cen-
turies, leads up around the southern shoulder
of the Mount of Olives. It is the ancient
road to Bethany. (5ver this very road our
Redeemer often walked; over it he was once
brought in triumph amid the waving of palm-
branches and the shouts of "Hosanna!"
There are only two other places in Palestine
where we are sure our Lord once set his
feet. One of them is beside Jacob's well
at Sychar, and the other is the little hill
above Nazareth, on which the Nazarenes
have always walked every day.

Yesterday morning early I went out " as
far as to Bethany." There is a remain of
a Roman pavement to prove that this was
the ancient pathway. Just before reaching
the village — ^which stands among fig and
olive orchards — ^I turned aside to see three
old tombs in the rocks — and many archaeolo-
gists think that one of them may have been
the tomb of Lazarus. They are an hundred
rods from the village — a very probable dis-
tance. The tomb that is commonly called

WalKs about Jerusalem. 95

by the name of Lazarus is right in the httle
village. I took a candle and crept down a
steep winding stairway of twenty-five steps
and then reached a square cavity that led
down three steps farther into a small cave.
That cave is the traditional tomb where Laz-
arus laid for four days in the sleep of death.
If it be the true spot, then our Lord wrought
that mighty miracle at the bottom of a deep
pit where only half a dozen persons could
have room to stand. My own judgment
incUnes toward that other spot I had visited
a few moments before.

Dear, hallowed Bethany is now a small
Arab village of twenty stone houses, so
closely packed together that at a distance
they look like an old stone fortification. One
ruined house is claimed to be the remnant
of the dwelling in which Jesus held sweet
converse with Mary and Martha and Lazarus.
I have no faith ia that tradition. But just
behind Bethany — toward Jerusalem — arises a
beautiful hill, verdant to the summit. It is
the south-eastern spur from the Mount of

96 JThe Nile to Norway.

Olives. I climbed it with reverent awe; for
I firmly believe that it was from that hill,
or from its sides, that the Lord of glory as-
cended up to heaven. Superstition has built
no "Church of the Ascension" there as it
has on the top of Ohvet, over against Jeru-
salem. Ko relic-mongers haunt it or dese-
crate it. It stands in its silent beauty above
the httle village that Jesus loved to visit,
and when he led his disciples "out as far as
to Bethany," I beheve that he led them
there. That green elevation may probably
have been the last spot of earth which the
incarnate Saviour ever trod.

IX.

THE DEAD SEA AND THE JORDAN.

Jerusalem, May 2.

T AM very glad that the grand old Tower
■^ of David stands only a few rods from my
hotel window. It is a pleasant thing to be
often looking at the one remaining structure
on which the eye of the Redeemer may have
rested : for though this tower was thrown
down in the time of the Crusades, yet the
lower portion is rebuilt of the same stones.
Not far from the Tower is Christ Church,
where I was glad to worship yesterday —
not in an unknown tongue. Bishop Barclay,
the successor of Bishop Gobat, has a good
congregation, largely composed of the young
people connected with his day-school for the
Jews, and another for Arabs outside of the
city walls. Most of the converts made thus
far come from the Jewish and the Syrian ele-

97

98 The Nile to Norway.

ment. Neither here nor in Egypt have over
a dozen Mussulmen been converted to Chris-
tianity. Bishop Barclay is a genial, earnest
" Low Churchman." In my last letter I re-
ferred to Kolonieh as the possible site of
ancient Bmmaus; but the Bishop has given
me some most convincing arguments in fa-
vor of Kubeibeh, which stands about eight
miles northwest of Jerusalem, just beyond
Nfeby Samwil.

Last Thursday morning I set off with my
four companions upon an excursion, which,
although it involved hard horseback travel
over rough paths and precipitous mountains,
and exposures to blazing noon-day heats,
yet was abundantly stimulating and de-
lightful. We were under the direction of
Mr. Frank Clark, who loaded up a donkey
with rations for the journey. We set our
faces for the Pools of Solomon — halting a
few moments at the tomb of Rachel by the
roadside. The small structure was crowded
with Jews, some of whom wore phylac-
teries, and all were wailing, as they wail

The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 99

beside the remnant of the Temple walls.
One old woman was weeping and pressing
her withered cheek against the tomb with
as much distress as if the fair young wife
who breathed out her life there forty cen-
turies ago had been her own daughter. We
found the enormous Pools of Solomon (the
longest of which measures 580 feet in length)
were about half filled with pure water. We
rode beside the aqueduct that leads from
them, all the way to Bethlehem. Down
among the bleak and barren hills we saw
the deep, fertile vale of Urtas, filled with
gardens and fruit-trees. It is cultivated by
the European colony planted by Mr. Mes-
huUam. For a half hour we feasted our
eyes with the view of beautiful Bethlehem
perched on its lofty hill and surrounded by
olive-orchards. So many new edifices have
been erected for convents and other relig-
ious purposes, that Bethlehem has almost a
modern look. As we rode through its nar-
row streets we saw no Ruths, but an an-
cient Jew in turban, long robe, and flowing

100 The Nile to Norway.

beard, quite answered to my idea of Boaz.
We rode to the Convent adjoining the Church
of the Nativity, where a rather jolly -looking
monk furnished us an excellent lunch. He
then took us into the venerable church that
covers the subterranean chamber in which
tradition has always held that our blessed
Lord was born. The chamber is probably
a renanant of an ancient khan once belong-
ing to the family of Jesse and of King
David. I expected to be shocked by a
sham mockery when I entered the church,
but a feehng of genuine faith in the locali-
ty came over me as I descended into the
rocky chamber and read, around the silver
star, the famous inscription in Latin, "Here
Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary."
The three-fold argument for the authentic-
ity of this site is drawn from unbroken
tradition, from the fact that Bethlehem has
never been overthrown in sieges, and from
the other fact that the learned St. Jerome
(in the fourth century) was so sure of the
site that he came and spent his long, la-

The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 101

borious life in the cavern close by the birth-
spot of our Lord. I entered with deep
interest the cave in which this devout
scholar meditated and prayed and wrought
the Yulgate translation of God's Word. My
visit to the Church of the Nativity was ten-
fold more satisfactory than that to the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre in this city.

At two o'clock, under a broiling sun, our
cavalcade of ten horses and mules filed out
of Bethlehem and headed for the wilderness
of Judea — one of the dreariest wildernesses
on the globe. At the head of our line rode
the gallant Bedawy chief, the Sheikh Resheid,
equipped with sword and dagger, and show-
ing the scars of half a dozen wounds. Re-
sheid is the most powerful Sheikh in Judea,
and led the escort of the Prince of Wales
and Dean Stanley to the Dead Sea and the
Jordan. His presence with us for three
days afforded us an excellent opportunity
to observe the looks and ways of a high-
blooded Bedawy; but his protection was quite
needless against the few shabby Arabs whom

102 The Nile to Norway.

we met in their filthy black tents in the
wilderness. For an hour we rode among
barley-fields. I noticed how close the grain
grew to the path, and how easy it was for
the sower's grain to " fall on the highway."
I also saw several plats of angry thorns,
which would " choke " any seed which may
faU among them.

Our afternoon's march over the bleak, tree-
less, and brown mountains of the wilderness
was inexpressibly tiresome until we came in
sight of the Dead Sea. It lay two thousand
feet below us. — a mirror of sUver, set among
the violet mountains of Moab. More pre-
cipitous descents over rocks and sand brought
us, by sundown, to the two towers of the
most unique monastery on the globe. The
famous Convent of Mar 8aha is worth a
journey to Palestine. For thu-teen cen-
turies that wonderful structure has hung
against the walls of the deep, awful gorge
of the Kedron. It is a colossal swallows'
nest of stone, buUt to the height of three
hundred feet against the precipice, and in-

The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 103

habited by sixty monks of the Greek Church
— genuine Manicheans, and followers of St.
Saba and St. John of Damascus. No wo-
man's foot has ever entered the convent's
walls ! Instead of woman's society they
make love to the birds, who come and feed
off the monks' hands. Every evening they
toss bread down to the wild jackals in the
gorge below. At sunset I climbed over the
extraordinary building — was shown into the
rather handsome church, and into the chapel
or cave of St. Nicholas, which contains the
ghastly skulls of the monks who were slaugh-
tered by Chosroes and his Persian soldiers
— and gazed down into the awful ravine be-
neath the convent walls. Some monks in
black gowns were perched as watchmen on
the lofty towers; others wandered over the
stone pavements in a sort of aimless vacuity.
What an attempt to live in an exhausted
receiver !

The monks gave us hospitable welcome,
sold us canes and woodwork, and furnished
us lodgings on the divans of two large stone

104 The Nile to Norway.

parlors. One of the religious duties of the
brotherhood is to keep vigils, and through
the night bells were ringing and clanging to
call them in to their devotions. The vermin
in the lodging-rooms had learned to keep up
their vigils also; and as the result our party
— with one exception — had a sleepless night.
I have such a talent for sleeping, and like
Pat "pay attintion to it" so closely, that I
was able to defy even the fleas and mos-
quitoes of Mar Saba. By daylight the next
morning we heard the great iron door of the
convent clang behind us like the gate of
Bunyan's "Doubting Castle," and for five
hours we made a toilsome descent of the
desolate cliffs to the shore of the Dead Sea.
That much-maligned sea has a weird and
wonderful beauty. We took a bath in its
cool, clear waters, and detected , no differ-
ence from a bath at Coney Island except
that the water has such density, that we
floated on it like pine shingles. No fish
from the salt ocean can live in it; but it is
very attractive to the eye on a hot noon-

The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 105

day. A scorching ride we had across the
barren plain to the sacred Jordan — -which
disappointed me sadly. At the places where
the Israelites crossed and our Lord was bap-
tized it is about one hundred and twenty feet
wide; it flows rapidly and in a turbid cur-
rent of light stone color. In size and ap-
pearance it is the perfect counterpart of the
Muskingum a few miles above Zanesville.
Its useless waters ought to be turned off to
irrigate its barren valley, which might be
changed into a garden. For beavity the Jor-
dan wiU not compare with Elijah's Brook
Cherith, whose bright, sparkling stream went
flowing past our lodging-place at Jericho.
We lodged over night in a Greek convent
(very small), and rode next morning to see
the ruins of the town made famous by Josh-
ua, Elijah, Zaccheus, and the restoration of
Bartimeus to sight. Squahd Arabs haunt
the sacred spot.

Our climb from Jericho to Jerusalem was
hot and toilsome — past the wild gorge of
the Brook Cherith, and up rocky ravines.

106 The Nile to Norway.

till we reached the fountain of En Shemesh.
There we halted at a ruined khan, and I
was glad to throw myself on the ground,
utterly tired out. While we rested and
lunched on eggs and oranges, the Sheikh
Resheid amused himself playing cards with
a brother Arab. Our last march brought
us up among the olives and fig-trees of dear,
blessed Bethany ! I could have kissed the
very ground. Its soil is hallowed with the
footsteps and the tears of the Man of Sorrows.
So ended our delightful journey.

Every day here is wonderful; I seem to
be in an enchanted dream. A few nights
ago I went out on the flat roof of our hotel
near midnight. Jerusalem was silent and
dark except where a lamp gleamed here and
there in a window. Before me lay Olivet
with its outline barely discernible in the dim
starhght. Beneath it was Gethsemane: and
not far from me is the reputed site of Cal-
vary. I began to recall the scenes of that
memorable night when Jesus went out of
these streets to his betrayal. I repeated

The Dead Sea and the Jordan. 107

to myself those lines my dear Lafayette -
avenue flock love to sing:

"'Tis midnight; and on Olive's brow
The suifering Saviour weeps alone."

So actual, SO near, so vivid, did the scenes
of the Last Night rise before me, that I
was perfectly overpowered. That one hour
was a sufficient reward for all my long jour-
ney to the world's only Jerusalem.

X.

THE OLD AND THE NEW.

Jerusalem, May 6.

" T APHET shall dwell in the tents of Shem "
'-' is a prediction that finds fresh illustra-
tion now in the Buropeanizing of th^ Ori-
ent. The new patches begin to show in the
old garment. As I have already remarked,
Egypt is on the ' ' up grade " — and the most
intelligent people in Palestine and Syria sigh
for a government as endurable as that of the
Khedive.

In Jerusalem and Bethlehem I see evident
tokens of a new era. If "Japhet" is not
here in large numbers, his ideas are coming
in a steady stream. To be sure, Palestine
in the main is the Palestine of ancient days.
There is not a newspaper published in the
whole land, for the two petty sheets issued
by the rabbis here do not deserve that name.

108

The Old and the New. 109

There is only one carriage-road, and that
leads from Jerusalem to Jaflfa. A railway
is no more to be thought of over these pre-
cipitous hills than an orange-tree in Green-
land. Across the beautiful and fertile plain
of Sharon I saw the "fellaheen" driving the
same clumsy plough that was driven by the
prophet Ehsha. The Arab women at Jericho
sat grinding at the mill, after the fashion of
their ancestors. AU Palestine rides yet on
camels and on the "foal of an ass," as in
the time of our Lord; but still the tokens of
change are in the air. A post-office (man-
aged by Austrians) will carry this letter to
the ancient Joppa of Jonah and of Dorcas,
and place it on board of an Austrian mail-
steamer. There is a new Jerusalem spring-
ing up rapidly outside of the old city walls,
toward the west. For a half mile the street
is lined with handsome ' buildings — some of
them schools, hospitals, and convents; some
of them quite elegant residences of merchants
and bankers. The Anglican bishop. Dr. Bar-
clay, tells me that not one of these edifices

110 The Nile to Norway.

was standing when he came here nineteen
years ago. Jerusalem has absolutely grown
more during that time than some of the towns
in the interior of I^ew York.

Along the turnpike to Jaffa runs the tele-
graph wire, and on the plain of Sharon stands
the large "Jewish Agricultural College," sur-
rounded by a model farm and thrifty nurser-
ies. Bethlehem is a thriving town — largely
it is nominally Christian — and it carries on
extensive manufactures in mother-of-pearl.
The Bethlehemites brought back from our
Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia about
seventy thousand dollars as the net profit
of the sale of their beautiful wares. If Pal-
estine were only delivered from the tjrranny
of the Sultan, or were ruled by such a man
as the Pasha Roulff (the Governor of Jeru-
salem), it would rise rapidly into a new era
of economic progress. The Sultan's touch
and tread are death.

Last Monday I walked up the Valley of
Hinnom, the ancient " Gehenna" of the days
of Moloch. I expected to find a horrible

The Old and the New. Ill

desolation; but, instead of that, I found a
valley full of olive orchards, and on its slopes
toward the Hill of Evil Counsel I saw new
buildings, and among them were several
built by the legacy of Judah Touro, the
American Jew. However dismal Gehenna
may once have been, it is now a far better
type of Paradise than of Purgatory. Yes-
terday Bishop Barclay called to take me out
to the anniversary meeting of the " Talitha
Cumi," an admirable institution for Arab
girls, built and controlled by the German
deaconesses of Kaiserwerth. The good Bish-
op wore his canonical hat and knee-breeches,
and was preceded by two Arab guards,
armed with swords and staves; and the mot-
ley crowd of Arabs, Jews, Armenians, and
Syrians politely saluted us as we passed.
I wish, by the way, that our Yankee nation
would pick up some lessons in courtesy from
these Orientals, whom we count "heathen."
When I happened to look in upon some Jew-
ish schools, the little fellows, who were sit-
ting cross-legged upon their mats, all jumped

112 The Nile to Norway.

up instinctively and remained standing until
I motioned them to their seats. At Cairo
the Arab chamberman came into my room
and said "Good night," in the most home-
like way, every evening. Blessings on the
fellow! He almost seemed like one of my
family. When I was down in the Wilderness
of Judea, the gallant Bedawy chief, Sheikh
Resheid, who escorted tis, had the courteous
bearing of a native prince.

But to the "Tahtha Cumi." We found
a handsome stone edifice out on the Jaffa
road, with a garden in front, well stocked
with figs, pomegranates, and vines, mingled
with our hollyhocks and roses. The insti-
tution is managed by a company of Ger-
man deaconesses, who were attired in blue
gowns and jaunty white caps. In the three
rooms opening into the central hall were
gathered more than an hundred bright-eyed
Arab girls, dressed in European style. How
sweetly they sang the old German hymns
in "plain song"! Baron Munchausen the
German Consul, and a banker made speech-

The Old and the New. 113

es; the English bishop presided; a report
was read; and everything done quite in our
own style, even to the passing around of
refreshments afterward. I could almost im-
agine that I was attending the anniversary
of my own "Ohvet Mission," in Brooklyn.
The Deaconesses have also a well-managed
hospital near this hotel.

Here in Jerusalem we have no American
mission. The chief work done in English is
by the London Society for the Jews. They
have a handsome church on Mount Zion; and
a neat chapel, in which I made a missionary
talk, last evening, to a good audience, com-
posed of converted Jews and Enghsh resi-
dents and visitors. There is a prodigious dif-
ficulty in moving the Jews in Jerusalem; first
because those who live in the city of their
fathers are intensely bigoted in their faith,
and secondly because so many of the Jews
here live entirely on the pecuniary bounty
of their rich brethren in Europe. Then, too,
if a young Jew turns Christian, he finds no
employment among his people here, and

114 The Nile to Norway.

often has to emigrate. But in spite of these
difficulties, a considerable number of Jews
have been received into the membership
'of "Christ Church," under the oversight of
the Anglica,n bishop. The Bergheims (bank-
ers), Conrad Shick the antiquarian archi-
tect and Mr. Sapphira are all proselytes
from Judaism. I was much interested in
visiting the hospital and the schools con-
ducted by the London Society. In the girls'
school I observed that the room appropriated
to day-scholars was empty. The reason as-
signed was that the Jews of Amsterdam
had remonstrated with the parents of the
children and persuaded them to take their
children from the Christian school and place
them in one of their own. An additional
backsheesh in the shape of a daily break-
fast and dinner is oflfered to every child of
Israel who will return to the schools of the
Rabbis. "We will get them all back again,"
said the English teacher to me; but by what
methods she did not explain. Labor to con-
vert the Israelites is like the road from

The Old and the New. 115

Jericho and the Jordan — rather hard and
up-hill.

The Jews compose about one third of the
population of the city. They hve chiefly
upon Mount Zion, and whether they have
come thither from Germany, or Poland, or
Russia, or Holland, they are always and
everywhere the "peculiar people." Their
Judaism is as essentially a part and parcel
of them as their keen eyes and their aqui-
Hne noses. It is on account of their intense
attachment to the faith of their fathers that
they have come to live and to die in the
Holy City. A large portion of them are
supported by the bounty of Sir Moses Monte-
fiore, and other wealthy Jews in Europe; it
may be imagined therefore how seriously this
fact impedes all efforts to convert them to
Christianity. A Jew in Jerusalem is not
much more impressible than a Mussulman
in Mecca. It has only been after the most
untiring labors that Bishop Barclay, Mr.
Kelk, Mr. Friedlander, and the other mis-
sionaries of the London Society have sue-

116 The Nile to Norway.

ceeded, during twenty years, in gathering
about sixscore of proselytes into " Christ
Church."

I looked into the chief synagogue on
Mount Zion the other day. About a dozen
^ray-bearded Israelites were studying the
Talmud. Some looked hke Abraham — and
some like Shylock. In about such an edi-
fice our Lord stood up to expound the
prophecies of Isaiah at Nazareth. As I
was passing through the Jewish quarter
I heard the hum of children's voices, and
went into one of the principal schools.
Upon the floor and upon low seats were
a crowd of boys sitting cross-legged, swing-
ing back and forth, and all repeating some-
thing that sounded like ' ' Alah-alah-lah-lah-
lah " in a rapid roU. Their teacher was
smoking a cigarette and kept up as steady
a chatter as his pupils. In some rooms they
were studying the Pentateuch; in others
they were busy over their arithmetics. Their
school-books were well printed.

I am never weary of studying the every-

The Old and the New. 117

day life of the dwellers in Jerusalem. Every
color, kind, and costume are represented iu
the streets. The streets themselves are about
as wide as the hall of an average house in
America — except "David" and "Christian"'
streets, which reach the remarkable width
of about fourteen or fifteen feet. In these
two thoroughfares a few dim lamps are hung
at night; in all the other alleys the few per-
sons who venture out at night carry their
own lanterns. Many of the streets are arched
over with heavy stone, and look like long
vaults. Through these streets pours a steady
stream of foot-passengers, camels, and don-
keys, so thick and confused that one must
walk circumspectly or he will be run over.
As to the filth of these thoroughfares, it is
so amazing as to even make New York seem
clean in the comparison. One excuse for this
chronic nastiness is the scarcity of water; for
all that the inhabitants have to rely upon is
the rain water which falls during about three
months, and is preserved in cisterns for use
during all the rest of the year. Into the

118 The Nile to Norway.

sides of these narrow streets are let a series
of rooms (or caves) about ten feet square
which constitute the shops and stores of the
metropoHs of Judea. In one room works a
blacksmith with an anvil and an iron vice
like ours. In the next shop a closely veiled
Arabic woman is buying a silk dress; there
is only space for the salesman and about six
customers. Next to the dry-goods shop is
a grain market with heaps of wheat, sesame,
rice, and barley on the floor. A woman is
filling a half-bushel with barley and squeezing
it down with her hands so that she may fur-
nish " fuU measure, pressed down, and run-
ning over." So does every little act throw
light on Scripture in this land of the Bible.
Next to the grain-market is an ancient
khan, on whose seats are a group of coun-
try folk, some smoking their narguilfehs and
some fast asleep. These Orientals he about,
fast asleep, in the mosques, in the streets,
on a camel's back, or anywhere. Behind
the seats in the khan are a dozen donkeys
being fed on barley-stra\v. It must have

The Old and the New. 119

been in tlie subterranean room of just such
a khan at Bethlehem that our blessed Lord
was born. Probably the khan at Bethlehem
belonged to the descendants of David, so
that Jesus was born on the actual spot
where Ruth, Jesse, and the Psalmist had
once resided. Next to the ' khan we come
to a shop in which a cotton-dresser with a
clumsy instrument like an one-stringed harp,
is dressing raw cotton from Egypt. Next
to him is a money-changer and he is prob-
ably a Jew. Along through the crowded
streets push and press a motley throng of
Jewesses with white cotton mantles over
their heads — of bare-legged Arabs — of Ar-
menian priests with slouching black hoods —
of Greek priests with caps like a section
of a stovepipe — of Franciscan friars in gray
robes with a rope tied around their waists —
of turbaned Turks and occasionally a Beda-
win chieftain from the desert. I saw one
splendid looking fellow to-day well mounted,
and carrying a spear twelve feet long. Oc-
casionally we meet an Arab woman bearing

120 The Nile to Norway.

a bag on her back hung by a cord across
her forehead. Out of the bag peeps a baby
Ishmaehte six or eight months old. The
Jewish women and the fellaheen generally
go unveiled. The Turkish and the Arabs
too of the higher castes wear a thin guaze
veil.

Every visitor to Palestine is tempted to
try a little identification of ancient sites, on
his own hook. I too have caught the infec-
tion, and have reached a comfortable degree
of assurance on the following disputed points.
First, I believe in the genuineness of the
Bethlehem Chapel of the Nativity as the
true site of the birth of the infant Saviour.
Secondly, I believe that the grave of Lazarus
was one of the four or five open hewn tombs
just out of Bethany — and that our Lord as-
cended to heaven from that green hill imme-
diately behind Bethany, and not from the
summit of Olivet. Thirdly, I do not beheve
at all in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
as the spot of the crucifixion or of the
burial. ISTor have I found any intelligent

The Old and the New. 121

antiquarian here (except my good friend the
American Consul) who still holds to that
fast vanishing opinion. We shall probably
never hnoio just where our blessed Lord
endured his last agony, or where he was
laid with the rich in his death. It may have
been the purpose of the AU-Wise God to
conceal this locality from human knowledge
just as the place of the sepulture of Moses
has been concealed from after generations.

But among all the sites of the crucifixion
that have yet been suggested I believe that
the strongest prohability attaches to that ele-
vation, a few rods northeast of the Damascus
gate. It is precisely in the form of a human
skuU, and in that respect answers to the
name of "Calvary." It is a rounded knoU
of two or three hundred feet in length en-
tirely bare of trees, and a considerable por-
tion of it is now used as a Mohammedan
burial-ground. Just beyond it, on the road
towards Samaria, are the remains of the great
Jewish cemetery of ancient times. The Jews
• — (according to Dr. Chaplin a most acute

122 The Nile to Norway.

archaeologist) "still point out that knoU by
the name of Beth-has-Sekilah or the 'place
of stoning,' and state that it was the ancient
place of pubhc executions." If this be so,
then it is probable that Stephen may have
suffered martyrdom on the very spot wher^i
his Lord was crucified. That knoll is far
enough away from Pilate's Judgment Hall
and far enough away, from Mounts Zion,
Moriah and Acra to have been outside of
the second waU. (If the second wall was
inside of the spot where the Church of the-
Holy Sepulchre now stands, then ancient
Jerusalem must have Jaeen a most diminutive
specimen of a city — ^really not more than
a vUlage). No one spot yet suggested as
the scene of the last Passion, seems to my
mind, to possess such strong arguments in
its favor as this spot outside of the Damascus
gate. It contains, on its south side, a
deep excavation called "Jeremiah's Grotto."
From the top, a wide view of Jerusalem and
Olivet and the distant hiUs of Moab is ob-
tained; if our Lord were crucified there, a

The Old and the New. 123

vast multitude of people could have witnessed
the awful spectacle. During my stay in Jeru-
salem I have gone out, several times, to this
bare rounded elevation, and have felt a shud-
der of awe steal over me at the thought that
I might be actually standing on the rocky
mound which witnessed the scene of the
world's Redemption !

Canon Tristram has lately returned from
an exploration of the land of Moab; and
Lieutenant 0. R. Condor is soon expected
here on his way to the survey of the eastern
side of Jordan. Since such valuable discov-
eries have been made by the excavations
of Troy, and Mycene, the question may be
asked — why are not more thorough excava-
tions made in Jerusalem? To this we may
reply that Jerusalem is not a desolate ruin,
but a thickly inhabited city. Almost every
square rod is covered with solid stone struc-
tures — which could only be removed at great
expense. The inhabitants are opposed to
being dug up and overturned. Skilled labor
to carry on such work is very scarce. No

124 The Nile to Norway.

extensive and thorough excavations can be
made in Jerusalem without involving enor-
mous expenditure of labor and of money.
The secret treasures of history and archaeology
that are hidden beneath the stone foundations
of the Holy City are likely to remain hidden
for a long time to come.

Q-reat as are the physical difficulties in
the way of exploring subterranean Jerusa-
lem, they are not one tittle as formidable as
the obstacles to the fulfilment of the devout
dream of the " return of the Jews to Pales-
tine." In ancient times the Israelites were
an agricultm-al and herd-raising people. In
our day their descendants, scattered over Eu-
rope and America, are almost entirely a com-
mercial people. The few Jews who migrate
hither are mostly averse to farming. If they
cannot aspire to be bankers or merchants,
they are content to " dicker " in a small way
as hucksters, and petty traffickers. Palestine
is a diminutive country, unable at present to
maintain any considerable percentage of the
Jews now swarming over the world. It is

The Old and the New. 125

only one hundred and sixty miles long, and
at its widest point only fifty-eight miles in
breadth.

A large portion of it is wUd and desolate
rocky hills that can only be made valuable by
a costly restoration of the ancient system of
irrigation by pools and artificial cisterns. The
fertile and arable regions that I have been en-
joying in their vernal beauty — such as the
plain of Sharon, and the regions about Beth-
lehem and towards Samaria — are the property
of the native " fellaheen," or farmers. They
can be dislodged only by purchase, and there
is no disposition manifested by Jews to buy
them out. The average Jew is more inclined
to invest in stocks or jewelry than he is to
try "real estate" in Judea. Even if the
whole land were now adopted to agriculture
and herd-raising, the security of a strong and
just government is indispensable to the suc-
cess of any extensive colonization. The val-
ley of the lower Jordan — now so desolate —
might be transformed to-morrow into a fruit-
•ful garden, simply by turning the waters of

126 The Nile to Norway.

the Jordan over it and putting in the plough.
But what colonists wiU undertake all that
labor as long as the Bedawin could swoop
down and carry off the whole crop in a
single night? Such are some of the hard
facts that the believers in the immediate res-
toration of Israel to Palestine have to en-
counter. ^I see no signs of such a restora-
tion. I do not pretend to unravel prophecy,
or to limit the wonder-working power of
&od; but at present there is no more proba-
bility of a Jewish occupation of the Holy
Land than there is that the Pope will set
up his throne in Washington, or that the
"Church of the Latter-day Saints" wUl get
possession of Westminster Abbey.

XI.

BEYROUT AND THE SYRIAN MISSIONS.

Steamer "Espero" May 13.

TF it was not easy to leave Cairo, I was
-*- still more reluctant to leave Jerusalem.
The accomplished AngUcan Bishop Barclay,
our Consul, Col. Wilson, and other friends
were very helpful to me in studying that
fascinating ground of prophets and apostles,
and of Him who was above them all. I
desired greatly to go north into GaUlee, but
the increasing heat of the weather added to
several other strong reasons decided me
to return to Jaflfa. I had already seen the
representative places. After traversing the
plain of Sharon it was not so important
to see the plain of Esdraelon; the view of
Bethlehem had to compensate me for not
seeing Nazareth; and, aside from its tender

127

128 The Nile to Norway.

associations, tlie lake of Genesareth does not
compare in picturesqueness with tlie Dead
Sea and the mountains of Moab.

On Friday morning, I stowed myself away
in a wagon, with three Armenian pilgrims —
and an indefinite amount of their bed-quilts
and bundles, — and started for Jaffa. In spite
of the heat the ride was fuU of enjoyment;
we stopped twice for rest and refreshment,
so that our time spent in the wagon was
only eight hours. The turnpike is very fair;
we passed several lines of camels laden with
goods for Jerusalem, and on the back of one
I espied a box labelled " Pratt's Astral oil."
It was pleasant for me to observe how
Brooklyn is shedding light into Judea. The
village of "Soba" on a lofty height to our
left, contests with " Abou Gosch" the right
to an identity with ancient Kirjath Jearim.
Either one may be the true site, and much
may be said for both. I cannot accept the
theory that the valley of Blah, in which
David had his duel with Goliath, lies about
Kolonieh; it must be several mUes farther

BEYROUT AND THE SYRIAN MISSIONS. 129

south. At five o'clock we came in sight of
Joppa — for it is dearer to us by its script-
ural name than by its modern cognomen of
Jaflfa. That last hour of my ride, among
the enchanting orange-groves near the town,
gave me the finest oriental picture I have
yet seen. The oranges— of which three mil-
lion a year are produced in those groves —
were in their luscious perfection. Fig-trees,
briUiant pomegranate-blossoms, and a few
stately palms adorned the road-side. Troops
of camels, and of travellers in bright varied
costumes poured along. Before me arose
Joppa on its hiUtops, and beside it sparkled
the blue Mediterranean; the memory of Dor-
cas, and of Peter and of Cornehus added
new sweetness to the fragrant air. Behind
us was the verdant background of Sharon,
and the distant mountains about Bethhoron.
My last day in Judea was pleasantly passed
in exploring the quaint old streets of Joppa
and in visiting the admirable school for Arab
girls conducted by Miss Arnot.

The next afternoon I left in this Austrian

130 The Nile to Norway.

Lloyd steamer "Espero" which is on the
fortnightly line for Beyrout, Smyrna and
Constantinople. She is a good boat, and
since leaving Beyrout her first cabin has
been filled with a refined and social com-
pany — largely Americans. Her decks out-
side of the main cabin, are densely covered
with a menagerie of Turks, Syrians, Greeks,
Arabs, and all manner of Orientals, who eat,
drink and sleep in the open air. Some of
them are pilgrims from Jerusalem. Some
are devout Mussulmen, and perform their
prayer-service on the deck four times a
day with a military precision. A line of
them kneel together (facing east), bow their
heads to the deck together, rise up together,
and then prostrate themselves again, while
their hps are repeating lines of the Koran.
Certainly a Mohammedan is never ashamed
to show his colors.

Among the cabin passengers is a beauti-
ful wife of a Turkish Pasha in Constanti-
nople, who has her meals apart with her
attendants, but who mingles with the rest

Beyrout and the Syrian Missions. 131

of our company on the deck. She is richly
apparelled, and wears a white veil — which
she opens at the eyes sufficiently to read
or write; but her lustrous eyes, rich com-
plexion, and costume look as if they had
come out of the canvas of one of Frederick
Bridgman's Oriental pictures. The eastern
dress is not always "handy" for work, but
it is exceedingly graceful and picturesque
in its effects.

On the first evening after leaving Joppa,
I watched with intense interest the revolv-
ing light on Mount Carmel, and early the
next morning caught a fine view of glorious
Hermon with its diadem of snow. Soon
afterwards we began to see a few buildings
on a bluff at the base of Lebanon. I knew
at once that they must be those buildings
which American piety and zeal have reared
as the spiritual lighthouses for Syria and
the East. I have only taken off my hat
in reverence on two occasions since I left
home; once was when I entered the gate
of Jerusalem, the other time was when our

132 The Nile to Norway.

steamer came up abreast of the American
College at Beyrout.

The harbor swarmed with small boats push-
ing out to meet the steamer, and the first
person whom I recognized was Dr. Jessup
swinging his handkerchief among a crew of
Arab boatmen. If I were to say that the
man in that boat was the prince of Ameri-
can niissionaries, probably no persons would
respond "-amen" more promptly than his
brethren in the foreign work. In ten min-
utes we were on shore, climbing the hiU
to Brother Jessup's residence. But no; we
could not go to his house until we had been
to see the handsome church in which he
preaches, and where, last Sunday, he ad-
ministered the sacrament of the Lord's Sup-
per to two hundred communicants. Then
we must go into the new Sunday-school
buUding erected by Mr. Pale as a memorial
of a beloved child gone home to God. It is
a gem; and when it is resounding with three
hundred and sixty voices singing Christ's
praises in Arabic, that room is worth a

Beyrout and the Syrian Missions. 133

journey to Syria to see. One other build-
ing must be visited, and that was the Print-
ing House which turns out Arabic Bibles
and Catechisms, and school-books and tracts
and the vivacious newspapers edited by Dr.
Eddy. Among the publications issued are
"Twelve Sermons by D. L. Moody." So
charmed was one of the Grreek priests in
Beyrout with Brother Moody's discourses
that he preached six of them to his own
congregation, and the congregation were
as much delighted with them as the preach-
er ! Since that performance, the priest has
gained a great reputation for originality
and eloquence.

Not far from the press-rooms is that little
upper-chamber in which Dr. Vandyke trans-
lated God's Word into Arabic. Only a few
days previously I had stood in the cavern at
Bethlehem in which St. Jerome had made
the translation of the Latin Vulgate. In
comparing the two places, "the glory of the
latter house excelleth." Dr. Vandyke him-
self is now not only a Professor of Medicine

134 The Nile to Norway.

in the College, but of Astronomy also. I
found the cheery old man in his observatory,
busy with his telescope. I said to him —
"Well, Doctor, you may study the stars
with this instrument, but you have given
the Arabic-speaking nations a telescope that
reaches into the heaven of heavens."

The main College buUding stands on a
height as commanding as "Pardee Hall"
at Easton, Pennsylvania. In its reception-
room hang the portraits of William A. Booth,
William E. Dodge, S. B. Chittenden, and Dr.
Post. These noble men are the Trustees of
this noble institution. Adjoining the main
building is another erected by the munifi-
cence of Mr. Frederick Marquand. If my
venerable friend could see that structure be-
fore he " goes up higher " he would be more
sure than ever before that no investments
pay such dividends as money consecrated to
the Lord. The Medical College, with its fine
lecture-rooms and apparatus, stands a httle
farther to the east. Dr. Post is busy in pre-
paring a great work on the Flora of the

Beyrout and the Syrian Missions. 135

Levant — a region that abounds in rare trees
and flowers. My first visit to the College
so delighted me that I went up again at
five o'clock to attend the evening prayers.
The one hundred and twenty students who
were present reminded me of a similar gath-
ering in old Princeton — except for the brown
complexions and the red fez caps. They
sang "Hold the Fort" in Arabic, and one
of the Faculty read the Scriptures and of-
fered a prayer. I ventured on a brief speech
to the bright fellows (some of whom have
such names as " Amin Abdallah" and " Ra-
shid Haddad "), and I never had a more en-
thusiastic audience. There is only one Mus-
sulman now in the College, but there would
be many scores if the Faculty would consent
to omit direct rehgious instruction; this they
have wisely and firmly refused to do. At
Dr. Jessup's table I had the privilege of
meeting President Bliss, and the Professors,
with several other friends. That American
reunion with these beloved brethren — where
every dish on the table tasted of home — gave

136 The Nile to Norway.

me the happiest hour I have passed in the
Orient.

Great as is the work being done by the
College it does not surpass that which is be-
ing wrought by the Female Seminary — ^in
charge of Miss Jackson and her associates
— which contains about one hundred and
fifty pupils. A large number of them sang
for me " Wonderful Words of Love." In the
room I observed a Syrian orphan-girl who is
supported by five young girls in my own Sab-
bath-school — ^which has also furnished one of
the volumes for the Sabbath-schools of Syria.
The Seminary charges a moderate tuition-fee
for most of its pupils, and wisely too, for
what costs nothing is held at too small a
value. Other denominations beside our own
are at work in Beyrout. The "British Syr-
ian Schools " have nearly three ^thousand
scholars in the whole country; while those
under American control have four thousand
two hundred and fifty scholars. The Ger-
man Deaconesses of Kaiserwerth are pro-
viding for many orphans; Miss Taylor has

Beyrout and the Syrian Missions. 137

about fifty Moslem girls under her instruc-
tion; and the Jesuits have an imposing
structure into which they decoy as many
as possible. The Greek Catholics are "run-
ning an opposition" to the Jesuits.

With a reverent gratitude I went into the
Protestant Cemetery and stood beside the
graves of Phny Fisk and Dr. Eh Smith,
the founders of this glorious Syrian Mission.
The mustard-tree they planted has waxed
strong and broad. To-day it can point to
thirty-three missionaries, one hundred and
fifty native laborers, nine hundred commu-
nicants, seventy-three preaching stations, one
hundred schools, and four thousand two hun-
dred and fifty scholars — with a College that
will make itself felt over the whole Orient.
"Who that reads such inspiring facts will not
resolve to double his contributions to Foreign
Missions ?

I longed to spend more time at beautiful
Beyrout and to cHmb the sides of Lebanon
which are sprinkled thick with villages. But
no other steamer will leave for Constantino-

138 The Nile to Norway.

pie in a fortnight, and I do not wish to miss
the annual gathering of the missionaries that
takes place next week on the Bosphorus.
At the hour of sunset — when the blue Medi-
terranean was burning with a crimson glow —
we waved our adieux to Doctors Bliss and
Jessup, and took our last look at those sa-
cred buildings which " fling afar the sweet
smell of Lebanon."

XII.

CmO—AND A VISIT TO EPHESUS.

Steamer "Espero" May 14.

/'~\N the evening of Monday our good
^-^ steamer sailed out of the harbor of
beautiful Beyrout, with the setting sun
kindhng the peaks of Lebanon. Jerusalem
meajis the past; Beyrout is the harbinger
of a new day for Syria and the Levant.
Its population has risen rapidly from thirty
thousand to eighty thousand; already it is
the centre of Christian influence in the Ori-
ent. When the American Board turned over
that Mission on Mount Lebanon to the Pres-
byterian Church they gave us their crown-
jewel.

We laid one day at Cyprus, the scene
of the first foreign mission ever under-
taken by the apostles. Both the places in
which Paul labored are now in ruins. I had

139

140 The Nile to Norway.

hoped to get a good view of Patmos, but
our steamer was behind time, and we passed
it in the evening. By moonhght I saw only
its dim shadowy outhnes; hke the wonderful
Apocalypse that was there revealed to the
apostle John, it was overhung with solemn
mystery. But on no spot outside of Jeru-
salem have I gazed with such a thriU as
upon that lonely isle.

Our steamer, loitering leisurely along over
the most fascinating sea on the globe, re-
quires seven days to go from Beyrout to
Constantinople. On Friday morning at day-
light we were off the ill-fated island of Scio
— or " Chios," as it is called in the Acts
of the Apostles. Our Captain kindly con-
sented to land for an hour, in order to allow
the passengers to examine the ruins of the re-
cent terrible earthquake. Certainly no place
has been the scene of such calamities during
this century as the historic island of Chio. In
1822 the Turks brutally massacred or carried
into bondage forty thousand of its inhabitants.
Only a handful were left. As soon as the

Chio — AND A Visit to Ephesus. 141

island had become re-peopled and revived, an
earthquake overthrew a large portion of its
Qhief city. A few weeks ago came the third
great calamity, which has excited such deep
sympathy over the civilized world.

The City of Scio lies close to the sea, at
the base of a steep range of volcanic moun-
tains. As we drew up into the harbor, we
could see, from the ship's deck, the desolation
on the shore, extending even to the half-
dozen neighboring villages. Arriving at the
wharf, such a scene of havoc and of horror
presented itself as I have never beheld! The
market-place or square near the landing was
covered with tents, in which the relief com-
mittees and some of the surviving citizens
were quartered. I saw two persons dressing
themselves who had slept during the night
on a pile of lumber. "We walked through
several streets that were heaped up with
ruins to the depth of six feet ! Every house
on both sides was a mass of mingled walls,
rooms and roofs thrown into the wildest con-
fusion; pieces of furniture were still protruding

142 The Nile to Norway.

from beneath chamber floors, and rafters were
thrust out from the depths of cellars. Not
a living creature was visible in a whole block
that two months ago teemed with happy-
occupants. One minaret of a mosque was
standing, while the buildings beside it were
hurled into ruin. As far as I could judge,
about half of the city is destroyed — or so
shattered that a large expenditure will be
required to restore them. Large numbers
of dead bodies still lie buried under the
debris. How or why poor Scio is to be
rebuilt I cannot conceive. It would seem
to be the height of hazardous folly to attempt
to perpetuate a town which has suffered such
calamities and is exposed to a repetition of
earthquakes in all time to come.

At noon of the same day we entered the
superb bay of Smyrna — a city that is famous
in the past as being the seat of one of the
"Seven Churches of Asia," but is now a busy
commercial city, half European and half Asi-
atic. A less interesting city I never entered;
for beyond the tomb of the martyr Polycarp

Chio — AND A Visit to Ephesus. 143

there is not one relic of the past worth look-
ing at. I did indeed see with great satisfac-
tion a smaU mission-room for sailors on the
quay, which hears the name of the ' ' Sea-
men's Rest," and is well stocked with news-
papers, Bibles and Scripture-texts hung upon
the walls. Some Christ-loving hearts have
opened this safe harbor for tempted sailors
in the midst of drinking saloons and tobacco
shops.

But if Smyrna is totally devoid of interest
to anybody but a drug-merchant or a dealer
m figs and fruits, there is a spot fifty miles
from it that stands next to Jerusalem in the
eyes of all students of the New Testament.
Jerusalem is first, and then comes Ephesus.
For five centuries it was one of the most
superb cities of the Orient. Alexander the
Great visited it, and sat for his portrait to
ApeUes, who was its chief painter. Xeno-
phon marched through it, and Hannibal there
met Antiochus. Cicero was entertained by
its poUshed citizens, and Antony and Cleo-
patra held their voluptuous revels there.

144 The Nile to Norway.

Close by its walls stood one of the seven
wonders of the world — the magnificent Tem-
ple of Diana. Around no one city outside
of Judea are the names of the apostles Paul
and John so closely entwined as about that
city to which Paul addressed that Epistle
that will be read while humanity endures.
Several of my fellow passengers were as
keen as myself for a visit to EphesuS. It
lies about fifty miles from Smyrna in the
valley of Cayster, and on the fine of a rail-
way which a British company have con-
structed to Aidin. The daily train leaves
in the morning, and our only chance was
to get there during the afternoon after our-
arrival. So the moment that our steamer
had anchored inside of the breakwater, two
of our company were despatched to the rail-
way station. The superintendent agreed to
furnish to our party of seventeen a special
train for one hundred dollars. The bargain
was soon struck; a locomotive was ready in
a few minutes with three luxurious cars, and
we were soon whirling away through the

Chio — AND A Visit to Ephesus. 145

vineyards and mulberry groves that lie south-
east of Smyrna. The train made no halt,
and in one hour and a half we were at the
little Turkish village of Ayasolook.

A half mile from this village he the ruins
of the famous city. We passed a line of
broken columns of an aqueduct — on the top
of each one of which was perched a stork upon
its huge nest of twigs. Then we came to a
mosque which had once been a Christian
church, and which was largely built of the
granite and marbles of ancient Ephesus. A
httle way beyond in an open field— in a large
excavation, lie strewn around the broken
fragments of marble Ionic columns. These
are everything that is left of the once proud
Temple of Diana.

These would never have been discovered
— a dozen feet under ground — but for the
persistent courage of Mr. Wood, the English
antiquary. After long search he found the
spot where the mighty edifice once stood
that stretched three hundred and fifty feet
by one hundred and sixty — a poem in white

146 The Nile to Norway.

marble ! In its dazzling splendor it may well
have aroused the pride of the Ephesians to
cry out " great is Diana," and it required
no small intrepidity in Paul and Timothy
to assail such a citadel of superstition.

A half mile away we came to the massive
ruins of the "Stadium" — and beyond them
we reached the most intensely interesting
spot of all. Every reader of the Scripture
narrative will remember how, during the
tumult raised by Paul, the people of Bphesus
rushed into the "theatre." Not an enclosed
building, but a huge amphitheatre walled
around, on the side of Mount Prion, and
open to the sky. It was to the actual re-
mains of that theatre that our guide con-
ducted us. The seats— that would contain
60,000 spectators — all disappeared centuries
ago, but the shape of the theatre and a
portion of its rear walls remain. The ruins
of its magnificent white marble entrance are
still there — some of them beautifully sculpt-
ured, and some stones covered by Greek
inscriptions. My heart leaped quick when

Chio — AND A Visit to Ephesus. 147

I thouglit — ^here by this vast auditorium the
great Apostle once stood ! These soHd rocks
of Mount Prion once echoed to that tran-
scendent voice ! Over this hill John has
walked, and Timothy and many of those
early saints; somewhere near at hand Aquila
and Priscilla taught ApoUos "the way of
God more perfectly." I climbed around the
rocky hiUside and examined the ruins of the
" Odeon," and of the " Gymnasium," and saw
the fiibled cave of the seven sleepers. Every
few steps my feet struck against sculptured
marbles lying in the grass. On every side
was utter, silent desolation. The ruins of
Baalbeck are not more deserted. Yet the
whole area was to me instinct with glorious
life. It was enough that I was at actual
Ephesus — the Ephesus of Paul and ApoUos
— the Ephesus in which the Beloved Disciple
closed his long life, the city to which he
sent the inspired niessage in the Apocalypse !
We walked four miles around and over
the ruins of the wonderful city. The moon
was already rising over the hiUs toward

148 The Nile to Norway.

Sardis before we got back to our train.
Physically we were weary and hungry, and
glad to set our faces toward Smyrna, which
we reached at half past nine o'clock. But
what were hunger and fatigue — even ten-
fold greater — ^when we remembered that we
had been at one of the great fountain-heads
of divinely inspired thought and action for
aU coming time ? We had been at the very
spot where "for the space of three years
Paul had ceased not to warn every one, night
and day, with tears," for Jesus' sake. "We
thanked God, and went to bed tired and
happy.

XIII.

ON THE BOSPHORUS.

Oonstanlinople, May 20.

"TTROM Smyrna, our Austrian Lloyd vessel,
-*■ the "Espero," steamed away again, up
the Bay, and out into the enchanting Med-
iterranean. We were as crowded as ever.
The old sheikh from Damascus, whose ha-
rem was partitioned oflF by shawls on the
saloon-deck, had to crowd his veiled women
into smaller compass to make room for some
other polygamous households. The menag-
erie of orientals on the main deck received
some new accessions, including a half dozen
sheep and lambs waiting to be sacrificed.

Our steamer, just as it entered the Darda-
nelles, ran close to the Asiatic shore, and we
were able to see the heaps of earth thrown
up by Dr. Schleimann on the site of " Ilium,"
the mounds of Achilles and Ajax, and the

119

150 The Nile to Norway.

harbor from which Eneas set sail. Just be-
fore reaching Constantinople we passed San
Steffano, where the Russian army laid for
several days in full view of the city and
within an hour's march. " Why did not you
go in ? " inquired a friend of mine here, of
the Russian commander. His answer was,
" It was not because we could not go in,
or were afraid to go in; but the time had
not come to do that."

I do not wonder that the Turk clings as
long and as fast as he can to so magnifi-
cent a possession. For with its million of
inhabitants, its peerless mosques, its palaces,
its unrivalled beauty of situation, its pres-
tige and its power, Constantinople wears a
more imperial air than any city on this con-
tinent. It is the very perfection of semi-
barbaric splendor. Yet with all its gor-
geous domes and minarets on the heights,
and all its huge iron-clads anchored in the
"Grolden Horn," and all the fine equipages
which its Pashas drive through the Rue de
Pera, Constantinople is only half civilized.

On the Bosphorus. 151

It has no educated class, no literature, no
science, no high tone of honor; the sub-
stance of it is semi-barbarism thinly ve-
neered, with external courtesy and some
modern mechanical improvements. English
engineers have come here and built rail-
ways for the Sultan. One of them, a sub-
terranean railway leading up the steep hill
from the Golden Horn to the heights of
Pera, is a blessing to us travellers. It
saves us a tiresome climb up through nar-
row and abominably filthy streets to our
hotels. There is also a line of horse-cars
running along the water-side clear up to
the Sultan's palace at Dalmabatchi.

We landed on Monday morning from the
steamer in row-boats. Our boat was ap-
proached by a police-boat; we held up our
passports and were told to row on. When
we reached the custom-house wharf my
dragoman unknown to me slipped a franc
into the inspector's hand, and (as his eye
is about the size of a franc) he passed my
valise without opening. A friend of mine,

152 The Nile to Norway.

on having the city, had his baggage exam-
ined, and he was obhged to pay a heavy
duty on everything he had bought in Con-
stantinople and was carrying homewards !
That is a Turk's method of encouraging us
foreigners to purchase the showy knicknacks
which are for sale here in the celebrated
bazaars. After we landed, the trunks of
our party were tied together, and one of
the athletic Constantinople porters carried
the enormous load up the steep hill to our
hotel on the Rue de Pera! They are won-
derful specimens of muscle. One of them
can carry two barrels of flour at a single
load; but you must get out of the track of
these human pack-horses, or be run down
by them, for they claim "the right of
way" against aU comers.

Some cities grow upon you by a constant
revelation of new beauties; others produce
their highest impression at first sight. I
have hitherto stood up for Edinburgh as
unequalled for picturesqueness of situation;
but when I saw the Capital of Islam, en-

On the Bosphorus. 153

throned on its lofty Mils, and crowned with
its domes and palaces and minarets, I was
ready to admit that, seen from the water,
it is the most magnificent city on the globe.
Some of the enchantment vanishes after you
land; for many of the streets are narrow
and filthy, and the city is a rare combina-
tion of palace and poverty, of splendor and
shabbiness. The famous Mosque of St. So-
phia was the first spot towards which I
turned my steps, and with its antique gran-
deurs aU of my readers are familiar from
scores of descriptions. I was stiU more im-
pressed by the Mosque of Suleiman the
Magnificent — which is the masterpiece of
Saracenic architecture. In the same enclos-
ure with this gorgeous Mosque are four Mos-
lem academies, a hospital, a charity-kitchen
for the poor, and a school for instruction
in medicine.

One of the finest views I have gained
was from the heights of Scutari, across the
Bosphorus, and above the famous hospital
of Florence Nightingale. But! saw some-.

154 The Nile to Norway.

thin^ grander there than domes or palaces.
Upon those beautiful heights stands our
American Female Seminary, or "Home";
and around it reside our faithful mission-
aries Dr. George W. Wood and the Doctors
Bliss and the veteran Dr. Riggs. I spent
a night with Brother Wood in his delight-
ful home, surrounded with American faces,
American books and American scenes of
consecrated toil. Need I confess that a shaip
twinge of home-sickness kept me awake that
night?

Early the next morning I was out among
the flowers, and enjoying the early pink
bloom of the " Judas trees," and the view
from the balcony, of the seminary. The
building is new and commodious — a sort of
second edition of " Mount Holyoke." About
fifty young Armenian, Turkish, Greek, and
Bulgarian girls are in the institution, which
is under the Superintendence of Mrs. Wil-
liams. I conducted the service of morning
worship in the chapel; and but for the bru-
nette tinge of countenances, I might have

On the Bosphorus. 155

supposed that I was addressing a group of
"Packer" girls in my own beloved Brooklyn.
Theyjinderstood nearly every word — for the
exercises of the Seminary are conducted in
Enghsh — and a more animated audience I
have seldom addressed. Those churches and
Sunday-schools in the United States that are
contributing to the support of the Scutari
"Home" are making a royal investment of
their money.

But if my national pride was up when I
visited the Home, it was yesterday exalted
beyond measure when I went up the Bos-
phorus to Robert College. It stands on a
lofty elevation, at about the finest point on
the Bosphorus — just where that stream comes
the nearest to rivalling our imperial Hudson.
Opposite the College stands one of the many
palaces of the Sultan flanked by the green
" Valley of Sweet Waters " — and just beside
the CoUege are the ancient fortresses erected
by Mahmoud in 1453. At that point Darius
bridged the Bosphorus for his Persian in-
vaders. But my honored friends, the late

156 The Nile to Norway.

Christoplier Robert and Dr. Cyrus Hamlin,
made a nobler invasion of Turkey wheu
they conceived and constructed this Ameri-
can College to let the daylight into the
dungeons of Moslem superstition. The build-
ing is imposing without, and a model of con-
venience within. The Vice-President, Dr.
Long, took me through the museum, geologi-
cal cabinets, recitation-rooms, and dormito-
ries, and then introduced me to over two
hundred young men assembled in the large
study-hall. Ten nationalities were represent-
ed there — -Turkish; Greek, Armenian, Jew-
ish, Russian, Syrian, Sclave, and Bulgarian.
They reminded me of a crowd of Yale or
Princetonians, especially when they began to
"demonstrate." I wish I dared to describe
the enthusiasm with ,which these young men
received every allusion I made to the "new
ideas " which that American College is giv-
ing to them, and which they are to scatter
through the Orient. I do not wonder that
when the Russian army went home three
years ago through the Bosphorus the Im-

On the Bosphorus. 157

perial Guards came out on the decks and
gave three rousing cheers for Robert College !

But that noble institution requires S,nd
must have more room for its increasing work.
It needs a new building for lecture-halls,
chapel, and museum, and to have the pres-
ent building used for study rooms and dor-
mitories. That edifice ought to be erected,
by American money, within two years, and
when it is completed it should bear the
noble and well- won name of Hamlin Hall.
The institution was founded by Christopher
Robert's munificence, but it was born in
Cyrus Hamhn's brain.

I count it a precious privilege that dur-
ing my present visit to Constantinople the
annual meeting of the American mission-
aries of "Western Turkey is being held — at
the "Bible House" in Stamboul, which is
our American "Embassy." The Bythinian
Evangelical Union, composed of native pas-
tors and teachers, is also in session. I have
been listening with deep interest to the re-
ports made by our missionaries of their last

158 The Nile to Norway.

j'^ear's hard and honest work — ^from Khar-
poot to Constantinople. When they kindly
invited me to address them and the Evan-
gelical Union, I felt how much better was
their faithful work than any feeble words
I could speak in regard to it. This week
alone has convinced me of the solid value
of Foreign Missions.

I am also as strongly convinced that the
Sultan is simply a nuisance on European
soil. The Turks cherish with superstitious
pride the breach in the old wall of Con-
stantinople through which their ancestors
marched in four hundred and thirty years
ago. I will go a great way to see the
breach through which they shall march out.

The present Sultan resides in the small
palace of Yisdil, on the summit of a hill,
and surrounded by a superb park that
reaches to the water's edge. Every Friday
he comes down through this walled enclos-
ure and rides a few steps to a small mosque
near the gate. A large crowd gathers weekly
to gaze at the caUph of over one hvmdired

On the Bosphorus. 159

millions of Mussulmen; but he is careful to
trust himself outside of his own walls for
as few moments as possible. I was urged
to go and look at tlie Pope of Islam to-
day; but I do not care to brave this raw,
chilly air for an hour simply to see an in-
significant-looking man ride on horseback
an insignificant distance to say his prayers.
One of these days the caliphate will cross
the Bosphorus and "head" towards the
Arabia whence it originally sprung. The
doom of Turkish supremacy is near at
hand.

There is an increasing party in Asia who
wish to oust the Sultan and put an Ara-
bian descendant of Mohammed into the
caliphate. Other great changes will come;
but the grandest revolution this superb and
wicked city will ever see will be when Pro-
testant missionaries begin to proclaim the
Grospel of Jesus Christ under the domes of
St. Sophia and of "Suleiman." God speed
the day!

XIV.

ATHENS.

Mold Etrangh-s, Mty 27.

T "WAS not sorry to quit Constantinople
-'- with its chilly air, filthy streets, and
steep hills, for bright, clean, tasteful Athens
— with its marvellous memorials of the past,
and its cheerful tokens for the future. My
stay here has been rendered aU the more
agreeable by the comforts of this Hotel des
Btrangfers on the Palace Square; it is quite
a model in its good appointments and home-
like quaUties. What a relief also is the rid-
dance from a tribe of guides and importunate
hangers-on about the doorways. Athens is
a small compact city, and every intelligent
visitor can find his own way. The city of
the past, whose glorious ruins lie on or south
of the Acropolis, is twenty-five centuries old;
the city of the present, which lies north and

160

Athens. 161

east of the Acropolis, is for the most part,
about twenty-five years old. These new and
elegant houses have just a trifle too much of
white, cream color and peach-bloom; for, with
the glaring white hmestone of the pavements,
the effect almost blinds the eye. Added to
this is an atmosphere as clear as crystal,
through which the sun-rays pour down with
unhindered brilliancy.

As soon as T had estabUshed my quarters
at the hotel, I was in a carriage with my
friend. Judge Barringer (the colleague of
Judge Batcheller in the "International
Court " of Egypt), for a drive to Mars'
HUl. We chmbed up the dozen steps hewn
in the solid rocks, the very steps the Apos-
tle must have trod — and found ourselves on
that bald mass of rock on which the origi-
nal Areopagus held its sessions. Standing
there, within pistol-shot of the Parthenon,
with what telling effect could Paul exclaim,
" God that made the world and all things
therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made

162 The Nile to Norway.

with hands." As the colossal statue of Min-
erva Promachus was in full view, he could
also remind them that the Invisible Jehovah
was not to be graven in the images carved
by " art and man's device." As there are
only three spots in Palestine on which we
can feel assured that our Lord ever set his
sacred feet, so there are just two on which
Paul must have trod; one of them is the
rock of Mars' Hill, and the other is the mar-
ble pavement of the Portico, through which
is the only entrance to the space around the
Parthenon. He must certainly have climbed
the, magnificent avenue of the Propylea which
led to the summit of the Acropolis, and from
that lofty height — among the masterpieces of
Phidias — ^lie must have gazed down upon the
city of the Violet Crown in all its flashing
splendor.

About the Parthenon and its widowed sis-
ter beside it, the Erectheum, I hesitate to add
another line. I have visited them at the
early dawn, and sat beside them at the sun-
set; I have gazed at them from Lycabettus,

Athens. 163

and from the ship's deck at sea, and every
fresh view only increased the enchantment.
When Pericles had seen the last frieze
placed on the Parthenon, and the last ex-
quisite moulding carved around the door-
way of the Erectheum, he had seen the
consummate perfection of all that man can
accompUsh in the horizontal styles of archi-
tecture. Since that time the world has seen
the perpendicular in its perfection in many
a Gothic cathedral, but not one new idea has
been added to the Doric and the Ionic in
three and twenty centuries. That marvel-
lous sense of beauty which the Greeks of that
age possessed wrought itself out in every-
thing it touched.

Our American missionary here, the Rev.
Mr. Sampson, took me to the old " Ceram-
icus " near the temple of Theseus, and showed
me the tombs and monuments which have
been lately excavated. There I saw the
actual charred bones preserved in urns, and
the family tombs that go back to the era
of Plato and Socrates. On one marble tomb

164 The Nile to Norway.

a father and mother are taking leave of
the httle daughter who was buried beneath,
and a pet dog is jumping up wistfully against
her as if he would detain her from going.
Nearly every scene on the monuments rep-
resents the farewells of the departed to their
kindred; the sculptures aU reveal Greek gen-
ius. I read one inscription which contains
this passage, " My body, my mortal part lies
here in the earth, but my immortal part,
my soul, is in the keeping of the Great
Treasure -keeper." Perhaps the man who
composed this epitaph had been one of the
hsteners to the great Apostle, and had caught
some glimpses into the better life beyond.
The wonderfully interesting discoveries made
by these excavations in the Ceramicus, and
also the unearthing of a supposed temple of
Bsculapius, just beside the Acropolis, prove
what valuable treasures are yet buried up
all along the Pirgeus road, and the banks
of the Ilissus.

The most prominent residents in Athens
now are Dr. Schleimann and his brave and

Athens. 165

genial Grecian wife; their house, near the
Palace, is the most superb in the city. I
shall ever remember gratefully their cordial
hospitalities, and their enthusiastic talk over
the relics of Troy, which they showed to me
in a large lower hall of their mansion. The
Doctor has just returned from a visit to the
Troad, and his indomitable energy wiU soon
be delving among some other buried cities
in the Levant. The frescoes on his drawing-
room ceiling represent the education of a
group of children in digging — ^until in the
last scenes a group of romping cherubs are
seen carrying off the reUcs from the ruins of
Mycene. So intensely classical are the good
Doctor and his young wife that they have
named their two children " Andromache "
and " Agamemnon." This reproduction of
ancient names all over Athens is sometimes
quite startling. For example, the present
"Areopagus," a superior City Court, with
its fifteen Judges, holds its sessions at the
corner of Sophocles and Aristides streets.
Every new edifice is so constructed as to

166 The Nile to Norway.

preserve the salient features of Greek arch-
itecture; and the Greek merchants who now
stand at the head of ' commerce all over
the Levant are sending home their wealth
to adorn and beautify Athens. The time is
at hand when visitors from all lands will
come hither to see the city of the present
as well as the matchless remains of the city
of the past.

From my window every day I see the
King George 1st and his popular Queen
driving by from their palace, a few rods
distant. He has a manly, intelligent face,
and she has a sweet countenance and a look
of practical and domestic common sense that
is very winning. During the late scare about
a threatened war with Turkey, the Queen
joined a company of ladies from the town,
in sewing garments for the soldiers. She
worked as industriously as the rest of them,
and one day, when her sewing-machine broke,
she took it up iii her arms and carried it out
into another room to be mended. Royalty
all 6ver Europe is becoming republicanized

Athens. 167

in dress and demeanor; it is only such half-
civUized potentates as the Sultan and the
Shah of Persia who affect the old nonsense
of personal sacredness. The present king is
a brother of the Princess of Wales, and a
staunch Protestant. His private chaplain,
Rev. Mr. Peterson, is a fervently evangeli-
cal man ; on the morning of " Ascension
Day" I heard him dehver a most eloquent
and spiritual discourse in the Chapel of the
Palace.

Protestantism is as yet weak in numbers
here. The Greek Church is the national
religion, and has been offensively bigoted
in past years. I have looked into the Met-
ropolitan Cathedral, and found it very difficult
to distinguish any real difference between its
pomps and pageantries, its candles and crosses
and incense, and confessionals, and pictures,
and those in any average Popish Mass-house.
Romanism and the Greek Church are twin
institutions: intelligent Musselmen judge of
Christianity from these two, and they, very
naturally, conclude that the religion called

168 The Nile to Norway.

Christian is simply a system of idolatry and
image- worship. This is the chief hindrance
now in reaching the followers of Mohammed
with the pure Gospel. They judge of the
truth by its counterfeit.

We have a brave little Mission here under
the charge of the American Presbyterian
Church, South. Their missionaries are Mr.
and Mrs. Kalopothakes (formerly Miss Kyle)
and the Rev. T. R. Sampson, from Norfolk.
He is a most scholarly and energetic young
minister, the son of the late Dr. Sampson of
Virginia. They are assisted by Mr. An-
toniades and Mr. Liaoutsi here, and by Mr.
Michaelides, who preaches at Tolos, and
Mr. Egyptiades, who has charge at Thes-
salonica. A few weeks ago they organized
their first Presbytery, and named it "The
Presbytery of the Greek Evangelical Church."
Here in Athens their place of worship is a
plain, heat structure near the Arch of Hadri-
an. But these brave, earnest workers de-
serve a new church-edifice in a more cen-
tral position. I attended the morning service

Athens. 169

on Sunday; the house was filled by a most
intelligent-looking congregation, and the dis-
course was delivered by one of the native
ministers. It seemed primitive and apostolic
to hear the Greek Testament read from the
pulpit, and when the congregation sang a
Greek hymn to the same sweet American
air as "What a Friend We have in Jesus,"
I could not keep back the tears. Blessing?
on this noble mission under the walls of the
Acropohs! Once more the "men of Athens"
can hear Paul's gospel-message in Paul's own
tongue. The Presbyterians of the United
States ought to give a place in their prayers
— and their purses also — ^to this admirable
enterprise in the old birthplace of art and
philosophy.

I have enjoyed every hour in Athens.
Last Tuesday I climbed Mount Pentelicus,
and from its summit looked right down on
the famous battle-field of Marathon. It is
as smooth as a race-course, and so small
that Miltiades with his ten thousand Athe-
nians could cover the whole front against

170 The Nile to Norway.

ten times as many Persians. On my way
back I rode through groves of classic olive
and pine, and green vineyards. It seemed
as if I might meet Sophocles going out to
meditate a new tragedy, or Anacreon to com-
pose a new song for the vine-dressers. The
air was instinct with the memories and glories
of the past. This Uttle land of Attica once
ruled the world with its genius. On the
ruins of that wonderful commonwealth — after
long dark centuries of ignorance and obscm*-
ity — a new Athens and a new Greece have
sprung up. No land on the Continent of
Europe has a stronger claim on our hearts,
or excites a more thriUing hope for its fu-
ture than the land in which Pericles builded,
and Plato thought, and Phidias carved, and
Paul proclaimed the Gospel of eternal life.

XV.

SUNRISE ON THE PARTHENON.

Athens, May 28.

A T four o'clock yesterday morning I
"^-^ aroused my fellow-lodger at the Ho-
tel des Etrangfers for a tramp up the Acro-
polis in time to catch the sunrise; The
shadows were still lingering in the clefts of
old Hymettus as we hurried across the open
space between the Arch of Hadrian and
the modest chapel of the American Mission.
Rounding the hiUside, we pass the ruined
Theatre of Dionysius, with its forty carved
marble seats — aU empty. I would give some-
thing to know from which one of those tiers
Socrates rose up to answer the gibes of the
comedian. A httle further on, we see the
square-cut " Bema " from which Demosthenes
once thundered. Let us be thankful that
Lord Elgin could not kidnap that for th.e

171

172 The Nile to Norway.

British Museum. The smooth roadway leads
around the south side of the Acropohs and
close by the rocky spur of Mars' Hill. We
see the actual steps in the rock by which
Paul went up, and the spot where he must
have stood when, within ten minutes, he de-
livered the sublimest speech that ever stirred
the air of classic Greece.

We had to hammer pretty loudly on the
gate to arouse the porter who keeps the en-
trance to the Propylea. Those walls once
trembled to a louder alarm, when the ex-
plosion of a magazine sent the columns of
that splendid structure flying in the air.
Powder seldom wrought more mischief; for
that ascending vestibule of richly sculptured
Pentelic marble (which cost two millions of
doUars and which was adorned with the
statues of Phidias) was one of the marvels
of Athenian magnificence. What a gorgeous
spectacle it must have been when the Pana-
thenaic procession swept up through that
vestibule from the Sacred Way, with its
trains of chariots and waving branches of

Sunrise on the Parthenon. 173

the olive and the pine ! Nearly a dozen
of the Doric columns yet remain. Across
the two central ones still hangs the solid
lintel, twenty-two feet long and four feet
in thickness. To have lifted that enormous
block of marble to that position must have
been no ordinary feat of engineering; but
of far more interest to me than the columns
is the pavement beneath them, worn smooth
by the ceaseless tread of more than three
and twenty centuries. Upon those identical
slabs of white marble Pericles and Plato,
Aristotle and Demosthenes have set their
feet; the famous men of Rome — Caesar, Pom-
pey, Cicero, and Seneca — have trod there.
Paul himself undoubtedly has walked there.
The famous scholars of our times have gone
in there. In fact, there is no other small
spot on this round globe which has been
pressed by the feet of so many of the mighty
men of genius as the six square yards of
that Portico of the Propylea.

We had no time to stop and moral-
ize, for the sun was just beginning to

174 The Nile to Norway.

peep over the northern end of Hymettus.
A streak of his rays was touching the
heights of Egina and Salamis. At the east-
ern brow of the Acropohs the late Queen
Amaha built up a "Bellevue," or platform
of stonework,, from which a view can be
got sheer down into the modern city, which
lies upon that side of the sacred mount. We
hasten to that "coigne of vantage" and look
westward. The first rays of the sun are just
kindling on the brown columns of the Par-
thenon. They are browned now by the hand
of Time and the storms of over twenty cen-
turies; but what they were when Pericles
first set them there, in their flashing splen-
dor, what imagination can conceive or pen
describe? It will always remaia an enigma
that within a single century G-recian art
and philosophy should have flowered out in
the most consummate of their productions
of genius and then straightway Ceased to
bloom again! AU the greatest achievements
of Athenian brains were wrought between
the battles of Marathon and Cheronea, and

Sunrise on the Parthenon. 175

that space does not cover more than the
lives of a father and son, provided that
they both Uved seventy years. The only
answer to this problem is that it seems to
be Grod's plan to illuminate this world not
by single stars, but by constellations.

After watching the golden sunlight for a
few moments on the Parthenon, we walk on,
amid heaps of broken columns and shattered
friezes, to the northern brow of the Acrop-
ohs. A guard walks behind us, perhaps to
see that we do not pocket a stray metope
or triglyph; for since the Acropohs has been
so plundered nobody is trusted there alone.
A sly Britisher was detected, a while ago,
in tossing rare bits of marble over the walls,
which an accomphce was as slyly picking up
down below. Let us be thankful, however,
that neither Time nor Turk, nor Lord Elgin
himself has ever succeeded in spoiling the
exquisite northern colonnade and doorway
of the Erectheum. Those columns are the
perfection of the Ionic order. The carvings
aroimd that "Gate Beautiful" are the con-

176 The Nile to Norway.

summate masterpiece of delicate Greek art.
No human hands ever excelled that work-
manship. There is a mass of exquisite
moulding and of delicate " egg-and-anchor "
ornamentation, that looks more hke lace-
work cut in ivory than any carving of or-
dinary marble. AU the finest Ionic struct-
ures in the world for the last two thousand
years have been only the copies of what
those Greek wonder-workers wrought -on
that end of that little Erectheum within a
single decade. They struck perfection at
once, and aU subsequent generations have
done nothing but try to imitate their handi-
work.

The rocky summit of the Acropolis is one
mass of picturesque ruin. Qf the forty-six
superb columns of the Parthenon less than
one-half are left standing. These are sadly
marred; some of them snapped oflf in the
middle. The broken fragments of the col-
umns which were blown to pieces by the
powder explosion caused by a Yenetian
oombshell, in 1687, lie scattered all over

Sunrise on the Parthenon. 177

the hill-top. I climbed over piles of sculpt-
ure on which the workmen of Pericles had
made their eyes ache; but mine ached still
worse to see such marvellous productions
dashed into destruction. Yet, after all the
havoc that time and storm and shell and
invading enemies have wrought, the Par-
thenon and the Erectheum still remain as
incomparably the most magnificent ruins on
the face of the earth. The sun that shone
on them yesterday morning has never yet
shone on their equal.

But, while we are on the Acropolis, let
us take a glimpse of the Athens which
stretches around us to the north and east.
There is a bright day-dawning of promise
in this beautiful city, with its broad, clean
streets, elegant Parisian mansions, in imita-
tion of Attic architecture, and with its showy
Academy, and University, and public schools.
There are seventy thousand people here now.
When Parliament is in session, there will
be many more. Down in that plain building
on the corner of Sophocles and Aristides

17S The Nile to Norway.

Streets, the Hghest court of the city, still
called the " Areopagus " will meet to-day.
That large structure, surrounded by a fine
park, is the Palace of King George the
First.

While in cost, and adornment, it befits the
modesty of a young kingdom, it contains
some beautiful apartments. Upon its walls
figures the fight at Wavarino; and there are
portraits of Capo D'Istria, and of Lord
Byron who half redeemed the last months
of his pitiable career by his devotion to the
deliverance of G-reece. Around the palace
stretches a fine garden which is thrown open
to the people every day.

Looking towards the Ilissus — which at this
season is shrunk to a rivulet, — ^we see the
fourteen surviving columns of the Temple
of Jupiter. When the whole one hundred
and twenty -four were standing — crowned
with their Corinthian capitals — ^that structure
must have been one of the most magnificent
on the globe. Not far from these imposing
ruins is the ancient Stadium, on whose race-

Sunrise on the Parthenon. 179

course, the Olympic games were celebrated.
It is six hundred feet in length and one hun-
dred in breadth; we can still see the ter-
raced sides on whose marble seats, over for-
ty thousand Athenians once sat, and cheered
the victors in the games. Paul had such
encounters in his eye when he exhorted the
racers for an heavenly crown to "so run
that they might obtain."

Let us turn to the opposite side of the
Acropolis, and below us, near the road to
the Pireus stands the Temple of Theseus
— still in such perfect preservation that it
scarcely shows the ravages of twenty cen-
turies. As one looks at that exquisite Doric
structure, with its columns and roof still com-
plete, he can form some conception of what
Athens must have been in the days of its
matchless glory.

Of that ancient glory only a few other
splendid fragments remain. The Parthe-
non is shattered. The Stadium is deserted.
Plato's Academy is now a private gentle-
man's garden. The tomb of Socrates no man

180 The Nile to Norway.

knoweth to this day. But as I descended
from the Acropolis, and passed by the im-
movable rock of Mars' Hill on which the
great Apostle once stood, I said to myself,
— the glory of this world passeth away, but
like that rock, the word of the Lord endureth
forever !

XVI.

FROM ATHENS TO THE TYROL.

Salzburg, June 8.

nnHE last instalment of my twenty -one
■*■ days of cruising over the blue waters
of the Mediterranean was from Athens to
Venice. We left Athens at five o'clock on
the "Austrian Lloyd" steamer Minerva, and
saUed out over the same waters which wit-
nessed the defeat of Xerxes at Salamis. As
the Acropolis and the Areopagus sank slow-
ly out of sight, I felt that I was looking
for the last time on the last spot trodden
by Paul that I might ever see on earth.
Early next morning we were off the rugged
coasts of old Sparta; by noon we ran in close
to the small town of Navarino, famous as the
scene of the furious fight between the Greeks
and the Turks in the war for Hellenistic in-
dependence. That whole voyage from Athens

181

182 The Nile to Norway.

led over memorable scenes of conflict; for at
seven in the evening we passed the bay in
which Don John, of Austria, fought the bat-
tle of Lepanto, which was one of "the fif-
teen decisive battles of the world." By mid-
night we were at Arta — the ancient Adium
where Augustus Caesar routed Antony and
Cleopatra and secured the imperial crown
of Rome. Zante, with its picturesque httle
city and surrounding olive-gardens and cur-
rant-plantations, shone brightly in the even-
ing sunlight. Then came Cephalonia, and
the rocky isle of Ithaca which gave birth
to Ulysses — and an euphonious name to the
New York village which "Cornell" is mak-
ing famous. Next morning we anchored close
before the two castles in the harbor of Corfu,
As I walked through the quaint old town,
and inhaled the soft balmy atmosphere I did
not wonder that Napoleon had pronounced
the climate of Corfu to be the loveUest
in the world. The steward of our steamer
brought otF several baskets of oranges fresh-
ly picked from the trees with the leaves

From Athens to the Tyrol. 183

sticking to the luscious fruit. He told me
that the price was about one cent apiece;
they were very fine, but I have found no
oranges in the Mediterranean which equal
those of Florida.

From Corfu, we had nearly two days of
placid, dreamy voyaging over the smooth
waters of the Adriatic; and my long cruise
of two months from Marseilles ended in the
harbor of Trieste. Like Marseilles, Trieste
is a bustling, commercial city, full of bright
cream-colored warehouses, stores, and man-
sions, with many grove-embowered villas on
the surrounding heights. Trieste is the head-
quarters of the " Austrian Lloyd's " line of
steamers; and after spending more than a
fortnight on their decks I am happy to vol-
unteer my testimony to their excellent man-
agement — with one shabby exception. On
that Thursday night they packed a crowd
of passengers into so absurdly small a steam-
er for Venice, that many from the first cabin
were obhged to he all night upon the deck.
The churhsh master of the boat could not

184 The Nile to Norway.

understand Bnglish, and so he lost the bene-
fit of many complunents that were paid him.
But if the accommodations of the cramped
steamer were conducive to early rising, we
had our compensation. At day-dawn what
a view saluted my vision as I came on deck !
All over the glassy Adriatic were floating the
fishermen's boats with their red sails — such as
we see in every Venetian picture — and before
us in the morning light rose the domes and
the Campanile of Venice. Gondolas swarmed
about our steamer as we dropped anchor off
the Doge's old palace, and in fifteen min-
utes we were paddling under the charming
old Rialto. " After aU," said an English fel-
low-traveller to me, "Venice is the most
captivating city in the world." I demurred
to this — for I had just come from Cairo and
Jerusalem. The melancholy air of decay
which lingers about the deserted palaces of
what was ance the splendid Queen of the
Adriatic always saddens me in Venice.
When the novelty of paddling in a gon-
dola through the watery ways and close

From Athens to the Tyrol. 185

by the doorsteps of old musty mansions, is
over, then the city becomes just a trifle
monotonous. The first day is a dehght and
a marvel; the treasures of the Doge's pal-
ace and of ancient St. Mark are unsur-
passed; after that Venice has no endless
succession of picturesque scenes like Cairo,
and no sublime memories to feed on like
Jerusalem. The Italian Government are try-
ing hard to revive Venice; but it is impos-
sible to rebuild again the prosperity which
once boasted of its fleets of merchantmen in
every port.

At nine o'clock I was in the cars for
Verona and Innsbruck. The vineyards, and
gardens, and mulberry orchards, and grain-
fields were at the height of their June lux-
uriance. We sped on through Padua, and
beautiful Vicenza, and Verona — over which
the genius of Shakespeare still hangs like a
morning star — and then we began to make
our slow ascent of the foot-hills of the Tyrol.
By six o'clock we reached the ancient city
of Trent, the "Tridentum" of the Komans,

186 The Nile to Norway.

and tlie town which the Papacy selected
three centuries ago as the seat of its famous
Ecumenical Council. It was a good stop-
ping-place for the night, as I wished to see
the grand scenery of the Brenner Pass by
daylight. I found pleasant quarters at the
"Hotel Trento," and sallied out, at twilight,
to find the Church of Santa Maria. This
venerable structure was the place in which
the famous Council of Trent held its sessions
from 1545 to 1559. I found it crowded with
worshippers — over whom the candles at the
grand altar threw but a dim light — and up
in the chancel hung a large painting of the
Council. A priest was reading prayers from
a lofty throne or pulpit, and the people
were responding with interludes of song.
Their Italian and Tyrolese voices made such
rich melody that I was glad that for once
the organ held its peace. The next morning
soon after six o'clock I was there again, and
the church was filled as the evening before.
Say what we wiU, these Roman Catholics put
us Protestants to the blush in the matter

From Athens to the Tyrol. 187

of cliurch-attendaTice. At that early service
in St. Mary's Basilica were scores of day-
laborers in their working-dress, mingled with
the rich and the refined— aU beginning the
day together in a service of sacred devotion.
Grant that there was no httle of the sen-
suous and the superstitious in their service;
still, it was the only way they knew to find
God, or any comfort to their souls. Let us
imitate their punctuality and their zeal be-
fore we hurl any more stones at their igno-
rance or their bondage to priestcraft.

After breakfast we quit our home-hke ho-
tel for the train; the courteous landlord ac-
companying his guests to the cars, purchasing
tickets for the ladies, and then bidding us
aU " good-by " as if we were the guests
of a private mansion. I wonder if it would
do us Americans any harm if we should copy
some of the pleasant amenities and courtesies
that prevail in so many countries of Europe.
A German hotel is really a school of polite-
ness down to the waiters and the porter at
the door. At the Hotel de I'Europe in

188 The Nile to Norway.

Innsbruck, every employ 6 in the house rose
and bade me "good morning" when I made
my appearance, and a "good night" when
I passed along to my room. Such little
courtesies cost nothing, but they are very
pleasant to a stranger in a foreign land.

My ride over the celebrated Pass of the
Brenner was beyond all description. Rus-
kin's pen could not do justice to those deep
emerald vales, those quaint chalets on the
dizzy mountain-sides, and those mighty peaks
above us clad with everlasting snow. We
slowly wound up from one scene of enchant-
ment to another until we had exhausted aU
our supply of superlatives and were content
to gaze on the wonderful panorama in silence.
On the southern side of the mountains the
swift Adige shot and foamed along towards
the Adriatic. After we had crossed the
summit of the Brenner and begun our north-
ern descent, another river kept us company
with its rush and roar until we reached Inns-
bruck. That day's ride gave me the most
complete sense of beauty that I have yet ex-

From Athens to the Tyrol. 189

perienced during this tour. Switzerland is
the land for sublimity; the Tyrol for a beauty
that bewitches, but seldom overawes.

I spent three days at Innsbruck, which
has two great attractions. One of them is
the magnificent snow-crowned Alps that sur-
round it. The loftiest of these — the "Wal-
draster" — is a massive pyramid of rock nine
thousand feet toward the clouds. The oth-
er attraction is the monumental tomb of
the Emperor Maximilian with its splendid
sculptures and thirty bronze statues, which
Thorwaldsen pronounced to be unequalled
in Europe. It stands in the Franciscan
church; and close by it are the grave and
the statue of the heroic Hofer, the TeU of
the Tyrol. His countrymen gathered around
that monument last Sabbath, and gazed at it
with veneration.

But alas for railroads and modern improve-
ments! Hofer would not recognize his own
kindred in their modern dress. Instead of
the old, bright, picturesque Tyrolese costume
which I once knew a few years ago, I now

190 The Nile to Norway.

see only the prosaic imitations of their Ger-
man neighbors. Only one genuine Tyrolese
have I encountered during the last week
who wore the red rig and graceful hat and
feather of his ancestors. Yesterday I left
Innsbruck by the new route, and had an-
other enchanting day of mountains and ver-
dant valleys; of fields purpled with flowers,'
and of swift streams foaming down the
ravines. Late in the afternoon we began
to see — far ahead — the lordly Castle of
Salzburg on its lofty cliff — the only rival
of Heidelberg for statehness and grandeur.
It stands hke a giant sentinel overlooking
a wide plain of surpassing lovehness. At
its feet hes this romantic city, the birth-
place of Mozart, and one of the most cele-
brated seats, in former days, of wealth and
chivalry and song. Under the very shadow
of that castle, I bid my readers " good
night!"

XVII.

PRA GUE— DRESDEN.

Qrand Union Hold, Dresden, June 16.

1 7ROM Salzburg I had rather a monoto-
-*- nous ride to Linz on the banks of
the Danube. The noble old historic stream
runs v?ith a strong turbid current, and the
scenery at many points on its banks is very
fine. The next day brought me through
Bohemia to Prague. It is Bohemia still,
although under the Austrian crown; and the
vast majority of the people still speak in
the language of John Huss and Jerome. I
found the city in its gala dress, with trium-
phal arches over the streets, and thousands
of Austrian, Bohemian, and Belgian flags
floating from the windows and house-tops.
The Crown Prince Rudolph — the heir to the
Austrian throne — had arrived on the pre-

191

192 The Nile to Norway.

vious day with the Princess Stephanie, his
Belgian bride. As he purposes to make
Prague his residence for some time, the
Bohemians are in high feather at having a
hve specimen of royalty once more in the
old palace of Maria Theresa. The next day
he drove through the streets in regal style
with his bride at his side, and amid the
cheers of the populace. She is a pretty girl
of seventeen, with a merry countenance, and
promises to be exceedingly popular.

I was surprised to find Prague so large,
so stately, and so modern withal; much of
it is as bright as Brussels, and its shops are
as showy as those of Paris. The town is
bunt on elevated ground on both sides of
the Moldau, and from the Palace walls —
which stand on a lofty hill — ^it is really one
of the most imposing cities in the whole
Teutonic realm. To me it was chiefly inter-
esting as the scene of the heroic career of
John Huss. His presence still fiUs its atmos-
phere as the presence of Luther fills Witten-
berg, and the august shade of Calvin still

Prague — Dresden. 193

haunts the streets of Greneva. I hastened
at once to the ancient " Teyne-church, "
where Huss often preached; it has been the
scene of many a fierce conflict both of tongue
and sword. Beside one of its venerable
Gothic columns is the tomb of Tycho Brahe,
the great Danish astronomer. His sextant is
still preserved in the Jesuit College. I saw a
fine specimen of his autograph in the Mu-
seum, and, what was of stUl higher interest,
the original challenge of John Huss to his
opponents which he affixed to the gates
of the University. The Reformer wrote a
strong square hand, and the precious docu-
ment (which is only about six inches by four)
looked almost like a leaf from a Hebrew
Bible. Beside it lies a small manuscript of
Ziska; and on an adjoining table is the first
copy of the Scriptures ever printed in Bo-
hemia. It is in clear type and bears on its
title-page the date. 1480. That was about
midway between the martyrdom of Huss and
the rise of Martin Luther. That Museum
of Prague contains some fine picking for an

194 The Nile to Norway.

antiquary. I looked with keen interest at
some specimens of the iron flails used by
the fierce followers of Ziska, and felt that
it was enough for one day to have seen
John Huss's challenge to the Pope and the
DevU, and to have grasped the sword of
Gustavus Adolphus.

Prague aflforded me two days of unmixed
dehght in threading the streets of its ancient
quarter, in crossing its crowded bridge from
which Saint John of Nepomuk was flung,
and across which armies fought for three
centuries, and in climbing to the heights on
which the great WaUenstein once lived in
royal splendor. I found that quite too few
Americans visit the grand old city of John
Huss and Rudolph of Hapsburg; but it had
a home-like look to me, to see in the read-
ing-room of the pleasant Hotel d'Angleterre,
a large English Bible and a file of the 'New
Yorh Observer.

The route from Prague to Dresden runs
directly along the Elbe, and through the
heart of that picturesque region known as

Prague — Dresden. 195

the " Saxon Switzerland." An exquisitely-
beautiful region it is, with bold ramparts
of rock, and deep green ravines, and ro-
mantic old castles on its steeps; but to call
it after the same name with the region of
Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn, is rather
a hard strain upon language. It bears about
the same resemblance to Switzerland that
Trenton Falls do to Niagara. It takes a
vast deal of beauty to reach the sublime.
But that picturesque scenery along the Elbe
I foimd to be an excellent preparation for
the city of Dresden. I came here, not to
discover historic sites or to be awed with
majestic cathedrals, but to study art and
to enjoy the finest single picture-gallery in
Europe. Dresden simply means fine art; it
is the Florence of Germany. Just as in
Prague I hastened to the Church of John
Huss, so on my arrival here I set off at
once for " The Zwinger." On every previous
trip to Europe I have been cheated out of
Dresden; so I set my face speedily towards
that huge pile of The Zwinger, which con-

196 The Nile to Norway.

tains the splendid treasures whicli have been
accumulating for a hundred and fifty years.
The pecuniary value of the vast collection
must be estimated by milhons; outside of
the Yatican no other roof covers so many
of the masterpieces of genius.

I did not stop to sharpen my appetite
with any "first courses" of inferior art, but
struck at once for that room in the north-
west corner of the edifice which contains
Raphael's Sistine Madonna. Very few things
in this world come up to our expectations.
That painting did; I just put it in my mem-
ory gallery alongside of Rubens' "Descent
from the Cross " ; to my taste those are
the two most perfect pieces of sacred art
on this globe. Every one has a right to his
own opinion, and every visitor to the Zwin-
ger galleries has his favorites. After the
peerless picture of Raphael, the six paint-
ings which gave the most delight were
Titian's "Tribute Money," Albert Durer's
"Crucifixion," Rembrandt's " Manoah's Sac-
rifice," Corregio's "Holy Night," Battoni's

Prague — Dresden. 197

"Repentant Magdalen," and the "Ecce Ho-
mo " of Guido. As for the innumerable Ve-
nuses and Ledas, and other nude classicali-
ties, they had better be turned over to my
friend" Anthony Comstock, or into the Elbe.
The same Titian 'who painted that won-
derful head of our Lord in the "Tribute
Money " had no business to smirch his pencil
with those naked goddesses. Raphael kept
his canvasses clean from such defilements.
The gem of Albert Durer's genius is only
about six inches square; but it is enough'
to give him immortality. The ' ' Repentant
Magdalen " of Battoni is copied in thousands
of engravings in America; none of them give
any idea of its exquisite charm of coloring.
It is a face to dream about. Corregio's
great feat is that he has made the face of
the infant Saviour so radiant that it lights
up the whole caravansera at Bethlehem.
As for Rembrandt's painting of Manoah and
his wife, kneeling with closed eyes and
overawed by the angel's presence — it is one
of the most solemn, devout and soul-moving

198 The Nile to Norway.

pictures in the world. I sliall always think
of Manoah with a certain reverence, after
seeing that wonderful portraiture.

Rembrandt was assuredly the greatest por-
trait-painter the world has ever seen. Next
to him stands Vandyke. The masterpieces
of these master-workmen are to be found
here,' and their works alone are enough to
give celebrity to yonder galleries. I have
been gazing this week at their productions,
and at the marvellous productions of Ha-
phael, and Titian, and Guido, and Durer,
and Rubens, just as I gazed at the Par-
thenon at Athens, and said to myself, "What
has become of the creative genius that did
these things? Why can the age that in-
vents telegraphs and bridges oceans with
steamships, do nothing but copy the art of
centuries gone by ? " In one short century
little Greece taught the world how to build
and how to carve marble; in another brief
period the great painters taught the world
what painting is; their skill died with them
and they have left no successors. Our age

Prague — Dresden. 199

has other work to do: "To everything there
is a time," and the time for rearing Par-
thenons and painting Madonnas has gone
by, never to return.

Dresden is rich in historical relics as well
as in works of art. I spent some hours
yesterday in the Johannean Museum, look-
ing at the magnificent suits of armor worn
by the old Electors of Saxony, and the
trappings of their horses resplendent with
gold and jewels. The Elector Christian II. 's
arflior was of solid silver. Under one glass
case were the swords of Peter the Great,
Charles XII. of Sweden, and Macaulay's
hero WUham, Prince of Orange. In anoth-
er case were Martin Luther's sword and
drinking-cup. The grand old fellow had no
business with either. There was a remark-
able collection of shoes. in one room; among
them the dainty slippers worn by Empress
Maria Theresa, and the coarser footgear
worn by the philosopher Kant. Napoleon's
boots worn at the battle of Dresden were
there, and also his coronation slippers made

200 The Nile to Norway.

of satin and richly embroiaered with gold.
Judging from these, the foot that trod down
Europe for fifteen years must have been
very small.

After examining the rich collection, I
went down into the "Green Vault" under
the Palace to see the gorgeous display of
gold and silver ornaments and rare jewel-
ries. There are enough rubi«s, pearls, dia-
monds, and showy trinkets there to make the
beUes of Fifth Avenue and Saratoga crazy.
If Solomon could have seen Dresden, he
might have added another chapter on "The
peculiar treasures of kings," and their " van-
ity and vexation of spirit." To-day I leave
this fascinating city for Wittenberg, the home
and burial-place of Martin Luther, where he
used a stronger weapon than a sword to
make war upon principahties and powers,
and spiril^ual wickedness in high places.

XVIII.

THE LAND OF LUTHER.

Wittenberg, June 18.

TOURING neither of my previous visits
■*-^ to Germany have I been able to see
the region especially associated with the
greatest events of Luther's career; so I
shaped my present tour that it might in-
clude both Prague and Wittenberg. The
look at the home of Huss, the pioneer of
the Reformation, was a good prelude ' to the
home of the Great Reformer.

Wittenberg is a quiet city of twelve thou-
sand inhabitants, on the banks of the Elbe,
about midway between Dresden and Magde-
burg. But few Americans visit it, for I had
to look back some distance on the register
of this "Hotel of the Golden Vineyard"
before I could find a Yankee name. Dres-
den is Parisian, but Wittenberg is thoroughly

201

202 The Nile to Norway.

German. The railroad keeps a respectful
distance from the gates of the town, as if it
would not disturb the dreamy quietude of
the old cradle of the Reformation. As the
one-horse omnibus jogged slowly toward the
ancient Elsterthor, the driver swung his whip
toward an oak-tree, surrounded by a grass-
plat and a few flowers. That tree marks the
spot where Brother Martin burned the Pope's
fire-decree, on the tenth of December, 1520.
The blaze of that burning "bull" was pretty
distinctly visible from the Vatican.

The little inn at which I was set down
stands on the market-place. In front of my
window are two statues, about a hundred
feet apart. One of them, erected fifteen
years ago, represents a slender figure, robed
in a gown, with a countenance almost ema-
ciated and wearing a saintly expression.
Upon the pedestal is inscribed, from the
Epistles to the Ephesians: "Endeavoring to
keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond
of peace." On the other side is written:
" I will speak of Thy testimonies also before

The Land of Luther. ' 203

kings, and will not be ashamed." That slen-
der, seraphic figure is Philip Melaucthon,
who was the gentle and beloved Jonathan
to the burly psalmist and warrior who stands
on the twin pedestal, a few yards off. A
genuine Teuton is that robust character,
planted firmly in his bronze shoes and
holding his finger to the open page of
God's Word. The short, taurine neck and
heavy jaw mark the holy obstinacy of the
man. The inscriptions on the pedestal are
exceedingly happy. Underneath the open
Bible is inscribed (as if Luther himself were
just speaking it from his bronze lips): "Be-
lieve the Gospel." That is the very message
which German theology and philosophy need
most to hear and to heed to-day. The east
side of the monument bears Luther's famous
words: "If this be God's work, it will en-
dure: if it be man's it will perish." On the
west side is carved the immortal motto: " Mn
feste Burg ist unser Qott."

The partnership of these two great leaders
of the Reformation, which is marked by the

204 The Nile to Norway*

similarity of their monuments, holds good
all through the town. Walking up the
"College-strasse," I came upon a three-
story house, old within and modernized
without. "Here hved Philip Melancthon"
is written on the front. Into that narrow
hallway the jolly face of Luther must have
been thrust many a time, when some new
idea was to be discussed with Brother Philip
or when some racy scandal about Tetzel or
Eck had come to Brother Martin's ears.
With many a boisterous laugh that house
has rung, I'll warrant. There was infinite
fun underneath Luther's well-hned ribs.
There must have been almost hourly inter-
course between the two men, for just a few
steps beyond Melancthon 's house I came to
an arched entrance to an open court. In
that court a teacher was watching the gym-
nastics of a few boys. Before me was a large
building, called the "Augusteum" and now
used as a seminary for ministers. The mid-
dle rooms on the second floor are a part of
Luther's original dwelling. He hved there

The Land of Luther. 205

while professor in the University, in 1508,
and his good friend, the Elector Frederick,
presented the house to him. A generous
soul was Frederick, for I saw at Dresden
a superb cabinet, ornamented with carved
work and jewels, and also a gilded drink-
ing-cup, which he gave to his beloved friend
the Reformer.

In the doorway of the - Augusteum sat an
old lady, knitting, with a pretty daughter
at her side. The young fraulein took a
key from a nail and led me up a stairway,
through an ante-room; and then unlocking
an ancient door, showed me into a large
room, with low ceilings. In one corner
stood an enormous iron stove, eight feet
high, covered with historical groups in bas-
relief. In the other corner stood a large
oaken table. These are the , only surviving
pieces of furniture in the apartment which
was once fiUed with the presence of the
mightiest man of the sixteenth century
When on the cold winter nights that big
table was wheeled up beside the big stove,

206 The Nile to Norway.

and the big head was bent over it in study,
then Grod's Word was unloosed into the Teu-
tonic tongue. Sometimes the Bible stands
open to the Epistle to the Galatians, and
then he' takes a turn at the " Commentary."
Brother Melancthon has his reserved seat
by the stove, and sometimes, when Brother
Martin breaks out into a snatch of "em feste
Burg^^ it almost drowns the howling of the
blasts without. Good wife Catherina brings
in some hot potations occasionally, I sus-
pect; for there is a drinking goblet still
preserved in the room and I saw another
one in the Museum at Dresden. One of
the most unique relics in Luther's room is
the autograph of Peter the Great, in chalk,
on the door-frame. There was enough of
the Norseman about Luther to suit Peter's
ideal of the " konning-man."

After I had enjoyed the quaint old room
and possessed myself of the photograph of
Cranach's portrait of the Reformer, which
hangs in an adjoining apartment, the /mw-
hin took me down the street to the ancient

MARTIN LUTHER.

( From the original portrait in his house at Wittenberg.
Nile to Norway. , p. 206,

The Land of Luther. 207

Schloss-kirclie. It stands close against the
infantry barracks. Upon the original doors
of this church Luther nailed up the famous
ninety-five theses, in 1520; but during a
bombardment of Wittenberg by the Aus-
trians the doors were burned. King Fred-
erick WiUiam replaced them with metal
doors, bearing the original Latin text of the
theses. Within that church Luther's ashes
slumber, beneath the central pavement. Close
by him sleeps Brother Melanctho'n. The part-
nership was never broken. Loving in their
lives, in death they are not divided.

Last evening, at sunset, I went down again
to the ancient church. A few of the simple
German town's-folk (just such folk as Luther
used to preach to here) were strolling past,
out to a public garden in the suburbs. I
seemed to see the burly Reformer, as he
came to that spot, three hundred and sixty
years ago, with the immortal theses in one
hand and his hammer in the other. He does
not dream himself what results are to come
from that simple deed. With sturdy strokes

208 The Nile to Norway.

he sends home the nails, until the ring of
that hammer begins to startle Germany out
of the slumbers of the Dark Ages. Germany-
has never gone back into that nightmare of
superstition; but Protestantism' on the Elbe
and the- Oder is not broad awake to-day.
That hammer needs to ring again.

This morning, early, I walked around to
the old Stadt-kirche, in which Luther often
preached, close to the market-place. A ser-
vice was going on and but few were present.
I contrasted sadly the small gathering with
a crowded service at the same hour (a fort-
night ago) in the Romish Church at Trent.
The Catholics attend church at least fivefold
more than the Protestants on the Continent;
but the service in the Stadt-kirche interested
me deeply, because the " plain song" was the
same that Luther and his neighbors used to
sing there. In fact, the neighbors themselves
were close beside me, for many of Luther's
intimate friends and brother professors lie,
buried under the church or close to its walls.
All round the outer wall of the building stand

The Land of Luther. 209

their moss-grown tablets, with epitaphs bare-
ly legible. Some of these worthies of the
sixteenth century are represented in queer
effigies of stone, either clad in armor .or in
scholastic robes. Here a head is broken off;
there, an arm. Time has dealt roughly with
these stout old protestors; but to me, this
morning, they seem to be living stiU and
their spirits stUl haunt the ancient church
in which they once crowded to hear Brother
Martin denounce the "Man of Sin." Nay,
Luther himself seems to abide here still. All
"Wittenberg is fuU of his spiritual presence,
and, as I look out of my window this bright
June morning, I can imagine him as walking
with lumbering gait down yonder CoUege-
strasse, with a roU of his MS. German Bible
under his arm. He walks across the market-
place, stops to salute Brother Philip with a
"guten Tag," and then vanishes out of sight.

XIX.

HAMBURG TO COPENHAGEN:

Copenhagen, June 23.

T FOUND "Wittenberg not only interesting
-^ from its great historic past, but from
its representative character as a quiet indus-
trious town occupied by the middle class of
the German people. As there are infantry-
barracks in the town, I saw rather more
than the average number of soldiers in the
streets, but they are quite too abundant
everywhere in Kaiser William's dominions.
This swarm of locusts, in martial toggery,
is devouring the substance of the Empire.
We in America have our full share of dram-
shops and demagogues, but let us thank God
that we have not the additional curse of a
vast standing army. At sunset I strolled
out of Wittenberg to ornamental gardens ia
the suburbs, where the town-folk Were re-

210

Hamburg to Copenhagen. 211

galing themselves with promenadmg in the
public walks, and some of them with tail
tumblers of beer. The Germans are a do-
mestic, cheerful, and festive people, and de-
light in assembling together in such beau-
tiful parks and gardens as every town can
boast. I really pity them when they come
to America; they must sadly miss such a
public " platz " as I saw in Innspruck, Wit-
tenberg, and on a grand scale in Hamburg.
Their attempts to reproduce these places of
social resort in our country are but sorry
attempts at the best; but even though they
fail I am not surprised that they make the
effort. It is a part of a German's very life
to enjoy his social hour in a park or a
"Volk's Garten," and even though those
Wittenbergers imbibed more beer than we
teetotalers fancy, yet I saw no drunkenness
or boisterous carousals.

My next stage was to Hamburg by rail.
I find the German railways admirably man-
aged, and moderate in fare. There are very
few "first-class" cars; the second-class are

212 The Nile to Norway.

really luxurious, and the first-class are left
to the princes and the fools. Except in those
carriages that are marked " Nicht-rauchen "
(no smoking) or " for ladies," there is per-
petual fumigation with pipes or cigars.
Smoking has become almost universal in
the Orient and over the continent of Eu-
rope. In Turkey, Egypt, and Syria the
ladies are greatly addicted to cigarettes;
there is not one man in a hundred who
does not indulge in his narguilfeh if he can
afford it. Mohammed prohibited wine, but
I suspect that pipes will be a prominent
feature in an Oriental's Paradise.

Hamburg is a great bustling and showy
city, with nearly half a million of inhabitants,
including the suburbs. It is the chief com-
mercial city on the continent, and becoming
immensely rich. Around the " Alster Basin"
are sumptuous hotels and private mansions;
the parks are fiUed with fine equipages; and
five thousand merchants' and shippers crowd
the Exchange every day from one to three
o'clock. The finest building in the city is

Hamburg to Copenhagen. 213

the St. Nicholas (Protestant) Church, a florid
Gothic structure, with a spire four hundred
and seventy-three feet high. There are only
two loftier spires in Europe — Cologne Ca-
thedral and St. Ou^n at Rouen. I attended
service there last Sabbath morning, and al-
though the noble building has seats for two
thousand and standing-room for as many
more, there were not two hundred persons
present ! I went around afterwards- to ' ' St.
Peter's," an elegant church, in which at least
fifteen hundred were in attendance. After
the sermon — delivered under a rich ancient
canopy — the congregational singing in Ger-
man plain-song was very grand. The archi-
tectural " display of Hamburg — especially in
the way of elegant private residences — has
surpassed my expectations. In the finest
portion of the city is the " Alster Basin,"
a small lake, surrounded by the principal
hotels and promenades. This Basin ex-
tends for about two miles, growing nar-
rower until it becomes no wider than the
East River at Astoria. It is hned with

214 The Nile to Norway.

beautiful villas and gardens, and a sail past
these delightful grounds is the most attrac-
tive recreation I found there. Every ten
minutes a sort of omnibus-steamer started
from in front of our hotel for " Raveu-
strasse," or "Bellevue," or " Bppendorf,"
or other of these suburban resorts. Mer-
chants or bankers, after business hours, go
on board these little steamers with their
wives and children, and for a few dimes
enjoy a sail that is as pleasant as an ex-
cursion to Staten Island. No commercial
craft enter this miniature lake, which is
used exclusively for pleasure-travel.

Although street-cars (or "tram- ways," as
they call them in Europe) originated in Amer-
ica, yet we may learn something from the
way in which they are managed in Hamburg.
A line starts from in front of the Exchange
every five minutes, and carries you through
the beautiful narrow park (which almost sur-
rounds the city) towards Altona. The finest
horses I saw in Hamburg were driven before
some of these cars. In the rear of each car

Hamburg to Copenhagen. 215

is a sort of lobby for cigar-smokers; and no
one is allowed to enter the car unless there
is a seat for him or her. The read has a
single track for part of- the way, and when
one car meets another, it turns out on the
Belgian pavement, and is easUy thrown back
again on the iron rails by means of a small
guiding wheel in front of the car. In one
of these luxuriously cushioned cars I never
paid more than three cents fare; and if we
could have anything approaching to this in
comfort, we Brooklyn folk would not be so
intensely anxious to see an elevated railway.
Hamburg would not endure An hour what
Brooklyn has patiently submitted to for
twenty years.

Like all the other German towns, Ham-
burg has its monument to its soldiers who
fell during the Franco-German war of 1870.
It is the most touching in conception of any
I have ever seen on either side of the ocean.
A bronze figure representing ' ' Germania "
is holding a laurel over a dying grenadier
who is just falling in the saddle of a horse

216 The Nile to Norway.

that also lies dead upon the field. The fig-
ures of both horse and" rider are superb.
Just behind them is a dying infantry-soldier,
and beside him an artillery-man has fallen
with his rammer in his hands. It is alto-
gether a pathetic poem wrought into bronze.
The work was executed by SchiUing of Dres-
den, and as a stroke of genius, is equal to
the famous equestrian statue of Frederick
the Great in Berlin.

Hamburg ranks next to London, Liverpool,
and Glasgow, in the extent of its commerce.
Over six thousand vessels enter its capacious
harbor every year. The chief articles in
which its merchants deal are sugar, cofiee,
iron, grain, butter, hides and fancy goods.
From its wharves about thirty thousand emi-
grants set sail for America during every
twelvemonth, and a majority of these are
Germans. Some leave the Fatherland to
escape service in the army; others to avoid
heavy taxation; others in order to become
land-owners (and not tenants) in our great
West; and others still from preference for a

Hamburg to Copenhagen. 217

republican government. They are, in the
main, a thrifty, honest and industrious ad-
dition to our American population. But they
carry over with them their lax ideas of the
Sabbath and their inbred religious formalism;
too many of them, are enough tainted Avith
" scientism " to become utter skeptics. They
cannot be reached by our ordinary agencies,
and unless they are approached by German
preachers and missionaries who can address
them in their own language, they will simply
become fresh recruits to our growing army
of Sabbath-breakers, and rejectors of gospel-
truth. To meet that stream of emigration
which pours towards us from the Teutonic
empire, the American churches should be
estabhshing German theological schools, and
training the right men for the work.

From Hamburg I came last evening to
this capital of the Danes by way of Keil.
Bishop Peck of America, who is on a vis-
it to his Methodist brethren in the north
of Europe, was my fellow-passenger. We
reached Copenhagen at ten this morning.

218 The Nile to Norway.

and witliin an hour I was in the Thorwald-
sen Museum. The name of this peerless
sculptor of modern times is to Copenhagen
what the name of Luther is to Wittenberg.
Of none of her sons is Denmark so proud;
and well she may be, for Thorwaldsen is
the one sculptor of our era who, if he had
lived in Athens, would have been selected
by Pericles to carve the frieze upon the
Parthenon. Up in these cold northern lati-
tudes bloomed out that wonderful genius
whose productions adorn the wails of un-
numbered homes in every clime.

XX.

THE CITY OF THORWALDSEN.

CopenJMgen, June 24.

nnHIS city miglit well be called Thorwald-
■*" sen, for it is filled with his presence
as Wiemar is with the presence of Goethe
and Potsdam with that of Frederick the
Great. Not an hour passes in which his
name is not heard; not an art-store in town
that is not filled with the photographs ' of
his matchless works; and thousands, like my-
self, come hither mainly to feast their eyes
on the marbles which his hand has carved.
Copenhagen is a larger city than one would
expect to find as the capital of so small a
country as Denmark, for it contains 235,000
inhabitants. Its streets are bustling with
business, for these Danes are an active, com-
mercial people, exporting no small amount
of grain, tallow, cattle, horses, and very mis-

219

220 ,The Nile to Norway.

chievous cherry-brandy. The architecture of
Copenhagen is not imposing; not one really
grand edifice adorns the squares; its palaces
wear a shabby look; and a monotonous uni-
formity pervades the whole town. How two
such beautiful women as the Czarina of Rus-
sia and her sister, the Princess of Wales,
should. have issued from yonder dingy-look-
ing palace is a conundrum. But it is still
more remarkable that this prosaic old seaport
of the Norsemen should have produced the
greatest sculptor of modern times, Bertel
Thorwaldsen ! We might' say the greatest
hnown sculptor of any age, for Canova, Dan-
necker and Chantrey were not to be com-
pared with him, and we don't know who
produced most of the masterpieces in marble
which have come down to us from ancient
times. Thorwaldsen claimed that his ances-
tors were kings of Iceland, but his own father
was a ship-carpenter; and the boy Bertel
early learned to handle the tools with which
his father carved figiure-heads for Danish mer-
chantmen. He went early to Rome, and for

The City of Thorwaldsen. 221

years pursued his studies of art in utter
obscurity. By and by he executed that
grand statue of " Jason amd his Fleece,"
which I saw to-day, and then he awoke to
find himself immediately famous. Thence-
forward his chisel was busy for almost forty
years; and his native Denmark, proud of
his genius, gave a home in one of her
palaces to the greatest man she has ever
produced.

Yesterday, as soon as I had arrived in
Copenhagen, I hastened off to the Museum
which was erected expressly to contain the
productions of his chisel. It is a gloomy
looking edifice on the exterior, and the in-
terior is severely plain. In the hollow square
of the quadrangle is the great sculptor's tomb.
Four granite slabs enclose a little bed of
earth, planted with ivy, and on one of the
slabs is the simple name Bertel Thorwald-
sen. The whole building with its treasures
is his real monument. On entering the
building you see in the vestibule the long
Triumphal Entry of Alexander into Babylon,

222 The Nile to Norway.

a series of bas-reliefs, executed by order of
Napoleon, and worthy of a place on any
of the friezes of ancient Athens.

Soon after I went into the smaller cabinets
that contain his masterpieces, I began to
come upon those exquisite originals whose
photographs are hung in thousands of Ameri-
can parlors and libraries. In one cabinet
was his famous "Night," with the two cher-
ubs asleep on her shoulder and the owl poised
in the air behind her drooping wing. On the
opposite wall is " Morning," with the cherub
bearing the torch to light up the dawn. A
Httle farther on I came to the bas-reliefs
representing "Spring," "Summer," "Au-
tumn," and old "Winter" warming his be-
numbed fingers over the brazier of coals.
Then, a few steps farther on, I encountered
the "Ganymede and the Eagle," the "Hebe,"
and the "Shepherd Boy," and the "Three
Graces." All these had long been as famihar
to my eye as the City HaU of Brooklyn,
or the spire of my own church. Yet the
originals are so vastly superior to any photo-

The City of Thorwaldsen. 223

graphic copies, that they burst upon me as
entirely new revelations of beauty ! They
were not marble; they seemed like flesh and
blood that had turned white. The dog that
stands beside the shepherd boy looks as if
he could breathe, and you almost expect to
hear him bark ! The little cupids that are
playing their roguish pranks in a "Love-nest"
are as individual in the expression of their
sweet faces as any half-dozen babies brought
into an infant school on anniversary day. It
is not art; it seems actual life.

But the sublimest of Thorwaldsen's produc-
tions are not contained in this museum.
They are in the " Frau Kirk," a Protestant
house of worship often attended by the- royal
family. The buUding itself is in the Greek
style, and is very attractive. On the front
of the pulpit is inscribed, in golden letters:
"Blessed are they that hear the Word of
Grod, and keep it." That motto ought to
be written on every pulpit in America; it
would furnish a hint to us ministers as to
what we should preach, as well as to our

224 The Nile to Norway.

congregations to carry home the truth and
practice it.

On the . platform at the end of the church
is an exquisite kneehng Angel, that holds
in her hand an escalop-shell of marble —
used as a baptismal font. It is a dream
of beauty. Behind this figure, in an alcove,
rises the somewhat colossal figure of the Risen
Christ. Above his majestic head is the in-
scription, "This is my Beloved Son, hear ye
him." That glorious form — the only statue
of our divine Lord I have ever seen that
is worthy of its subject^is immediately be-
fore the congregation every Sabbath when
they assemble for worship. Along the sides
of the nave — about a dozen feet apart — are
ranged Thorwaldsen's celebrated " Twelve
Apostles." The figure of Paul is commonly
accounted the finest; but that of Thomas
(who stands with his finger pressed on his lip
in' an attitude of doubt), seemed to me superi-
or to all the others. John has too womanly
a beauty for a "son of thunder." Because
he was the "beloved disciple" there is no

The City of Thorwaldsen. 225

reason to imagine him as either eflfeminate
or seraphic. No one of the group has any
more resemblance to any other than would
any twelve Uving men who should meet in
a CouncU or a Presbytery. Thorwaldsen
never repeated himself. He had a wonder-
ful instinct in catchtag the varied expressions
of the human countenance, and his five hun-
dred or more difierent statues are each en-
tirely different from the other. He seemed
equally at home, too, in classic and in sacred
themes for his chisel. Once he selected him-
self for his subject, and the noble figure of
Thorwaldsen — chisel in hand — by his own
consummate skill wiU always remain as the
great artist's best likeness. He must have
been a man of commanding nobility of face
and presence.

I have devoted the whole of this letter
to this extraordinary genius, for several rea-
sons. One is that he is more to every vis-
itor in Copenhagen than all the rest of the
city combined. Again; I am sure that hun-
dreds of my readers who have copies of his

226 The Nile to Norway.

works in their houses will be gratified to
know more about the original masterpieces.
But above all, I desire to pay my humble
tribute to an artist who never prostituted
his transcendent genius to an impure or de-
moralizing purpose. Much of the highest art
at Florence, Yenice and Dresden is lascivi-
ous. Over the walls are sprawled whole
shoals of nude goddesses and nymphs and
other unclean beasts. But Thorwaldsen por-
trayed a Love that never degenerated into
lust. His chisel was never wanton. His
magnificent galleries can be traversed by
any father with his daughter at his side.
He never profaned even the ineflable Lord
of glory when he attempted to portray him
in marble ; and whether the man were a
Christian or not, he consecrated his chisel
to a higher and holier purpose than any
sculptor in modern times. I am thankful
that during a journey that has included
Jerusalem and Athens and Wittenberg, I
have also seen the pecuhar treasures of the
City of Thorwaldsen.

XXI.

NORWAY.

Christiania, June 27.

"XT THEN" my congregation sent me abroad,
' " it was their desire that I should not
only see as much of the lands of the Bible
as the lateness of the season would permit,
but should also extend my tour to the north
of Europe. I had also been anxious to get
at least a good ghmpse of Scandinavia. To
a Norwegian there is no land so beautiful
as his own Norway. He is ready to main-
tain that no waters are as picturesque as the
fiords that indent the western> coast of his
native country and that the mountains which
overhang them are a fair match for Switz-
erland. Few Americans ever venture into
the home of the Norseman, but those who
have done so always bring back glowing ac-

227

228 The Nile to Norway.

counts of the grandeur of the scenery, and of
the cordial hospitahties of the people.

N^orway ought to command a deep interest
in our country, for no nationality in Europe
is sending so large a proportion of its people
to settle in America. The Norwegians are
a prodigiously energetic race, who feeling
straitened by the sterility of much of their
soil, and the severity of their climate, are
swarming over to the generous prairies of
our boundless west. Their own country is
eleven hundred miles long, but a large por-
tion of it is bleak and barren; only the
southern half is capable of rewarding the
industry of the agriculturist. The Scandi-
navian emigrants bring to us not only the
habits of frugality and" thrift but an intense
loyalty to the Protestant faith. As far back
as the tenth century King Hako the Good
introduced Christianity into Norway after
liis temporary residence in Britain. He en-
deavored to overthrow the worship of Odin
and Thor, and his successor Olaf the Holy
went so far as to pull down the temples of

Norway. 229

those old Norse divinities. Since the Refor-
mation of the sixteenth century, Norway has
been so intensely Lutheran that until lately,
no places of worship belonging to any other
sect or creed were allowed to exist. Relig-
ious liberty is now guaranteed to all; but
nineteen twentieths of the people still sub-
scribe to the doctrines of the Augsburg
Confession.

Until my arrival here I had always sup-
posed that Norway had quite lost its national
existence, and became absorbed as a part of
Sweden. But this is not the case. Norway
maintains its autonomy entire. It has a
Storthing or parliament of its own which
enacts all the laws of the realm. It has
its own army and navy and post-office de-
partments. The postage-stamps issued by
the government of Sweden are no more
current here than they would be in New
York. In this city of Christiania — which
is the capital of Norway — there is a pal-
ace to which King Oscar comes during a
part of every year, to administer the gov-

230 The Nile to Norway.

ernment over Ms subjects on this aide of
the border. A Norwegian flag — somewhat
similar to the Swedish — floats over yonder
palace, and from the fortifications in the
harbor. The union of Norway to Sweden
is simply an union by treaty under which
the two nations agree to be governed by
the same sovereign; his official title is "King
of Norway and Sweden." The similarity of
race and religion between the two national-
ities has brought them into such a close al-
liance that for all practical purposes they
are as really one as the people of Scotland
and of England.

After I had satiated myself with the fine
sculptures of Thorwaldsen in Copenhagen,
I set off for this beautiful city. A swift
steamer starts for Christiania every Friday
morning, and I found the "Christiania" a
model boat with a model captain. As we
came out of the city we passed a British
fleet (with the Duke of Edinburgh on board)
which was anchored on the precise spot where
Lord Nelson fbught the battle of Copenhagen.

Norway. 231

in April, 1801. Campbell, in his magnificent
Ij'^ric on the battle, describes the slaughtered
sailors who " sleep full many a fathom deep,
by the wild and stormy steep of Elsinore."
But Elsinore is twenty miles from the scene
of the engagement, and has about as much
of a "wild steep" as the wharves of Jersey
City. Campbell had no genius for geog-
raphy, for in his "Gertrude of Wyoming"
he describes pahn-trees on the banks of the
Susquehanna !

As we passed Elsinore, which lies at the
narrowest part of the "Cattegat," we ran
in close to the old castle of Kronberg, on
whose platform or water-battery Hamlet saw
the ghost of his murdered father. To-day
there is no Danish prince promenading on
that battery, and no British sailor sleeping
in the waves beneath. After we had passed
the narrows of the Cattegat we came at once
jnto that strip of water called the " Skager
Rack," which separates Denmark from Nor-
way and Sweden, and wliich used to be the
scene of the nautical exploits of the old

232 The Nile to Norway.

Norsemen. Over those waters Harold Har-
frager sailed with his fierce Scandinavians
to the conquest of England two centuries
before William the Norman was born. Along
all those rocky shores the beacons of the Vi-
■ kings once blazed. These Scandinavians have
always been a race of water-dogs sporting
among their fiords and boisterous bays like
the seals on the rocks of Alaska. Norway
is to Europe very much what Maine is to our
American Union, both as to northern situa-
tion, picturesque island-studded coast, and the
hardy, adventurous character of its people.

On Friday afternoon our steamer ran its
sharp bow in among a shoal of rocky islets,
and after threading its way for several miles,
we came suddenly into the harbor of Gothen-
burg. It is a thrifty commercial city, buUt
most picturesquely on the rocks, with a few
strips of emerald vales and wooded parks ly-
ing in between. Lumber was piled on the
the wharves, and mackerel fishermen were
moored alongside, just as at Portland or on
the Kennebec. Gothenburg is one of the

Norway. 233

starting-points of Wilson's line of steamers
for England, and thence for America; one
of the firm tells me that they, ship annually
forty thousand Scandinavian emigrants to
our country. I would gladly exchange ten
Catholic Cffrkonians for one of these sturdy
industrious- Protestants. If they could only
be cured of some loose ideas in reference to
the Sabbath — which they hold in common
with all the Lutherans in Europe — and of
their liking for strong drink, they would be
the very best element in our immigration.
On our steamer a decanter of free whiskey
was placed on the- table alongside of the
decanter of water, and most of the ladies
as well as gentlemen took a wine-glass of
"old rye" before they tasted either food or
wines. While in the Mediterranean, I found
wine to be the universal beverage, except
in the seaport towns, where there is a vil-
lainous consumption of Holland gin and New
England rum. In Germany the use of wines
and beer is enormous. Here at the Forth,
whiskey and other powerful alcohohcs are the

234 The Nile to Norway.

popular drinks.' There is an isothermal line
in national beverages as in climate. The
Saxons and Scandinavians and Sclaves arS
the races most addicted to alcohol.

On Saturday morning we awoke among
the charming scenery of the Fiord that leads
up from the sea to Ohristiania. The banks
of the fiord were a combination of pine-clad
mountain and verdant valley, with a sprink-
ling of bright Norwegian villages. Ohris-
tiania lies superbly on the hills at the head
of the fiord, the old Castle of Agershaus
standing out as a figure-head in front of the
town. As soon as we landed I went around
to another wharf to see an American friend
off on the steamer for the North Gape, the
Polar Sea, and the midnight sun. But why
go a twenty days' journey to Hammerfest,
when there is almost a midnight sun here
at Ohristiania? In this northern latitude
(which is higher than Labrador), at this
season of the year, the night has folded its
sable wings and flown away. Last evening
I was able to write with ease by an open

Norway. 235

window at eleven o'clock ! Even at mid-
night it was not dark, and the city author-
ities did not light the street-lamps. A person
with good strong eyes could easily read a
newspaper through . the whole twenty-four
hours in the open air. But in midwinter
the dayhght does not last over six or seven
hours.

At this Grand Hotel I have been greatly
gratified to meet my Brooklyn neighbor,
Prof. B. P. Thwing, who is on a tour of
exploration among the churches and Young
Men's Christian Associations and benevolent
institutions of Scandinavia. I was getting a
httle tired of hstening even to pohte Germans
in dislocated English, and hailed the society
of a brother Yankee with genuine satisfac-
tion. Prof. Thwing tells me that he saw
snow six inches deep at Drontheim last
week! The air has a keen edge stiU, even
in the sunshine. I do not wonder that this
austere climate sends thousands to America.

We rambled up to the Palace, which stands
at the head of the Avenue in front of our

236- The Nile to Norway.

hotel. In this palace the King Oscar II.
resides when he visits the Norwegian half of
his double kingdom. In front of the Palace '
stands a fine equestrian statue of Charles
John XIY., better known as Marshal Ber-
nadotte. On the pedestal is the inscription,
"The love of my people is my reward." Out
of all the brood, of sovereigns on whose heads
Napoleon placed an uneasy crown, Berna-
dotte was the only one who was able to re-
tain it; and his family occupy the throne of
Sweden and Norway to-day. It is a sug-
gestive fact that whUe Napoleon squandered
a million of lives in order to conquer ter-
ritory for France, she does not now hold a
single acre of it all! She has even lost
Alsace' and Lorraine by the sword. In the
meanwhile the Puritan's Bible and plough
have gained possession of a vast continent.

We found in the palace the same stereo-
typed series of throne-rooms and ball-rooms
and gaudy upholsteries that all "kings'
houses" have to display. But from the
palace-roof we had one of the most en-

Norway. 237

chanting prospects that I have seen since
I left Salzburg. Before us was the city
with its hill and vale; beyond was the har-
bor bestudded with islands, and to the right
lay "Oscar's-haU," a Summer chS,teau of the
King, surrounded with the brightest green
that nature ever dyes. On a high ground
to the left is the City Cemetejry, laid out
much hke our own. I visited it on Satur-
day towards evening, and found hundreds
of ladies there with watering-pots, freshen-
ing the flowers and grass in the plots for
the Sabbath. This is a beautiful Saturday
evening custom in Christiania.

Yesterday the burial-grounds needed no
artificial irrigation, for it rained bountifully.
We attended an English service in the chapel
of the University, an institution which enrols
a thousand students. There were forty per-
sons at the service; the rituahties were ex-
ceedingly long, the singing exceedingly thin,
and the discourse very much like the music.
On our way home we saw five hundred people
gathered in the park under umbrellas, and lis-

238 The Nile to Norway.

tening to a military band. Handbills posted
about the streets and headed " Norske Trav-
el-klub," announced an equestrian perform-
ance for the Sabbath afternoon, and the
theatre was open in the evening. Here, as
elsewhere on the Continent, the morning of
the Sabbath is thought sufficient for aU pur-
poses of worship by the majority of Prot-
estants, and the latter half of the day is
devoted to sociahties and amusements. In
this regard some Romanists take a higher
stand than their Protestant neighbors; for
in Innspruck I saw the Romish churches
crowded at five and six o'clock in the Sab-
bath afternoon. What the Protestantism of
Holland, Grermany and the North wants is
a fresh quickening. In Sweden I am told
there are tokens of a new evangelical life;
if so, I shall be glad to record it in my
next. Oh, for another Luther ! And when
the next Luther comes. Heaven grant that
he may come without any gilded "drinking-
horn," and with the true idea of a Sabbath!

XXII.

STOCKHOLM.

Qravd Hotel, Stockholm, July 5.

/'^UR twenty -four hours' journey from
^-^ Christiania, by rail, was very tedious,
but as we drew near to Stockholm, the taste-
ful villas in the suburbs gave token of the
beauty of the city before us. I do not won-
der that the Swedes are proud of their
"Venice of the North," When the old
Norseman, Birger Jarl, founded it six hun-
dred years ago, he had the good taste to
select a site that would meet alike the de-
mands of beauty, of commerce, and of military
defence. One end of the city encompasses
beautiful Lake Maelar; another part, includ-
ing the Palace, is on the central island; still
another on the mainland to the north; two
other islands have their share of the aquatic
town; and aU these various waters are ahve

239

2-iO The Nile to Norway.

with boats and spanned with bridges. The
city abounds in parks, and the parks abound
in statues, fountains, and flower-beds. In or-
der to protect his new .capital, Birger Jarl
drove down piles or "stocks" among the
"holms" or islands; hence the name Stock-
holm.

I have had a most happy week here. Im
mediately opposite this Grand Hotel (which
is one of the finest in Europe) is -the Royal
Palace. It is reached by the ISToorbro bridge
which spans one of the many waters of Stock-
holm and which is known as the North River.
I spent an hour in wandering through the
royal apartments, one of which, called the
" White Sea," is a magnificent saloon, a
hundred and eighteen feet long, entirely
in white and gold; when illuminated with
lights and gorgeous costumes it must be,
Li fairy scene. I was most interested in
examining the private room of King Berna-
dotte, fiUed with his various knicknacks and
just in the condition that the old warrior
left it. On his bed lies the blue military

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Stockholm. 241

cloak that he wore in all his campaigns, and
slept under every night for thirty years. It
covered him when he fell into the slumber
of death. It is ordered that the old cloak
shall never be taken from the room, but the
moths are carrying it off piece-meal. The
present King Oscar II. ,is an honest, capable
ruler, who spares no pains to make himself
popular with the people. The Queen is a
devout Christian, and the King's sister. Prin-
cess Eugenie, is a leader in various religious
and philanthropic movements. There is not
a purer Court in Europe.

Over on the Riddarholm Island stands the
venerable church which is called the Wesi>
minster Abbey of Sweden. It is a plain
brick structure with a lofty spire of open
iron-work. This is the sepulchre of the kings
and the mighty men. In a sarcophagus of
green Italian marble lies the dust of that
glorious hero of the Protestant faith, Gus-
tavus Adolphus, and over it are an himdred
banners won on bloody fields. The rash and
briUiant Charles XII. lies on the opposite

242 The Nile to Norway.

side of the nave; but Gustavus Adolphus is
the popular idol. His manly figure appears,
in either bronze or marble, in public squares
all over the kingdom. At the National Mu-
seum they show you a httle brown nag that
he rode in his last fatal fight at Lutzen; and
close by the stuffed remains of the horse,
lie the hero's clothes stained with his blood.
His name will be hnked in history with Wil-
liam the Silent, "Washington, and Lincoln..

I had heard much of the great evangel-
ical quickening which has been going on in
Sweden during the last dozen years, and I
am sorely disappointed in not meeting Pastor
Gr. E. Beskow, who is one of its leading spir-
its. He belongs to the National Lutheran
Church and is known as the Spurgeon of
Sweden. His spacious church, which is usu-
ally crowded with over three thousand audi-
tors, stands in the rear of this hotel; but the
building is closed for repairs, and the elo-
quent pastor is absent from the city. The
failure to meet this eminent leader of evan-
gelicalism has been compensated by the de-

Stockholm. 243

lightful intercourse I have had with Profes-
sor Kanute Broady of the Baptist Theological
School and many of his brethren. Broady is
better known here by the title of " Colonel,"
as he commanded a regiment in the Army of
the Potomac during our civil war. A finer
specimen of a manly, genial Christian gentle-
man 1 have never met than Col. Broady. Last
week the Baptists — who number about twen-
ty thousand communicants in Sweden — held
their annual convention here. They kindly
sent for me, and gave me such a greeting
as these warm-hearted Norsemen only can.
Col. Broady was good enough to say in his
speech of introduction that my religious ar-
ticles had been circulated in the Swedish
language for the last twenty years. This was
chiefly grateful to me as another vindica-
tion of the policy of taking some time every
week from pastoral duties for the religious
press. A type is often equal to ten thou-
sand tongues in spreading Grospel truth.

Later in the same day I attended the an-
nual collation of about one hundred Baptist

244 The Nile to Norway.

ministers at the Berzelius Hotel. It stands
on a charming httle Park which contains
a statue of Berzelius, the- famous Swedish
chemist. After my address at the dinner, a
special prayer was offered for America by
the venerable Mr. Palmquist, who is the
founder of Sunday-schools in Sweden; it was
a most fervent, soul-stirring petition. The
next 'day these same brethren invited Dr.
S. F. Smith of Boston, Prof. Thwing and
myself, to join them in an excursion to
Upsala. This ancient University town Hes
forty miles north of Stockholm; near it are
the huge mounds which are the traditional
tombs of Odin, Thor, and Freya — who are
embalmed in our English calendar in the
names of Wednesday, Thursda.y, and Friday.
It is vacation-time at the University; so
I did not see the Professors or any of the
fourteen hundred students. But I did see
the Botanical Garden, and the tomb (in
the Cathedral) of lAnnoms. The trees and
shrubs he planted are blooming stiU. Close
by the Botanic Garden stands his marble

Stockholm. 245

statue; liis benign face has a singular sweet-
ness, as if he had studied flowers so long that
their beauty was reflected in his counte-
nance. There is a marked advance in the
theological teachings of the University to-
wards the evangelical interpretation of God's
Word; and Rationalism is growing weaker,
both there and among the ministers of the
National Church. As I had to return to
Stockholm at an earher hour than our
party, I had for companion in the cars a
devout Swedish pastor, whose stock of Eng-
Hsh consisted of a few Bible texts. He com-
menced the conversation by saying, ' ' Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the king-
dom of heaven." To this I assented; and
then he presently added — "Goodness and
mercy do follow me aU the days of my Hfe,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.'' It was a brief conversation, but I
have heard railroad talks much less edifying
than his.

Last Sabbath morning I attended St. Ja-
cob's Lutheran Church which stands near

246 The Nile to Norway.

the statue of Charles XII. It was well
filled, and I observed some of the Dale-
carlian peasant- girls there in their pictur-
esque costume. At least six psalms were
sung during the service, and before each sing-
ing, two little boys climbed up a ladder and
hung the number of. the psalm on the pillars
each side of the pulpit. The sermon was to
me in an unknown tongue, but the pastor
was fervent in manner, and aU the people
attentive to hear him. In the evening I
preached to an overflowing crowd in the
Baptist Church; Col. Broady acting as my
interpreter. It was my first experience in
that kind of preaching by one sentence at
a time, and then pausing for its translation.
I felt like a bird tied to a gate-post, that
is jerked back every time it should get to
the length of its string. But the genial coun-
tenances of the Scandinavians before me were
an inspiration; and when they sang "Come
thou fount of every blessing " in Swedish and
to our familiar tune, I felt a little moist about
the eyehds. I have formed a deep affection

Stockholm. 247

for these simple-liearted Baptists, who are
enduring hardness for Christ's sake. Most
of their pastors receive very small salaries
and only preach at all by sufferance. The
ecclesiastical laws of Sweden do not recog-
nize or protect them; and if a priest of the
Estabhshed (Lutheran) Church chooses to
complain of them, they are hable to ar-
rest and imprisonment ! I saw two of these
godly men who had been "in bonds" and
fed on bread and water for the crime of
preaching without permission. Happily this
bigoted spirit of persecution is dying out.

Yesterday I celebrated my Fourth of July
by dining with our hospitable American
Minister, the Hon. John L. Stevens. It was
a sad day to us, for we had just received
the terrible tidings of the attempted assas-
sination of our noble President. The news
awakens a profound sensation in the city,
for Sweden is warmly allied to America. If
such be the feeling here, what must it be in
my own beloved land ! God grant that long
ere this reaches my readers, the hfe of the

248 The Nile to Norway.

foremost man in our Union may be out of
danger !

In April, 1865, the news of Abraham Lin-
coln's assassination was telegraphed to our
foreign Ministers — among others to the late
Hon. William B. Kinney, Minister to Italy.
He happened to be in the same town where
the late Czar Alexander of Russia was stop-
ping. He hastened to the Czar's apartments,
and said, " Sire ! President Lincoln is assas-
sinated ! " The Czar leaped from his chair,
and exclaimed "Good God! that cannot be
so." When Mr. Kinney showed him the
telegram, he broke out into a fervid eulogy
of Lincoln and wept like a child. How little
he dreamed that the same diabohcal blow
was yet to strike down himself!

This afternoon I leave this delightful city
for Gothenburg by the Gotha Canal, which
traverses the finest scenery in Sweden. My
travelling-companion is to be Dr. S. F. Smith,
the author of "My country, 'tis of thee."
The venerable man is returning from a visit
to his son, a missionary in Burmah.

XXIII.

THE WARM HEARTS OF SWEDEN.

Qoihterimrg, July 8.

"IV /TY last letter did not by any means,
-^ ' -*■ exhaust the noticeable attractions of
Stockholm — a city that grew upon me every
hour. One afternoon I went over to the
" Mose-backe " an elevated public garden on
the island of " Sodermalm." This is a fa-
vorite resort of the citizens and affords one of
the finest outlooks of the Yenice of the
Korth. On my way thither I passed the
Hornsgatan, in which (at No. 43) the cele-
brated mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg long
resided. The house has been removed, but
the summer-house in the garden, — which was
the philosopher's favorite place of study — still
remains. There he saw visions and dreamed
dreams for many years; it is a sort of Mecca

250 The Nile to Norway.

for all members of the "New Jerusalem
Church " from various quarters of the globe.
But although Swedenborg was a native of
Stockholm and spent most of his life there,
he left but a handful ' of followers. His
mysticism was too impalpable for the solid
and devout sense of the Swedes; and they
were too well anchored in the knowledge
of Grod's Word to be led away by his phil-
osophical vagaries.

The hero of the popular worship in Swe-
den is a man of the very opposite stamp —
Gustavus Adolphus. In the very centre of
the city, mounted on his bronze war-horse,
stands the great Protestant leader, and on the
anniversary of the battle of Lutzen (in which
he fell) thousands of Swedes gather around
this statue and sing the noble war- ode
which he taught his soldiers. The old hero's
ashes sleep in 'the Riddarholm church, and
bear this happy inscription, "In angustiis in-
travit, pietatem amavit, hostes prostravit, regnum
dilatavit, succos exaltavit, oppresses liberavit,
moriens triumphavit." "He braved dangers.

The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 251

-^loved piety — overthrew his enemies — en-
larged his kingdom— exalted his nation —
liberated the oppressed, and triuinphed in
death." To him it is chiefly owing that
Sweden and Norway are to-day the most
intensely Protestant nations on the con-
tinent.

From the Mose-backe heights one gets a
fine view of the new National Museum,
which fronts the water on the Blaiseholmen
terrace. It is built of granite and marble
at a cost of over half a million of dollars.
The vestibule, which is flanked by colossal
statues of Odin, Thor, and Freya, is one
of the most imposing that I have seen in
Europe. In a long series of apartments
are exhibited the various relics of the abo-
rigines of Sweden. In one room are dis-
played the rehcs of the bronze age (three
centuries before the Christian era); of the
earlier iron age, a.d. 600; and of the later
iron age, from the sixth century to the
tenth. Other rooms contain an extensive
collection of ecclesiastical robes, censers,

252 The Nile to Norway.

chandeliers, and various religious vessels in
copper, silver, and gold. The history of
Sweden may be studied — as in a grand sys-
tem of object-teaching — ^in the halls of that
magnificent edifice. The collection of an-
tiquities has been largely increased by a
law which compels every finder of a val-
uable relic or curiosity to deposit it in
this Museum — its fuU value always being
paid in cash. In the Picture-gallery, I was
vastly more interested by the works of
Lindegren and the other artists who de-
pict Swedish life, than by all the importa-
tions of old Itahan masters. I had been
surfeited with " Holy Families " long before.
Another building in which all the Stock-
holmers take a just pride is the new Royal
Library on the Humlegarden Park. Among
the curiosities there is the "Codex Aureus,"
a Latin inanuscript of the Grospels in gilt
Gothic characters, and dating back to the
sixth century. There is also a copy of the
Bible which is claimed to be the hugest
inanuscript volume in the World. It is writ-

The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 253

ten on three hundred asses' hides, and cost
the labor of the monks in a Bohemian
monastery for four centuries. This monster
volume is over two feet in thickness and it
would tax a Constantinople porter to carry
it. There is a copy of the Vulgate with
abundant annotations in the handwriting of
Martin Luther; and in that Library I saw,
for the first time, one of the original books
printed by Faust himself. It is a well
printed copy of Cicero de Oflficiis and bears
the date, 1461.

Much as I was charmed with the scenery
of Stockholm and its historical relics I was
stiU more charmed with its people. Those
of my countrymen who met Fredrika Bre-
mer and Jenny Lind during their visits to
America, saw in them the type of character
which gives such attractiveness to Swedish
society.

I have come into contact with the warm
Christian hearts of this people during the
last ten days in a way that I shall grate-
fully remember to my dying hour. I had

254 The Nile to Norway.

heard of the evangelical awakening in Swe-
den during the last dozen years, but I was
not prepared to find so fervid an atmosphere
up in these regions bordering on the frozen
poles. During the week I have seen much
of such men as Professor Canute Broady,
Prof. Theodore Truve, Pastor Lindblom,
and Mr. Palmquist, the founder of Swedish
Sunday-schools. On Sabbath evening last
when I preached to a thronged audience in
the principal Baptist church, it reminded
me of a fervid revival service in America.
"The people want to hear about nothing
but Jesus," said Broady to me before I
began, and I tried not to disappoint them.
As the English sovereign is current coin in
every land, so the name that is above every
Qame is the key to every Christian heart
around the globe.

On Monday came the terrible tidings of
the attempt upon the life of our noble Pres-
ident. It produced a deep excitement over
all Sweden, for there is a peculiarly cordial
fellowship with a country to which forty

The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 255

thousand Scandinavians emigrate every year.
During this week it has been very easy to
recognize "the telegrams from Washington in
the Swedish daily papers — for they are print-
ed in bolder and more conspicuous type than
any other intelligence. The report of that
fiendish pistol has hterally been heard around
the world; from Christian America too, in a
time of peace, it has an awful reverberation.
What a volume of prayer is ascending heav-
enward that a life so precious may be spared !
My companion in Stockholm has been the
venerable Dr. S. F. Smith of Boston, the au-
thor of our national hymn, " My country, 'tis
of thee." He tells me, by the way, that he
wrote the lines now so famous while he was
a student at Andover, and at the request of
Lowell Mason — ^who asked him to compose
something that would go to the air of " God
save the King." Who changed the name of
the air to " America," I do not know. As
Dr. Smith and myself were to leave for Goth-
enburg on the same steamer — by the Gotha
Canal — the noble-hearted brethren offered us

256 The Nile to Norway.

the kind compliment of a farewell entertain-
ment. As we had prayed and sung together, it
was. arranged that we should break bread to-
gether; and a fine collation was spread at the
"King Charles Hotel." Many of the active
pastors of Stockholm, Christian laymen and
their wives were present, and farewell ad-
dresses were spoken that made our hearts
like water. Not content with this demon-
stration at the Hotel, our irrepressible friends
must needs accompany us to the Riddarholm
wharf to see us off. The little steamer was
packed with passengers, each of whom was
blessed with friends. So the wharf was black
with the people and white with waving hand-
kerchiefs. I really felt as if I had known
those loving friends for twenty years instead
of ten days; and up in this far-away land such
a demonstration of kindness iu the Master's
name was hke an added verse to the Epis-
tles of John the Beloved.

Steaming away from our friends on the
quay, we had a two hours' sail through beau-
tiful Lake Maelar; it is hned with the villas

The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 257

of the wealthy residents of Stockholm, as the
Hudson is lined with those of the millionaires
of New York. After leaving the Lake our
steamer threaded its way, during the night,
among the rocky islets in the Baltic. At
"Mem" the real canal commences; it is
about- fifty feet wide and ten feet deep, and
it ascends and descends seventy-four locks
between Stockholm and Grothenburg. After
a few miles of canal we entered Lake Roxen,
a charming sheet of water, in which we sailed
for an , hour. At the end of the Lake we
reach a series of locks, ascending like a stair-
way for nearly one hundred feet. The pas-
sengers all quit the boat for an hour's run
on shore, while the locking process goes on.
A charming tramp we have too, over fra-
grant clovers whose blossoms mingle with
daisies and a dozen varieties of flowers that
load the air with perfume. Some of us wan-
der off for half a mile to visit the ancient
Wreta church, in which three old Norse
Kings that died seven centuries ago lie bur-
ied. On our return to the boat, a Swedish

258 The Nile to Norway.

peasant girl brings us refreshing tumblers
of milk from a tidy farm-house. The peas-
antry are a hard-toiling, frugal set, who earn
a small return from their cold soil, but they
are a virtuous, church-going people, and m
sohd worth are not surpassed by the peas-
antry of any land.

The whole afternoon of Wednesday was
spent in alternate lake and canal until we
reached the thrifty iron-manufacturing town
of Motala. There we enter Lake Wetter, and
after a halt beside the old Castle of Wad-
stena — built by Gustavus Vasa in 1545 — we
cross the lake in half an hour to Carlsborg.
As we approach Carlsborg at ten o'clock, the
sun has just set, but it has left an afterglow
that fills the sky with brightness, and dyes
the placid waters of the lake with a crimson
glory. The light does not vanish away, even
at midnight, but hngers on until it meets the
day-dawn. The moon — almost full — instead
of rising up toward the zenith as she does
with us, turned backward and set below the
horizon at eleven o'clock. These singular

The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 259

celestial phenomena arise from the fact that
"we are so near to the Arctic circle and to
the region of perpetual day.

Yesterday morning found us sailing across
Lake Wenner, which is almost an hundred
mUes long. "We had a fifty miles' experience
of the lake and then entered the canal again
at Wennersburg. We were now approaching
the famous falls of Trolhattan, which are
fairly equal to our Trenton Falls, in wild and
picturesque beauty. While the boat is de-
scending the locks, we all sally off to see
the magnificent series of rapids and cascades,
which extend for a quarter of a mile. The
highest of the falls is about forty-four feet,
but the volume of the water is so large,
and the rocks throw such superb jets into
the air that the effect is like a section of the
Rapids of Niagara. Trolhattan signifies the
"home of the water witches," and surely
they could not have found a more bewitch-
ing abode. During the last four hours of our
trip, our little steamer was descending the
Gotha River. I had heard much in America

260 The Nile to Norway,

of the fascinating scenery on the Grotha Ca-
nal, and I acknowledge that it equalled my
highest expectations. It is a succession of
pictures for two and a half days that fill the
photograph -gallery of memory for a lifetime.
The Americans who consume aU their time
in Paris and on the Rhine make a sad mis-
take that they do not set their faces toward
such a city as Stockholm, , such scenery as
the banks of the "Gotha," and such a peo-
ple as these noble-hearted Scandinavians.

This morning found us at the wharf of
Gothenburg — the Liverpool of Sweden. It
is a busy city, and in its central square stands
the figure of its illustrious founder, Gustavus
Adolphus. This is the chief point of de-
parture for the forty thousand emigrants who
annually embark for America. My good
steamship, the "Romeo," lies yonder — with
steam up — for Hull and dear old England.
Several hundreds of emigrants are thronging
her forward decks; the wharf is crowded with
kinsfolk to bid them farewell; on their boxes
I see such names as "Michigan" and "Min-

The Warm Hearts of Sweden. 261

nesota." I do not wonder that many of
them are weeping; for after a fortnight's
sojourn in this land, I can hardly keep back
the tears at leaving the warm hearts of
Sweden.

XXIV.

THE GREENTH OF ENGLAND.

" The Ivy Souse," London, July 14.

A T Gothenburg I took the fine new steam-
-^^^ ship "Romeo," of Wilson's Line, for
Hull in England. We had a smooth passage
of forty-five hours, and the most luxurious
state-rooms I have found during my journey-
ings. Having passed forty-two nights in the
berths of steamers since I left New York —
often "shelved" on a narrow board that sug-
gested the processes of an undertaker — I am
happy to pay this grateful tribute to the
sleep-inspiring comforts of the Romeo. We
ran up the Humber, which looks like pea-
soup, against a strong tide, and I felt a
buoyant thrill when my feet stood again on
English soil.

Hull was interesting to me as the birth-

262

The Greenth of England. 263

place of William Wilberforce, and as the
town in which my beloved friend Rev. New-
man Hall (during his early ministry) wrote
his world-known "Come to Jesus." It was
first suggested to him by hearing a group
of primitive Methodists singing, at a meeting
in the open street, the simple revival ditty
of "Come to Jesus just now." To write
that blessed little guide to inquiring souls
was glory enough for one lifetime. I easily
found the ancient smoky mansion in which the
noble "Wilberforce first saw the light; for it
is now used for law offices, and is called the
" Wilberforce Building." There is also a
lofty monument to the Emancipator in the
heart of the city.

I have had many a charming ride through
the greenth of old England in the summer;
but never one that equalled my ride this
week on the Midland road through York-
shire, Derbyshire, Leicester, Rutland, North-
ampton and Bedfordshire up to London.
The day was perfect; the summer sun abso-
lutely glorified the verdant fields, and hedge-

264 The Nile to Norway.

rows, and lawns, and groves of oak; the
beauty of the scenery almost blinded me!
As we passed through the sweet emerald
valley of the Ouse, the air was perfumed
with the memories of Cowper and Newton
and Legh Richmond. Then we ran into Bed-
ford where Bunyan dreamed the wondrous
dream. That day was one unbroken festival
of eye and soul; and after ah. I had seen
in the Orient, and the Tyrol, and the North-
ern lands, I said to myself — " The paradise
of rural beauty is to be found in Shake-
speare's and Milton's England."

A great many elements enter into the com-
position of an English landscape. In the
first place the Creator gave our British an-
cestors a goodly heritage of mingled hiUs
and vales and running streams that are
blended together after the most perfect ideal.
Then he bestowed a climate so mild and yet
so moist that the foliage and the grass are
kept up to the color of a deep emerald
during the largest portion of the year. Such
midsummer droughts as we suffer are very

The Greenth of England. 265

rare in this climate. For five centuries cul-
tivation has been busy upon these charming
fields, — planting hedges, and trimming them,
grouping trees for picturesque effect, building
walls, turning vraste places into gardens, and
so beautifying every acre that as Emerson
says, " England is finished with a pencil in-
stead of a plough." An universal taste for
flowers prevails; in the humblest cottage-win-
dows are boxes of scarlet geraniums; over
almost every doorway climb flowering plants,
and as for the rural railway-stations they
are an horticultural show. Every .station-
master would seem to be a florist. It made
me ashamed of the forlorn shabbiness that
surrounds most of the railway depots in my
own land.

Nature has done wonders for the English
landscapes, and art has wrought in harmony.
Fere an old Gothic church lifts its tower
amid the oaks; there an Elizabethan man-
sion heads an ascending lawn; there a grace-
ful bridge of stone arches some clear silvery
Avon or Dee or Trent; even if a cottage be

266 The Nile to Norway.

two centuries old it wears its thatched crown
gracefully. To this perfection of rural love-
liness our mother country has arrived after
twenty generations have expended their ut-
most toil, and taste and skiU.

One shadow is beginning to spread over
this sunny picture. The "landed interest"
of G-reat Britain is becoming involved in pe-
cuniary difficulties and embarrassments that
threaten ruin to niany landlords, and have
already driven some into bankruptcy. For
many years land increased in value until
it was regarded as the most profitable iand
secure of investments. But the immense
importation of breadstuff's and beef and ba-
con from American prairies has so dimin-
ished the profits of British agriculture that
the farmer and the land-owner are ahke the
sufferers. Rents are coming down. Farm-
.'ng lands have lost thirty :and often forty
per cent of their value. Added to this has
been an almost uniform succession of bad
harvests. Many of the great estates are
embarrassed with mortgages and other liens

The Greenth of England. 267

upon the land; and under these accumulated
difficulties ancient families of the "gentry"
are forced to sell off the manor-houses in
which their ancestors have dwelt for many
generations. To-day the most urgent and
exciting questions, not only in Ireland but
in England too, are those which concern
the ownership and the pecuniary manage-
ment of aU ■ those beautiful green acres on
which my eyes feasted with such delight.

As I passed through the very heart of
England on my way from Hull, I could
not but think how rich had been the men-
tal and spiritual harvests gathered from those
old historic fields ! Nearly every town has
placed books in our libraries, or in some
way enriched our memories. When I read
the name of "Kettering" on the station-
sign I thought of old Andrew Fuller's eight
volumes of solid theology. Northampton
suggested Doddridge and his " Rise and
Progress." At Bedford I was in the birth-
place of both John Howard and the "Pil-
grim " of John Bunyan. Not far away were

268 The Nile to Norway.

the green fields where Cowper mused over
the "Task" and the "Ohiey Hymns." Kob-
ert Hall, Lord Macaulay, Marvell, and Kirke
White had all been born and reared in the
regions through which we ran; and from
amid the smoke of Sheffield had come forth
the musical notes of Elliott and Montgom-
ery. All these memories added new charms
to the verdant landscape that smiled under
the summer sun.

I was glad to reach London in time for
the annual gathering of the friends of Tem-
perance at the Sydenham Crystal Palace.
On Wednesday about fifty thousand mem-
bers of the various organizations — Templars,
Bands of Hope, the League and the "AlU-
ance," with numberless badges and banners
— swarmed in the Palace and the surrounding
Park. Sir Wilfrid LawsOn, the champion of
the Local Option movement in Parliament,
presided at the meeting in the great music-
hall and made a capital speech. He is a
man of ready wit and indomitable persever-
ance. I feel quite sure that somewhere in

The Greenth of England. 269

an English quarry is the stone which shall
yet buUd to Sir Wilfrid a monument as well
deserved as that of Wilberforce at Hull.
After his speech I was called on to say a
few words for America and the only thing
I shall ngte here was the tremendous cheer-
ing that followed my mention of the name
of President Garfield. The whole audience
rose, and fairly shook the building with the
roar. You can hardly conceive in America
what a profound and universal feeling has
been aroused throughout Great Britain by
that fiendish assault on the hfe of our Presi-
dent. It renews and repeats the days in
1865, when Lincoln fell under the assassin's
pistol. From the throne to the cottage one
deep, heartfelt sympathy and righteous indig-
nation has been awakened.

Returning to town with Sir "WUfrid I
found him greatly encouraged by the pro-
gress of temperance sentiment in Britain.
Especially is the movement spreading among
the churches and the more influential classes.
For several days I hope to enjoy the pure

270 The Nile to Norway.

air and outlook of this Hampstead Hill on
which my brother Newman Hall's "Ivy
House " is situated. He resides five miles
from his church (on Westminster Road) in
order to obtain wholesome air and quiet.
From my window I can see colossal London
spreading away for twelve miles toward the
south ! The roar of its life — ^with four and ■
a half millions of souls — ^is like the roar of
Niagara.

XXV.

DRIVES ABOUT LONDON.

Sampstead BiM, July 18.

A LTHOUGH I have visited London sev-
•^^^ eral times during the last thirty
years, I never before had such an ade-
quate conception of its enormous magnitude.
It is really a dozen cities rolled into one.
The residents of "Hoxton" know as little
of those who live in the district of " Clap-
ham," several miles away, as the people of
Brooklyn do of the dwellers in Newark, Kew
Jersey. I am staying up here on cool,
breezy Hampstead HiU — so near to the
country that we can look out over green
fields to Harrow. Turning southward, we
look toward St. Paul's lofty dome, and in
that direction, for many miles we see the
smoking chimneys of the mighty metropolis.

271

272- The Nile to Norway.

It grows at the rate of 100,000 inhabitants
each year !

This part of the city is rich in historical
memories. Once Hampstead and Highgate
were clear out of town. I passed yesterday
a gin-palace that stands on the site of the
house to which poor Steele (one of the au-
thors of the "Spectator") used to flee out
of London to hide from his creditors. Mr.
Hall drove me the other evening through
Highgate, which was a rural suburb forty
years ago. We passed the former residences
of Lord Erskine, the king of British lawyers,
and of Lord Mansfield, the king of British
judges. A httle farther on we passed the
modest brick house in which Coleridge
dreamed away the closing years of his hfe.
Thither came Charles Lamb and jOarlyle to
hear the old poet-philosopher harangue by
the hour. Five minutes walk brings you to
a two-story mansion called Landerdale House;
there lived the notorious Nell Gwynn, and
thither came that royal rake Charles II. to
pay her clandestine visits.

Drives about London. 273

Exactly opposite this dwelling of a king's
mistress, stands " Cromwell House," which
the great Protector built for his son-in-law,
Ireton. The stairway is very broad, and
rich iu carved woods; up it the iron heel of
the greatest ruler England ever had, has
tramped many a time. A few rods from
Lauderdale House are three stone steps left
beside the pavement; they are all that is
left of the residence of Andrew Marvell, the
grand old poet of Puritanism. They lead
also to that "Garden" about which he
penned this exquisite poem.

"What wondrous life is this I lead I
Bipe apples drop aboat my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarine and curious peach
Into my hands themselyejs do reach:
Stumbling on melons as I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I &11 on grass.

"Here at this fountain's sliding foot,
Or at the fruit tree's mossy root.
Casting the body's vest aside.
My sonil into, the hcmqhs does glide.

274 The Nile to Norway.

There like a bird it sits and sings,
And whets and claps its silver wings;
And, tiU prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

•'How well the sWlful gard'ner drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial true !
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes his time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers ! "

I set my foot on those three steps with
reverence, for the feet of Ohver Cromwell
and of John Milton had often trod there.
But what a combination of names in one
spot — Cromwell and Charles Stuart — MUton
and Nell' G-wynn!

On our homeward way we passed an inn
called the " Spaniard," and attached to it is
a small building looking like a porter's lodge.
That was a favorite spot with Dr. Johnson
when he used to come out of busy London
to the rural regions of Hampstead Hill;
since his day that diminutive room has echoed

Drives about London. 275

to the merriment of Charles Lamb, Charles
Dickens, and many another literary celebrity.
As we came opposite an old mansion half-
hidden among the trees, Mr. Hall pointed to
a projecting bay-window in the second story
and said, ' ' When the Earl of Chatham was
suffering from a severe mental depression
he was brought to that house, and for weeks
he sat in that bay-window looking out upon
these trees." And so every rood of our drive
brought us in contact with some spot asso-
ciated with the most illustrious names in
English history and letters.

On Thursday we drove down to Hyde
Park at the hour when all the rank and fash-
ion there do congregate. We found the
great drive was being kept clear by police-
men, and it was lined by an expectant crowd.
Presently her Majesty Queen Victoria ap-
peared, in her royal coach and four, and
attended by the splendid retinue of Life-
Guards. The Queen has become very stout,
and the fair brown hair is turning gray. The
royalest thing about her is her pure, kind,

276 The Nile to Norway.

exemplary womanhood. She was on her
way to a garden-party at the Prince of
Wales's Marlborough House, and we drove
down there to see some of the " high-bloods "
arrive and depart. Among them was the
oelebrg,ted beauty, Lady Dudley; she is cer-
tainly very fair and comely, but I could
easily find her match in Brooklyn.

From thence we went to the Metropolitan
Tabernacle to hear Mr. Spurgeon deliver his
Thursday Evening lecture. It was a hot
week-day evening in midsummer, and yet
over two thousand people were present!
Mr. Spurgeon is now in vigorous health, and
gave us a capital extemporaneous talk upon
Bzekiel xlvii. 11. During his lecture he told
a racy anecdote about a quack inventor of
a cough-medicine, and he mimicked the fel-
low's cough ao weU that it created some
merriment. But the discourse was exceed-
ingly pungent, and close to the conscience.
After service I had a pleasant chat with
him, and hope to spend part of Saturday
with him at his, house near Sydenham Palace.

Drives about London. 277

Our next drive was to Parliament. There
was a tolerably full House, and the Irish
Land biU was under discussion in Committee
of the whole. John Bright spoke briefly; the
ruddy cheeks of the great Commoner bespeak
good health, and his hair is as white as
snow. During a brief talk with him in
the lobby I ventured to say to him that the
greatest mistake of his life was his refusal
of the invitation of our Government to visit
America after our civil war. Much of the
debate was conducted by the Irish members
— the irrepressible ParneU speaking very
often. Mr. Gladstone came in late,- attired
in a full suit of gray, and looking very hap-
py as he greeted his ministerial colleagues.
But the tedious pettifogging of the Irish
members presently aroused him, and he rose
and let fly a most indignant rebuke. The
greatest of living statesmen is full of fire, and
is good for another ten years of public service.

On Saturday we went to Putney — near
which the University boat-race is always run
— to attend the opening of a new wing of

278 The Nile to Norway.

the " Royal Hospital for Incurables." The
country around Putney is charming, and
the Hospital stands in a velvet park, such
as verdant England only can boast. The
lions on the occasion were Prince Arthur
and his royal wife; they are known as Duke
and Duchess of Connaught. The band of
the Coldstream Guards gave us capital mu-
sic, and the audience were addressed by the •
Prince in a very fluent and excellent speech.
His young wife — who was dressed with ex-
cessive and becoming plainness — sat by a
table and received the donations which were
handed to her by the guests, as they filed
along. Over $20,000 was handed in! The
Prince presided at the luncheon in a large
tent, and gave us another good speech. He
looks exceedingly like his royal mother.

Yesterday was a bright, golden Sabbath.
As my dear friend, Mr. Hall, had given up
his week to me, it was but fair that I should
preach for him. " Christ Church, Westmin-
ster," is a noble edifice and its tall Lincoln
Tower is conspicuous over all of southern

Drives about London. 279

London. In the audience yesterday I rec-
ognized that eminent Christian philanthropist,
the Hon. Samuel Morley, Member of Parlia-
ment. Mr. Morley will visit our country in
August, and is sure of a hearty reception.
He stood by us manfully during our war.
Adjoining Rev. Newman Hall's church is
" Hawkestone Hall," which he uses for his
prayer-meetings and Sunday-school. They
have also several mission-schools. The sing-
ing yesterday was admirable — being con-
ducted by a choir of forty persons, and in
the hymns the congregation joined. Brother
Hall — although a Congregationalist — contin-
ues to use the hturgy which his predecessor,
Rowland HiU, introduced. He is the one
clergyman in England who always prays for
our President and for the "people of the
United States of America." With what deep
feehng did the large assembly join in the
prayer for our beloved Garfield yesterday !
Between the services at Christ Church I
went over to Westminster Abbey, where, at
3 o'clock, the Bishop of Kentucky dehvered

280 The Nile to Norway.

a very eloquent discourse. After the ser-
vice the chorister lifted the mat on the cen-
tral aisle of the Abbey that I might see the
tomb of the heroic missionary to Africa, David '
Livingstone. I had a few words with Canon
Farrar, whom I hope to hear next Sabbath.
He is a tall, muscular man, with genial face
and ringing voice. Calling to leave our cards
at the Deanery, we were saddened to learn
that Dean Stanley was worse, and grave
apprehensions are felt in regard to his sit-
uation. The death of Dean Stanley would
be a calamity not only to Britain, but to
alt Christendom. I loved him more than
ever when I looked yesterday at the tablet
to John and Charles Wesley, which he had
erected in Westminster Abbey.

It contains the medallion portraits of the
twain founders of Methodism. Beneath a
bas-relief--- representing John Wesley as
preaching to a crowd of Cornish miners —
is the inscription "the whole world is my
parish." At the foot of the tablet are his
last wo;cds— "Best of all, God is with us."

XXVI.

CAMBRIDGE— THE SAVOY— MR. SPURGEON.

Zondon, July 25.

C~\^ Wednesday I took a delightful run
^-^ to Cambridge. My first point was to
visit Christ Church College, at the farther
end of whose velvet grounds stands the mul-
berry-tree which Milton planted. They have
heaped a mound around the veteran's trunk
and propped up his limbs, but the leaves
show no signs of withering. Thence I went
to feast my eyes once more on the exquisite
tracery in the stone roof of King's College
Chapel — the gem of Gothic art. But oh!
what a vision of loveliness is the park of
Trinity College, with its emerald turf, and
lofty oaks, and winding river Cam! Under
those shades strolled Henry Martyn and his
friend Charles Simeon; among the graduates

281

282 The Nile to Norway.

of this famous college were Lord Bacon, Sir
Isaac Newton, Byron and Macaulay. The
chapel had just been locked up, but one of
the servants admitted me by a back-door,
and I found myself in an apartment where
Bacon, Whewell and Macaulay in solid mar-
ble, were seated side by side. Bacon sat
with uplifted head as if meditating the
"Novum Organum"; Prof WheweU was
seemingly busy over a mathematical prob-
lem, and Lord Macaulay was thrusting- his
fingers into a volume whose marble leaves
were a happy emblem of the immortality
of his own History of England. I peeped
into the great dining-hall, whose walls are
lined with the portraits of illustrious gradu-
ates; across the passageway came savory
odors from the huge kitchens. In the Uni-
versity library is the "Codex Beza" ; on its
wall hangs the sweet boyish face of Henry
Martyn; I found WiUiam Pitt's room up in
"Pembroke," but I was sorry that I could
not find the room in which young Oliver
Cromwell put on his armor for a conflict

Cambridge — Mr. Spurgeon. 283

■with tyranny which gave and received ' ' no
quarter."

London overflows with history at every
turn. Every time I walk down the hill to
the Underground Railway Station I pass a
seat on which poor Keats often sat, and
a row of trees under which he loved to walk
in melancholy reverie. The other day I
turned out of Fleet Street into Bolt Court,
to find the house of Dr. Samuel Johnson. A
well-dressed youth of seventeen said to me
gravely, ' ' Up at the head of the Court in
Grough Square is the house in which Dr.
Johnson used to hve, but I don't know just
where lie lives now." The poor fellow looked
a Uttle sheepish when he read the inscription
on the front of an old brick house — ' ' Dr.
Johnson once hved herej he died a. d. 1784."

The Thames embankment is now the finest
drive and promenade in the city. Upon one
side of it, in a most unfavorable position,
stands the Egyptian obelisk — the twin of
ours in Central Park. I walked along the
embankment, among the trees and flowers,

284 The Nile to Norway.

until I came to the statue of Robert Raikes
— which was erected last year, by the friends
of Sunday -Schools. The benefactor of the
httle ones will soon find himself in good
company, for it is proposed to place quite
near him, a statue of John Wycliff, the morn-
ing star of the Reformation. As I turned
off the embankment towards the Strand, I
discovered, on my left, a small burial-ground,
and just beside it a quaint stone church with
a stumpy tower. Inquiring of a passer-by
what it was, he informed me that it was
the old church of "The Savoy." Happy in-
deed I was to find that the march of improve-
ment which is sweeping away so many land-
marks, had spared' this choice bit of antiquity.
Away ba9k in the reign of King Henry the
Third, the famous Savoy Palace stood on that
spot. Edward the Black Prince brought the
King of France there as a captive in 1356;
John of Gaunt lived there; and during his
residence the poet Chaucer was married there
to a lady in the household of the Duchess
of Lancaster. Stow tells us that no house

Cambridge — Mr. Spurgeon. 285

" in the realm could be compared to it in
beauty and stateliness." Wat Tyler's rebels
burnt the palace, but Henry VIT. rebuilt it
as a hospital. After the restoration, of
Charles II. the celebrated Savoy Conference
was held in that building, for the revision
of the Liturgy. Episcopalians and Noncon-
formists joined in the work, and Richard
Baxter drew up, in a few days, that reformed
Liturgy which Dr. Johnson pronounced one
of the finest compositions of the kind he
had ever seen.

Of all these five centuries of history the
httle church of "St. Mary le Savoy" is the
successor and survivor. Thomas Fuller, one
of the wittiest and most original of British
authors held the weekly lectureship of the
Savoy in the days of Charles First and has
added the fragrance of his genius to the
savory memories which cling around the
quaint old structure. Few places in London
carry one farther back into the shadows of
the past than this. The turmoil and traffic
of the Strand were roaring within a few

286 The Nile to Norway.

yards of me; but in that quiet side-nook I
seemed to be stLU in company with the chiv-
alrous Black Prince, with Master Chaucer
and his bride, and with the godly men who
gathered around Richard Baxter to shape the
petitions of the English Church. Perhaps
two or three centuries hence some tourist
from Japan may explore Trinity Church in
New York with the same interest that I
visited the ancient "Savoy."

Before I dismiss these historical explora-
tions let me say that I paid a visit to Ab-
ney Park Cemetery the burial place of fa-
mous Nonconformists. Dr. Thomas Binney
slumbers there, and Dr. Raleigh, and Sir
Charles Reed, and John Vine Hall, the au-
thor of the "Sinner's Friend." It was once
the private park of the Sir Thomas Abney
whom Dr. Watts went to visit, and the visit
was protraoted to twenty or thirty years.
In one corner of the park is a mound of
earth sheltered by a spreading tree; a gran-
ite tablet bears this inscription "This was a
favorite retirement of Dr. Isaac "Watts."

Cambridge — Mr. Spurgeon. 287

c

There the pensive bachelor loved to read
and meditate, and there he composed some
of his immortal hymns.

I cannot get accustomed yet to the loss of
"Temple Bar," and that frightful object, like
a witch of Endor which has taken its place,
is no improvement. But a change for the
better is the removal of the Young Men's
Christian Association from their old and
cramped quarters in Aldersgate Street to the
spacious Exeter Hall in the Strand. The
original rooms are indeed still used, but
the Exeter Hall is now the headquarters
of this world-known organization. A con-
venient chapel for prayer-meetings and Bible-
class infetruction has been constructed; a fine
reading-room and tea-room are across the
main hall; a gymnasium is on the lower
floor, and up on the second floor still re-
mains that celebrated Hall (capable of hold-
ing three thousand) which has rung with
the eloquence of Guthrie, G-avazzi, Gough,
Beecher, Spurgeon and the most noted plat-
formers of the last forty years.

288 The Nile to Norway.

9

Saturday afternoon was the most thor-
oughly enjoyable one I have spent m Eng-
land. Mr. Hall drove me through South
London to the beautiful viUa of Mr. Spurgeon
at Upper Norwood, near the Sydenham Crys-
tal Palace. Mr. Spurgeon purchased it a
year ago in exchange for his house at Clap-
ham; and it is a rural paradise. The great
preacher, with a jovial countenance came out
of his door with both hands outstretched to
give us welcome. Saturday afternoon is his
holiday. For an hour he conducted us over
his delightful grounds, and through his gar-
den and conservatory, and then to a rustic
arbor, where he entertained us with one
of his racy talks which are as characteristic
as his sermons. It may be no breach of
privacy to give his estimate of the New Re-
vision, which he pronounces a most valuable
help to the study of the New Testament, but
needing to be itself somewhat revised be-
fore it can come into universal use. He em-
phatically approves of the suggestions of the
American revisers, and regrets that they had

Cambridge — Mr. Spurgeon. 289

not been generally adopted by their English
associates. This feeling is expressed by many
eminent clergymen whom I meet here.

Mr. Spurgeon's study is a charming- apart-
ment opening out on his lawn; the view ex-
tends for twelve miles to Epsom Downs. His
parlor too is lined with elegant volumes. He
showed us with great glee a portfolio of
caricatures of himself; and then by way of
contrast, a series of translations of his ser-
mons in various foreign tongues. His comely
wife — ^for a long time a suflfering invalid-
presided at the table with grace and sweet-
ness; their twin sons have already entered
the ministry, one in London and the other
now in New Zealand. It was six o'clock
on Saturday when we bade him ' ' good bye, "
and he assured us that he had not yet selected
even the texts for his next day's discourses !
"I shall go down in the garden presently,"
said he, "and arrange my morning discourse
and choose a text for that in the evening;
then to-morrow afternoon, before preaching,
I wiU make an outline of the second one."

290 The Nile to Norway.

This is quite in conformity with his custom
of preparing his discourses. He selects his
text — often towards the close of Saturday
— and devotes a half hour to arranging his
heads or divisions, and jotting them down
on a small bit of paper. Two of these out-
hnes which he gave to me, are written on
the backs of letter-envelopes. He told us
that he ' ' would rather be hung than attempt
to write a sermon" and that he had never
pre-composed a single sentence before . enter-
ing the pulpit. "If I had a month given
me to prepare a sermon" said he, "I would
spend thirty days and twenty-three hours on
something else, and in the last hour I would
make the sermon. If • I could not do it in
an hour I could not do it in a month." This
is certainly a remarkable mental habit and
one which none of the rest of us had better
try to imitate. But it must also be borne
in mind that Mr. Spurgeon is a perpetual
student. If he spends but a few moments
in arranging a discourse, he spends much
of each week in the most thorough and

Cambridge — Mr. Spurgeon. 291

prayerful study of God's Word and in dili-
gent reading of the richest writers (especially
of the Puritan era), on theology and experi-
mental religion. He is all the time filling
up his cask, and when the emergency comes
he has only to turn the spigot and draw.
It is not easy to exhaust a man who is
always filling his head and heart from God's
inexhaustible reservoir. Mr. Spurgeon was
never more fertilizing in his ministry than
he is at present; the two discourses which
he delivered on the day after we visited him
were up to his highest mark. I parted from
hiTn with fresh gratitude for seeing once more
the man who, by tongue and pen, has brought
the precious gospel to more souls than any
man since the days of the Apostles.

XXVII.

DEAN STANLEY.

London, July, 25.

A WEEK ago yesterday, after the second
•*-^ service in Westminster Abbey, I went
through to the door of the Deanery, to in-
quire after the Dean and to leave a mes-
sage for him. No one felt any uneasiness
about him, and a few moments previously
Canon Farrar had told me that he was do-
ing well. Just as we reached the door a
bulletin was posted up that unfavorable
sjrmptoms had set in and grave apprehen-
sions were entertained as to the issue.
"Ah!" said Newman Hall to me, "our
good friend, the Dean, is going to die."
The next night, before the clock struck
twelve, he was dead !

The whole nation was shocked and sad-

Dean Stanley. 293

dened to the heart; for on many accounts
Dean Stanley was the best-loved man in
the Church of England. He was the per-
sonal friend of the Queen, the tutor of the
Prince Royal, the advocate of cordial fel-
lowship among all denominations, the most
simple, modest, and afiectionate great man
in the realm. His genius everybody ad-
mired; but his pure, sweet character every-
body loved. So, for a week past great
preparations have been making to give to
the good Dean's remains such a burial cer-
emony as should bespeak the nation's af-
fection and be worthy of the guardian of
the great Abbey. The ■ services reaUy began
yesterday morning, with an eloquent sermon
by Canon Farrar, in which he extolled the
moral courage of the Dean in standing by
his honest convictions. In the afternoon I
found the choir of the Abbey packed, and
the adjoining transepts also. Presently Dr.
Vaughan, the Dean of Llandaflf and preacher
in the Temple Church, ascended the pulpit
so long occupied by bis beloved friend, Stan-

294 The Nile to Norway.

ley. Vaughan and Stanley were classmates
at Rugby under Dr. Arnold, and their in-
timacy was very deep and cordial. It was
a very trying occasion for Dr. Yaughan,
and when he announced that he would
preach on the very text that Dean Stan-
ley had selected for his next discourse
there he .was very much overcome. It was
a happy text for the hour: " Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they shaU see Qod."
The famous preacher of the Temple is a
fine, manly speaker and his style is almost
perfect; so the discourse was a model fu-
neral tribute. He happily said that Stanley
had given perpetuity to Dr. Arnold's fame
by writing his biography, and to Dr. Ar-
nold's system of teaching by a Uving illus-
tration of its beauty. In dwelling on the
certainty of immortality, Dr. Yaiighan ex-
claimed, with impassioned fervor: " Oh !
what a wanton waste it were if such an
intellect as Arthur Stanley's were destroyed ! "
The discourse was heard with deep emotion,
and when it was through many of the au-

Dean Stanley. 295

dieiice, doubtless, said to themselves: "There
stands the man to be the neoct Dean of
Westminster." ^

To-day, at four o'clock, the funeral service
took place. Around the Abbey a vast mul-
titude had assembled; not merely attracted
by curiosity, for the Dean was a great fa-
vorite with the working classes. Thousands
had applied for tickets of admission, and by
the kindness of Canon Farrar and the timely
attentions of one of the subordinates I se-
cured an excellent seat in the front of the
gallery over the Poet's Corner. It com-
manded a view of the whole ceremonies.
Immediately below me was the tomb of Lord
Macaulay, with its well-known inscription:
"His body is buried in peace and his name
liveth for evermore." Sir Charles Trevelyan,
the biographer of the great historian, was
among the group of mourners. Beside Ma-
caulay he Campbell and Dickens, and upon
them looks down the statue of Shakespeare.

1 Dr. Yaughan afterwards declined the honor when offered
to him.

296 The Nile to Norway.

The crowd in the Abbey was prodigious.
Many of the guests chmbed on the monu-
ments, to witness the ceremonies. After long
and patient waiting, we heard the funeral
anthem sounding through the nave, and pres-
ently the procession entered. It contained
the foremost living men of England. The
heir to the throne marched in and occupied
the pew of his old tutor, who was lying in
the coffin before him. Upon the coffin were
wreaths of "immortelles," and white flowers
from the "Westminster school boys, and a
handful of Chinese roses from the Queen her-
self. The venerable Archbishop of Canter-
bury was ui the line. Lord Shaftesbury, and
Lord Houghton, and Tyndall, and Browning,
and the Bishop of Peterborough. The coffin
was borne by the same hands that had car-
ried the Dean's beloved wife. Lady Augusta,
to her burial, in Henry the Seventh's Chapel.
It was set down before the pulpit in which
the Dean had stood a few days before.

By the foot of the coffin the most con-
spicuous figure was William E. Gladstone.

Dean Stanley. 297

He was called away before the service was
over, and hastened to the House of Com-
mons. (The pilot cannot leave the helm
while the ship of state is off that Irish lee
shore.) The funeral miisic to-day was sol-
emn and subhme. Its rich strains swelled
and roUed among the lofty arches with pro-
digious grandeur. Then the deep tones of
the "Dead March" were heard, and the pro-
cession formed again. The body of Arthur
Stanley was taken up and tenderly car-
ried over those historic stones, which he
himself had trodden so often and so long.
He was to be laid among the great, in his
death.

With slow and measured tread, they bore
him past the tomb of Dryden. Old Spenser,
and Ben Jonson, and the author of the ' ' El-
egy in a Country Churchyard " were sleep-
ing close by. A little further on, they passed
the tomb of Edward the Confessor. The
heir to the Confessor's throne was in the
procession, and the descendants too of many
a great warrior who lay in silent stone efBgy

298 The Nile to Norway.

on those monuments. Gradually the line
passed on and on among the columns, until
it entered the door of Henry the Seventh's
Chapel and disappeared from my view.

As I looked at the dark-palled cofl&n, with
its fragrant burden of flowers, vanishing out
of sight I felt a peculiar grief; for, — wide as
were our differences of opinion on some vital
points of doctrine — ^the Dean had heen to me
a very kind and beloved friend. I had broken
bread with him in his hospitable home. I
had enjoyed with him a memorable visit to
the Jerusalem Chamber; and on his last day
in America he had gone with me to Green.-
wood and had asked me to conduct him to
the grave of Dr. Edward Robinson, and to
the spot where slumbers my own beloved
child. A few years ago, a corres_pondence
passed between us which only heightened my
esteem for both his meekness, and his man-
liness. Amid all the adulations of court and
aristocracy he never lost the devout simpli-
city of a minister of the living God. A gen-
tler, sweeter, and more unselfish Heart I have

Dean Stanley. 299

seldom known; and no man has been laid to
his rest amid more sincere lamentations, in all
this realm, for many a year than Arthur
Penrhyn Stanley. Of him too it may be
said that his body is buried in peace, but his
name doth hve on for evermore.

XXVIII.

THE DRINK-QUESTION IN MANY LANDS.

London, My 27.

" Ty^'EBP your ^eye upon the drink-ques-
-■- ^ tion wherever you go " was a coun-
sel which I did not need, for I have always
made this a matter of careful observation
when travelling in foreign lands. A con-
firmed teetotaler from my youth I shall
return home with increased convictions that
the practice of total abstinence from all in-
toxicants is a wise, practice for all ages, climes,
and conditions. Some Americans who do not
habitually use wines or brandies at home,
Kecome so alarmed at the idea that the water
in certain countries will work them mischief
that they do not risk the experiment of using
it, and begin at once to take a little wine —
or more — "for their stomach's sake." Hav-

300

The Drink-Question. 301

ing none of these imaginary fears, I liave
adhered to that honest wholesome beverage
that the Creator has provided for every ani-
mate creature that flies the heavens, walks
the earth, or swims the sea. On every steam-
er and in nearly every hotel a "wine list"
has been placed before me. But I have
steadily adhered to beverages guiltless of
alcohol, and have found that pure water —
whether it were the Nile-water of Egypt,
or the rain-water of Jerusalem, or the ac-
queduct-water of Athens, or the water of
every land from the Mediterranean to the
Baltic, was perfectly adapted to my constitu-
tion — and by-laws also. I am not alone in
this testimony; for I had two feUow- travellers
in the Orient who had adhered to their tee-
totahsm in India as rigidly as they did in
Palestine. But I did not discover that total-
abstainers travel "in regiments."

In Egypt and throughout the Levant the
conscientious Mussulmen obey the restrictions
of the Koran and avoid the use of wine.
Some of the looser sort break the rules of

302 The Nile to Norway.

the Prophet; a gentleman in Jaffa told me
that there was an increasing tendency there
to tippling. In the main, the Moslems are
abstinent. The Copts in Egypt frequently
use "arrack" — a spirituous liquor distilled
from grapes, or fermented rice or palm-juice,
and at their evening meals often drink to ex-
cess. The first town in the East which I found
to be cursed with ubiquitous dram-shops and
drenched in strong drink was Port Said.
That is a sea -port, conglomerated of aU
nationahties, and is an exotic on Egyptian
soU.

In Palestine and Syria the people (who
are not Mohammedans) — almost universally
use the native wines, which are abundant,
cheap, and contain but a small percentage
of alcohol. Some of the poorer Jews in Je-
rusalem, who are unable to purchase wine
for the Passover, are in the habit of boiling
raisins anti extracting a simple unfermented
drink which they use at the Paschal feast.
They always ask a blessing on it as " the
frwii of the vineJ' The mild drink thus made

Egyptian Water Vender.

Nile to Norway.

The Drink-Question. 303

will not keep long, and it is not mucli used
as a beverage. Several syrups are made
from the grape, which are brought on the
table as maple-syrup is in Yermont or mo-
lasses on the breakfast-tables of boarding-
schools. There is very Uttle drunkenness in
Palestine. Bishop Barclay told me that the
only time at which the Jews in Jerusalem
get exhilarated is at the Feast of Purim.
Then it is regarded as a meritorious act to
get so "fuddled" that a man does not know
the difference between " blessed be Haman ! "
and "cursed be Mordecai!"

At Ephesus, I saw a company of Greeks
and Syrians carousing in a dram-shop, and
the Greeks throughout the Orient are some-
times hard drinkers. After I reached Inns-
pruck and began to encounter the social
usages, I" soon saw that I was regarded with
some astonishment because I did not, at the
table, order either wine or beer. The con-
sumption of beer in Austria, Germany, and
Denmark, is almost as general as the use of
cold-water in American farm-houses. I saw

304 The Nile to Norway.

only one person intoxicated, and that was in
the streets of Prague, — where a well-dressed
man was reeling on -the sidewalk. But be-
cause I observed no public exhibitions of
drunkenness it does not follow that drunken-
ness does not exsist in G-ermany. On the
contrary, there is a great deal of intemper-
ance among the Germans; and the enormous
use of beer not only involves an enormous
waste of money among the working classes,
but also leads to the use of distilled liquors.
I learn that last year a noteworthy debate
touching this subject occurred in the German
ParUament at Berlin. It was on a proposi-
tion to tax the retailing of beer, wine, and
stronger liquors. The proposition was made
by the Government, and, as the Finance Min-
ister said, not so much for the purpose of rais-
ing revenue, as of restricting the sale of bever-
ages, the , excessive use of which was injuring
the health and morals of the people, and
creating amongst the most intelligent and
thoughtful observers no little apprehension
concerning the future prosperity of the State.

The Drink-Question. 305

In the German cities the beer-gardens are
not only associated with a fearful desecration
of the Sabbath, but in too many cases, the
beer-shop is the fruitful source of the worst
forms of profligacy. A well-informed writer
for Scribner's Monthly declares that —

"The curse of Berlin is its ten thousand beer and wine
cellars, hidden away in subterranean retreats, where security
from the public gaze is an inducement to a visit on the part
of those who would hesitate to enter them if open to gen-
eral Tiew. Many of these are the retreats of the lowest
species of vice and degradation, and the resorts of criminals in
all stages of depravity. The uninitiated would neither find nor
suspect the existence of half of them, and he who would study
the subject worthily needs a trusty policeman as guide and
protector. " ,

As I went northward I found the popular
beverages becoming more strongly alcoholic.
Until about twenty-five years ago Sweden
was cursed by a frightful amount of drunken-
ness, especially among the lower classes.
The most common Swedish liquor is called
' ' Bran-vin " and is a powerful intoxicant dis-
tilled from potatoes. The first step towards
reform was the passage of a " Licensing act "
in 1855; this act abohshed domestic distilla-

306 The Nile to Norway.

tion, imposed heavy license-fees and allowed
the parochial authorities or the town-councils
to fix the number of liquor-shops. It even
allowed them to prohibit tipphng-houses en-
tirely. The result of the passage of this law
was to reduce the annual product of Bran-
vin from 26,000,000 gallons to 6,900,000!
Under the act, the traffic in ardent spirits
was much restricted in many parishes, and
was not hcensed at aU in several localities.
Its chief results were seen in the rural dis-
tricts. While this law has vastly curtailed
the sale and use of intoxicants, yet in the
city of Gothenburg — the chief sea-port — the
drink-traffic went forward with scarcely any
perceptible hindrance. The City Council ac-
cordingly decided that drinking-houses should
no longer be managed by private individuals
for the sake of personal profit, but by a
Company (or "Bolag"), and that all the net
profits of the sale of spirits should be paid
over to the city treasury. A "Bolag" was
organized in 1865, and a charter was grant-
ed them by the Government.

The Drink-Question. 307

This "Gothenburg system" of license is
now, in full force, in several of the large
towns of Sweden. Under this system the
whole sale of liquor in a city is committed
to a joint-stock company, who decide on the
number of drinking-houses and pay the sal-
aries of the venders. After a small dividend
has been declared to the share-holders, all
the remainder of the profits from the sales
are paid into the city treasury, The num-
ber of dram-shops under this method is
greatly reduced; in Upsala, with a popula-
tion of eighteen thousand, there are only
seventeen. An effort is now being made by
the friends of temperance tp have the dram-
shops closed on Saturday evenings, on holi-
days, and on the whole of the Sabbath.
They are only open now on Sunday for two
or three hours. The most intelligent persons
with whom I conversed generally state that
the " Gothenburg system " works many good
results. It limits the number of drinking-
houses; it allows no inducement to the liquor-
seller to sell for personal profit; it forbids

308 The Nile to Norway.

the sale of intoxicants to an intoxicated per-
son, and forbids also any one to get drunk
"on the premises." If there is to be any
license at all, this is probably the best license
system ever invented. Its cardinal defect
is that it legalizes the dram-shop, and opens
a doorway of deadly temptation. The best
people in Sweden therefore, are now enlisted
in moral efforts to persuade their country-
men to abstain from strong drink entirely.
Under the leadership of such devoted Chris-
tians as Professor Truv^, Rev. Mr. Lagergren,
Col. Broady, and other of like spirit, the to-
tal-abstinence reform is making rapid pro-
gress. I found that in Upsala a single society
of teetotalers numbered over seven hundred
members.

Two very palpable principles seem to pre-
vail in regard to the use of alcohohc stimu-
lants. The one is that the character of the
popular beverages, varies^ according to the
climate. In warm countries, such as Egypt,
Palestine, Syria, and southern Italy, those
beverages are of a milder character. As I

The Drink-Question. 309

went northward I found the potations of
the people growing more intensely alco-
holic. The thirst for intoxicants seems to
go up as the thermometer goes down. Had
I pursued my journeyings as far as Siberia
I should have discovered that the native
tribes are addicted to eating a peculiar
fungus plant called "muk-a-moor" which
is a violent narcotic and which completely
shatters the nervous system. Although the
sale of this terrible intoxicant is prohibited
by Russian law, yet so eager is the appe-
tite of the Siberians for it that they readily
offer the most valuable furs to the Russian
traders who will smuggle it into their
possession.

If the use of alcoholic drinks varies ac-
cording to chmate it also varies according
to race. The Semitic and the Latin races
are content with milder potations. The
Saxons, the Scandinavians and the Celts
have appetites for "bottled lightning." It
is not a pleasant thing to say, but the most
hideous drunkenness that I have yet en-

310 The Nile to Norway.

countered is to be found in Britain and in
Ireland. London alone must contain more
habitual drunkards than does all the native
population of the Levant. This loathsome
vice meets you at every turn in the eastern
and southern sections of the metropolis; it
penetrates into the " West End," and num-
bers its victims in every tier of society.
One of the most oflfensive features of Lon-
don life is that strong drink is not only
sold most commonly by women in the dram-
shops, but that women are so widely the
victims of the drink. Not only in the Strand
but on many other thoroughfares I saw
scores of females around the counters of
the gin-palaces. Sometimes husbands and
wives go in together for their dram. This
terrible traffic is at its worst on Sabbath
evenings ! When riding home from church,
my friend Mr. Hall would frequently say
to me "let us count the gin-palaces that
are open on this street," and we would
find a dozen within the distance of an hun-
dred rods. All through the Lord's day

The Drink-Question. 311

hundreds of churches and chapels are opened
to preach salvation by the Cross; at night
ten thousand doorways of perdition are flung
open to preach damnation by the dram.
What is true of London is measurably true
of all the large towns of England, Scotland,
and Ireland.

Within the last three or four years the
indefatigable labor of the advocates of tem-
perance are beginning to make some tangi-
ble impression upon this monster evil. Four
years ago the sale of ardent spirits and
beer amounted to 115,000,000 pounds sterl-
ing annually. It has been steadily reduced
(in spite of increase of population) until last
year it amounted to 106,000,000. Among
the middle and higher classes, the practice
of entire abstinence is making headway.
Such influential men in the Church of Eng-
land as Bishop Lightfoot (of Durham), the
Bishop of Exeter, Canon Farrar, and Canon
BasU Wilberforce, are throwing the weight
of their powerful influence in favor of it.
Dr. B. W. Richardson, by his able physio-

312 The Nile to Norway.

logical writings and addresses, is arousing
the medical fraternity. Temperance hospi-
tals have been established and are working
successfully. Coffee-houses are being opened
in all the towns as an antidote to the gin-
palace. Sir Wilfred Lawson and his United
Kingdom Alliance are pushing the agitation
for "Local option" with increasing vigor.
The National Temperance League are flood--
ing the kingdom with their volumes and
tracts. Many of the most influential Dis-
senting pulpits are becoming most pro-
nounced in their advocacy of the temper-
ance movement. And it would not be an
act of justice to close this extended letter
without saying that our countryman Mr.
Joseph Cook has— during the past twelve-
month — struck some powerful blows which
have produced a deep impression through-
out the kingdom.

XXIX.

EXCURSIONS IN ENGLAND.

London, August 2.

TT is impossible to chronicle all the pleas-
-*- ant experiences of the past week, but I
will attempt what Wilhs used to call a
"hurry- graph" of a few of them. On Tues-
day I took a run down to Devonshire, which
many regard as the garden of England. I
halted at Salisbury for a look at the Cathe-
dral, the chief glory of which is the spire —
four hundred feet high. The Bishop's Pal-
ace is a delicious piece of old architecture
encased in greenery. A few miles north
of Salisbury is Stonehenge; and beyond it
stretch the Downs, over which Hannah
More's "Shepherd" drove his flocks. That
charming story ought to be revived into
popularity.

313

314 The Nile to Norway.

On entering Devonshire we passed through
Axminster, a most beautiful town, but now
producing only a small number of the car-
pets, which have made the place so famous.
Then came Honiton, equally famous for its
laces, which are made by young women, by
a slow manual process. Exeter, the capital
of the county, stands in a region of en-
chanting lovehness; just out of the town is
Sir Stafford Northcote's mansion, and in the
heart of the town is the Cathedral, six hun-
dred years old.

The building is rather long for its height,
but the nave is so rich in branching tracery
that to walk beneath the architectural foli-
age is like a walk through a grove of Egyp-
tian palms. On one side is the "Minstrel's
Gallery," the carved front of which represents
twelve angels who are playing upon trum-
pets, horns, and various musical instruments.
That is a choir that ought never to give
pastors or music - committees any trouble.
The front of the Cathedral is very low, and
thoroughly blackened by coal-smoke, and an-

Excursions in England. 315

tiquity; yet the whole front is covered by the
"Grandison screen," a piece of stone work
-which is fashioned into columns, and niches,
and multitudinous statues of saints, and kings
and heroes of the faith. Up in the north
transept is a remarkable astronomical clock,
on which are inscribed the very suggestive
words, "Pereunt et imputantur." It would
have been music to the ears of the poet Gray
to have heard the curfew-bell tolled each
night from the ancient towers. The sounds
are like echoes from the far-gone past.

From Exeter I had a pleasant ride to
WeUs in Somersetshire; a farmer who sat
by me pointing out the various mansions and
telling me how many of them were chang-
ing owners, and how large a purchase of
land had lately been made by a rich Lon-
doner who wears the rather uncommon name
of "Smith." As I entered the city of Wells,
I was reminded of the old chorister who,
pitch-pipe in hand, used to call out that
word before he began a favorite tune much
sung in the church of my boyhood. My

316 The Nile to Norway.

chief object in visiting the quiet little city
was to see its Cathedral — which was bmlt
five hundred years ago on the site of a
church founded by. King Ina in the year 704.
There are two superb features of this Cathe-
dral which are not surpassed anywhere in
the kingdom. The one is its magnificent
west front which is two hundred and thirty-
five feet in length, and is divided into sev-
eral distinct compartments by projecting but-
tresses. AU of these compartments and-
buttresses are swarming with statues which
number, large and small, about six hundred.
The object of these statues, it is said, is
to represent the order of the subjects in the
"Te Deum." The lower tier illustrates the
line,, ' ' The glorious company of the Apostles
praise Thee." The next tier represents, "The
goodly army of the Prophets praise Thee."
Then comes the "noble army of martyrs,"
and so on upward until the highest tiers
close with a sculptured picture of the Resur-
rection of the dead and the Day of Judg-
ment. It is a grand conception of sacred art,

Excursions in England. 317

and is carried out with the most elaborate
and conscientious detail. I stood on the
velvet greensward before the edifice, and
read, as in a huge stone book, the history
of human redemption by the gospel of the
cross.

The other superior feature of this cathedral
is the choir. When I looked through its
exquisitely light and delicate Gothic arches
at the gorgeous stained glass of the Lady
Chapel behind it, the amazing beauty over-
powered me. It was worthy to be placed
alongside of the feats of delicacy in finish
wrought by the Greek builders of the Brec-
theum. From the Bishop of Wells, good
Thomas Ken, came the famihar morning
and evening hymns, with their matchless
doxology —

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow."

How few of the millions who sing those lines,
ever heard the name of their author ! It is
a striking coincidence that the finest hymns
in the English language should have been

318 The Nile to Norway.

composed in those southern counties that
stretch along the Channel. Toplady wrote
the "Rock of Ages," and Charlotte Elliott her
hymn "Just as I am" in Devonshire. Henry
Ljrte the author of "Abide with me" hved
in the same county. Charles Wesley gave
birth to "Jesus lover of my soul" and
Perronet to the hymn " AU haU the power
of Jesus' name," in that same poetic belt
of the south of England. Isaac Watts penned
his first hymn at Southampton, opposite to the
Isle of Wight.

One of my pleasant excursions this week
was to Kingston Hill, and Richmond Park
on the Thames; under the oaks of this park
the Queen gave a home to the veteran Earl
Russell in his closing days. England takes
good care of her old servants. She stows
them away in various good quarters just as
she moors the hulk of the famous flag-ship
" Victory " in the quiet waters of Portsmouth
harbor. She also treasures very carefully
the autographs, the manuscripts and other
relics of her renowned authors and heroes.

Excursions in England. 319

In the British Museum the other day I
saw the " Elegy in a Country Churchyard,"
in the neat and deUcate hand of its author,
Thomas G-ray. Close by was a page of Lord
Macaulay's History of England, a large fools-
cap sheet written over in large, bold hand,
and completely covered with erasures and
interhneations. This shows that it was Ma-
caulay's habit to write down rapidly whatever
came into his mind; then he went over it
with corrections and alterations. The same
thing is observable in Dickens's manuscript
of David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and
Chuwlewit — all of which are preserved entire
in the South Kensington Museum. There is
not one line that is not blotched over with
corrections. I read with intense interest an
original letter of Robert Burns, in which he
thanks Mrs. Dunlop, " for your favorable
opinion of my ' Tarn o' Shanter.' " Little
did the poor ploughman dream that after an
hundred years the world would know Tam o'
Shanter by heart.

Among all the rare and precious curiosi-

320 The Nile to Norway.

ties in the two Museums, none delighted
me more than two letters of Oliver CromweU.
They were almost entirely in Scripture lan-
guage, and the spelling is almost as bad as
Queen Ehzabeth's. In the rough draft of
her speech to Parliament good Queen Bess
teUs them that "the eeys of all lokers on
have been blinded through too cessions."
The woman who spelled in that style boasted
of her scholastic attainments ! London is fast
being robbed of its ancient structures. Tem-
ple Bar is gone; Milton's and Shakespeare's
houses are gone; and Svurey Chapel is soon
to be pulled down. Yesterday I crossed the
Thames to explore " St. Saviour's Church,
South wark," which comes next to Westmin-
ster Abbey in historic interest. In the Lady- .
chapel, Bloody Mary's brutal Bishop Gar-
diner condemned Protestants to death, and
on the memorial windows are the names of
Bishop Hooper, burned at Gloucester, and
of John Rogers, burned at Smithfield. In
one corner of the chiu-ch John Gower, the
contemporary poet with Chaucer, lies biiried;

Excursions in England. 321

and under the pavement sleep Philip Mas-
singer and Edmond Shakespeare, the young-
gest brother of the immortal dramatist.
Quaint epitaphs abound. One brass plate
records in pompous phrase the wonderful
qualities of a maiden ten years old, who
was "none-such for piety and virtue," and
who is now ' ' maid of honor to the King
in Heaven ! " No other metal but brass
could contain such inflated nonsense as that.
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre stood close by
that ancient church, but has given place to
a brewery. Chaucer's "Tabard Inn," was
about half a mUe away, and that has given
place to a warehouse. London will soon
be as modern as New York.

Yesterday I hunted up one delightful bit
of antiquity that is as yet untouched — and
that is St. Giles' Church, Cripple-gate, near
the Bank of England. It is a beautiful
church, and in its green yard stands a Roman
tower buUt nineteen centuries ago ! Under
the floor of this dear old church lies "John
Milton, author of Paradise Lost." I went

322 The Nile to Norway.

to the altar-rail, and knelt down witli deep
emotion, for I was on the spot where Oliver
Cromwell knelt when he was married to his
Huguenot wife. In the vestry, I read the
record of his marriage, and of Milton's in-
terment. This city is fairly peopled with
statues. Sir Robert Peel's handsome figure
is at the end of Cheapside, and in the open
court near Westminster Abbey, and in the
Abbey itself. They cannot pay too high
honors to the king of parliamentarians and
the honest statesman. Sir John Franklin has
a touching memorial near Carlton House.
King Billy the sailor has a statue too, al-
though his place in history is scanty enough.
One of the most spirited pieces of art is
that superb figure of Richard the Lion-
hearted,* who bestrides his bronze horse in
front of the Victoria Tower at Wesminster
as if he were a gallant Knight set for Her
Majesty's defence.

One thing surprises me; and that is that

* A representation of this statue fronts the title-page of this
volume.

Excursions in England. 323

while London abounds in monuments to
England's celebrities, it does not contain
a single monument to the two greatest rulers
England has had for three centuries — OHver
Cromwell and Kiag William of Orange ! In
the mean time stone enough has been piled
up in various places in honor of good Prince
Albert to build a church.

During this week an International Conven-
tion of Young Men's Christian Associations
is holding its sessions at Exeter Hall. This
famous old edifice in the Strand — whose
walls have echoed to the eloquence of the
foremost preachers, missionaries and refor-
mers of this century — ^has lately been pur-
chased by the London Y. M. C. A. Its
Secretary, Mr. W. Hind Smith, is a powerful
organizer — and his wife, whom I once knew
as Miss WUson of Sherwood Hall, is the most
untiring female philanthropist in the city.
We must come to England in order to learn
systematic thoroughness in managing benev-
olent operations. America excels in eflfer-
vescent spurts, and dashes; John Bull beats

324 The Nile to Norway.

us in the long and steady pull. If there
could be a combination of American enthu-
siasm with British thoroughness and hold-
on-ativeness, we would have the ideal sys-
tem of efi&cient Reforms.

This Convention is well attended, and its
sessions are spirited and profitable. Our
country is represented by its two distin-
guished workers— the Hon. William E.
Dodge, who wiU speak at the public meet-
ing to-morrow evening, and Mr. John Wana-
maker of Philadelphia, who led the prayer-
meeting on Saturday evening. Mr. McBurney
of New York, and Rev. Dr. Newman of New
York, are also present, with about twenty
others.

Last evening the Lord Mayor and Lady
Mayoress gave a grand reception to the dele-
gates in the Mansion House. The present
Mayor, Hon. Mr. McArthur, is a member of
ParUament, a rich merchant, and a devout
Methodist. At seven o'clock, a large com-
pany of us found ourselves in the superb
central hall of the Mansion House where His

Excursions in England. 325

Honor received us in official state. He wore
his scarlet robes and gold chain; upon his right
hand stood an officer attired in black robe and
the traditional cap, and bearing an immense
sword; on his left hand was a similar func-
tionary bearing the huge gilded lace. To the
Lord Mayor and his portly Mayoress we were
each introduced; and in the company I ob-
served the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Hon.
Samuel Gurney, Bevan Braithwaite (the
leader of the Orthodox Quakers, and one
of the best men in England), Mr. Arthur
Kinnaird, Mr. Matheson, and other eminent
Christian merchants and bankers. A pro-
cession was formed, and we marched into
the magnfficent "Egyptian" Banquet Hall
— one of the most gorgeous apartments in
London, and looking like a quotation from
Windsor Palace. It is lined with lofty gilded
columns and statuary, and its frescoed ceil-
ing is at least seventy feet from the floor.
Upon a dais at the end of this palatial hall
sat the Lord Mayor, and his five hundred
guests were seated before him. The Earl

326 The Nile to Norway.

of Shaftesbury made a ringing speech, which
was received with boisterous enthusiasm.
Addresses were made by foreign delegates
—the Hon. Mr. Dodge responding hand-
somely for America. Mr. RusseU Sturgis,
of Bpston, and Mr. George Wilhams the
founder of the Association took a promi-
nent part. Altogether it was a splendid af-
fair, and we all went home concluding that our
generous Christian host was indeed the LorWs
Mayor; for he is using his eminent station
and influence directly for the glory of God.

Lomixm, August 6.

This is my last day in this colossal city,
which always has such a fascination for me
that I am loath to leave it. London is a
volume of a thousand leaves; no man hv-
ing has yet read every page. Yesterday I
was in the neighborhood of the General
Post-office in. St. Martin's le Grand, and I
threaded my way through several narrow
streets into Nettleton Court. In "No. 2"
of that narrow court John Wesley was con-
verted; for he tells us that there he first

Excursions in England. 327

tasted of the love of God. In that little
dingy brick house — where I found a poor
woman washing clothes — Methodism was
born. It is not a very long walk from
that obscure nook to City Road Chapel in
which Wesley held his most frequent ser-
vices, and beside which he now lies buried.
I told the woman at the wash-tub that when
the Ecumenical Council of Methodism comes
off in September she might expect an in-
undation of visitors. Quite sure I am that
the American delegates wiU hunt out the
spot, for our countrymen are keener on
the scent for historical relics than any other
class of visitors to England. On the Sab-
baths they constitute a large element in the
congregations at Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle,
and at Westminster Abbey. At the public
meeting held in Exeter HaU by the "World's
Convention of Young Men's Christian Asso-
ciations" on Wednesday evening, many Amer-
icans were present. The Hon. William E.
Dodge spoke briefly; Dr. John HaU was in
the audience, with President Magoun of

328 The Nile to Norway.

Iowa University, and several delegates from
New York. When I introduced the name
of our President into my address, it did
our hearts good to see the audience rise
up and cheer vociferously. The Earl of
Shaftesbury, who presided, afterwards read
a telegram from Mrs. Garfield, at which
there was another shout. Herr Klug from
Elberfeld, Germany, delivered an eloquent
speech; but the hero of the evening was
the veteran Lord Shaftesbury, whose ap-
pearance always calls forth great enthusi-
asm. He is over eighty years of age, but
as erect as a Korway pine, and he has
but few gray hairs on his honored head.
It is owing to both climate and physical
constitution — as well as to temperament—
that Englishmen preserve their full vigor
to such an extreme age. Lord Palmerston
was once asked, "when is a man in his
prime?" and he drUy replied — "oh, about
seventy-nine; but I am past my prime, for
I am just eighty." This English atmos-_
phere is very favorable to consecutive hard

Excursions in England. 329

work, both out doors and in. It is not
subject to the violent extremes of the di-
mate in our Northern states — a chmate that
has been wittily satirized as one in which
" during the summer, butter may be sold
by the pint and during the winter milk
may be sold by the pound."

I spent a delightful evening this week at
the house of Bevan Braithwaite, who is one
of the most earnest warm-hearted Christians
I have ever met. He practices law during
the week, and preaches in his Quaker meet-
ing-house on "first day," and finds time to
make himself one of the most profound Bible
scholars in London. He brought out his Sep-
tuagint and Codex Vaticanus, and entertained
us with a most learned discussion of the mer-
its and the demerits of the New Revision.
After hearing his opinions and those of Mr.
Spurgeon, I feel confident that the Revision
wUl not be cordially and generally adopted
in England. Friend Braithwaite is one of
the directors of the British and Foreign Bible
Society, and for a layman, is a master of

330 The Nile to Norway.

biblical criticism. He feels as do many oth-
ers, that it would have been prudent for the
Revisers to have submitted their work to
the outside pubhc in a tentative way for free
criticism, before they finally adopted it. For
myself I have had but Httle opportunity to
examine the Westminster Revision, and while
I Uke it exceedingly, I beheve that it would
have been unproved if the Revisers had called
in thirty or forty cultivated Christian lay-
men, and consulted their judgment on several
points. God's Word is also the people's
book.

I am happy to learn that this Westminster
version is. received with so mudh favor in
America, for whatever be its defects it is a
vast improvement upon the much more de-
fective Version of King James's translators.

No city in the world can show such a band
of Christian philanthropists, or such organi-
zations of benevolence, as London. It needs
them all, and tenfold more; for its wickedness
is colossal. Every Sabbath evening ten thou-
sand dram-shops are in full blast; the great

Excursions in England. 331

majority of tke drink-sellers are young wo-
men! And among the crowds pouring into
these doorways of perdition, the women are
almost as numerous as the men ! There are
over forty thousand women who make a
trade of their profligacy. In such thorough-
fares as the Strand and around the ' ' Aqua-
rium," they swarm every evening in regi-
ments. It almost makes even New York
seem virtuous, to go through certain portions
of thia great British Babylon by gas-light.
But against this immense tide of vice and
poverty and debauchery, God's people are
making head as bravely and steadily as they
can. There are four hundred city mission-
aries, scores of "Bible-readers" and lady vis-
itors; Mr. Noble is working zealously among
the degraded slums of Hoxton, Mr. Barnardo
hi another quarter, and the Mildmay Park
missionaries in many quarters. They are all
achieving blessed results; but the greatest
single power in London is Charles H. Spur-
geon, with his mighty pulpit and his staff
of trained laborers.

332 The Nile to Norway.

, One day I have spent at Canterbury.
That is the original fountain-head of English
civilization, culture and Christianity. There
St. Augustine preached to the Saxons, and
Anselm wielded his crosier. An university
was planted there while Cambridge was still
a fen, and Oxford was stiU a forest. My
companions to the ancient town were Presi-
dent Magoun of Iowa university and Rev.
Julius Read; we went by the Southeastern
Railway, through Chiselhurst and Tunbridge.
By the roadside stands the old manor-house
in which the beautiful Anne Boleyn was
born, and whence she was called to her
dizzy and dangerous elevation as the wife of
a royal brute.

Canterbury is very old, and is yet very,
well scoured up, so that its antiquity be-
trays no rust or shabbiness. Through streets
lined with small houses of one or two stories,
we made our way to the venerable Cathe-
dral. It is of immense length — five hundred
and twenty feet — and some of the perspec-
tives in the interior are of marvellous beauty.

Excursions in England. 333

A walk around its outer wall and cloisters
was almost a quarter of a mile; it took us'
by some grand old Norman arches, and the
cosey ivy-covered house in which Dean Stan-
ley lived when he was Canon of Canterbury.
There is a window also which he placed in
one of the transepts as a memorial of his
tour to the Holy Land.

The Choir of the Cathedral is of great size
and splendor. Just beyond it is the tomb
of that royal model of true chivalry, Edward
the Black Prince; above the effigy of the
hero, are suspended the shield he bore, and
the coat he wore at Crecy and Poitiers.
On the opposite side is the tomb of Henry
the Fourth. But no king or warrior that
sleeps beneath that Cathedral had to me a
tithe of the interest which I have felt for the
good Dean Alford who preached there for
many years. There is a rich stained glass me-
morial window which bears his fragrant name.
But he is not buried within the Cathedral
walls. He selected his own resting-place in
the little crowded churchyard of " St. Martin's."

334 The Nile to Norway.

That is the oldest Church in England. It
is not over thirty feet long, and its low
square tower is wrapped around with ivy.
On the stone floor of its chancel it is claimed
that Augustine stood, twelve centuries ago!
In the ancient Runic font by the door he
baptized Ethelbert the Saxon; that church
was old when Wnham the Conqueror landed
in Britain. In front of the church stand two
venerable yew-trees; beneath one of these
trees is a plain, simple tomb that bears the
beloved name of "Henry Alford." On the
end of the tomb is the celebrated inscription
composed by the Dean himself-^" Dever-
sorium viatoris Hierosolymam proficientis,"
"The inn of a traveller bound to Jerusa-
lem." Of all the hundreds of inscriptions
that I have read during my wanderings, this
one is the most exquisite; nor have I stood
by the grave of a piu-er or a more leal-
hearted minister of God.

XXX.

A RUN INTO WALES.

Adeiphi Hold, Liverpool, Aug. 12.

T LEFT London on Saturday, my last even-
■*- ing being passed under the roof of my
jfriend, Hon. Arthur Kinnaird. Both he and
his father, Lord Kinnaird, are among the
"staff" of the Earl of Shaftesbury in con-
ducting Christian campaigns of usefulness.
No city in the world has a nobler body of
practical philanthropists than London has in
the persons of the two Kinnairds, Samuel
Morley, WiUiam Hind Smith, Matthew Hod-
der, John Taylor, T. B. Smithies, and their
coadjutors. The Earl of Aberdeen is also be-
coming prominent in evangehcal activities.

My route hither was by the Midland Rail-
way through the ravishing regions of Derby-
shire — such as Matlock, Rowsley, and Dariey-

335

336 The Nile to Norway.

dale. Chats worth and Haddon Hall were
out of sight from the train, but we did not
need them to isomplete the picture of luxuri-
ant loveliness. If a visitor to Engla,nd can
explore only two counties, let him select
Devonshire and Derbyshire. The crops are
fine this season, and the gold of the wheat-
fields blends with the green of the meadows
and the hedge-row&. For quite too many
of my visits hitherward, I have been cheated
out of a sight of Wales. So I came to Liver-
pool in season for a brief run through the
four northern counties of the old Principality.
The mountains of Wales are picturesque,
though not lofty enough to be sublime. But
old Christopher North said that the most
beautiful spots on this earth are the Welsh
valleys. He must have had in his mind the
valleys of DolgeUy and LlangoUen, and the
Cressford vale that lies close to Cheshire.
Again and again I said to myself, "Well,
this is the gem of all that I have seen yet " ;
but my casket of memory is full of gems,
each one diflfering from the rest in some

A Run into Wales. 337

peculiar glory. At this season of the year
North Wales is crowded with Londoners, witL
whom it is a favorite summer resort. Canon
Farrar is at Penraenmawr, recruiting from a
year's work that had quite worn him down.
If the suffrages of Americans could be counted,
this brilliant and brave man would be appointed
to the vacant Deanery of Westminster. The
choice is supposed to he between Dr. But-
ler of Harrow, and the Bishop of Manches-
ter. But it will be a long time ere there
is another Dean Stanley. Before I left Lon-
don, I went to pay a last visit to his grave in
Henry the Seventh's Chapel; it was still cov-
ered with wreaths and flowers from many lov-
ing hearts. He lived the life of a true man; he
now sleeps the sweet sleep of a little child.
But I am wandering from Wales. I found
the northern coast lined with picturesque vil-
lages, and cottages nestled in their green-
eries. We caught glimpses of ancient Con-
way Castle — out of whose ruined windows
six centuries of history are peering — and of
modern Penrhyn Castle, whose lordly owner

338 The Nile to Norway.

is also the owner of the largest slate-quarries
in the country. I halted at Caernarvon to
explore the famous Castle, which ranks next
to Warwick in extent and interest. The first
King Edward buUt it about 1284; the first
Prince of Wales (the unhappy Edward II.
of England) was born there.

It is a kingly pile, five hundred feet in
length. A whole regiment could be en-
camped in tents, within its ample walls.
I chmbed to the battlements of its "Eagle
Tower," and got a wide view of the island
of Anglesey, and the distant Menai Bridge,
which the genius of Stephenson constructed
forty years ago. The contrast between Caer-
narvon Castle — with its frowning battlements,
gloomy keeps aiid belligerent looking heads
carved around the towers — and that noble
highway for traffic and travel showed the
essential difference between the thirteenth
century and the nineteenth. The only oc-
cupant of the stately castle, which once
rang with the trumpets of armed knights,
is a shrewd Welshman who sells photq-

A Run into Wales. 339

graphs and keeps a register for Yankee
tourists to inscribe their names.

From Caernarvon I went up to the vil-
lage of Llanberris, under the shadow of old
Snowdon. At the "Dolbadarn Inn" were
parties of tourists who had just ascended
this monarch of the Welsh mountains; oth-
ers were arriving by four-horse coaches from
Bettys-wy-Coed and Beddgelert and Festi-
niog. The most striking sight at Llanber-
ris was the huge mountaia of slate, up
which the various quarries ascended like
a colossal flight of stairs. Those quarries
give employment to about 3,000 persons.
Many of them come from a long distance
on Monday morning, and return home on
Saturday evening. If any one wishes to
see the Welsh peasantry in their primitive
dress and style of hving, he must go off
from the thoroughfares: for railways and
fashionable travel .have revolutionized the
rural life of those districts that are now
haunted by summer tourists. If any one
also wishes to know whence came all the

340 The Nile to Norway.

Joneses and Robertses and Evanses so fa-
miliar in America, let him go to Wales;
those three popular surnames are on half
the signs in the streets. I also saw an
abundance of Williams, with a sprinkUng
of Owens and Griffiths.

I spent my first night at Port Madoc, a
small village surrounded with bare mist-
covered hills. The word "Temperance"
inscribed over the doors of two inns, and
of several groceries was a cheering indica-
tion of the spread of wholesome principles
in the land of Christmas Evans and Howell
Harris. There is not probably a country
on the globe that contains a more God-
fearing peasantry than Wales. The next
morning I was m the train by six o'clock,
and soon caught a ghmpse of gray old
Harlech Castle planted on a lofty steep.
This is another of Edward's strongholds
and was captured by the most famous of
Welsh heroes, Owen Glendower. It is the
theme of the most popular song of the
Cambrians. Had time permitted I would

A Run into Wales. 341

fain have lingered for a week in the en-
chanting vale of Dolgelly, feasting on its
verdure that "a Shenstone might have en-
vied." To the Welshman in foreign lands,
the recollection of such an exquisite spot
as Dolgelly, with its silver-footed stream
and the gentle outhne of its hiUs and the
sheen of its emerald grass must be a mem-
ory to kindle the pangs of homesickness.
A level monotonous prairie in Nebraska or
a smoky iron-manufacturing town in Penn-
sylvania must seem to him rather prosaic
in the comparison.

The most interesting spot to me was Bala,
in the beautiful valley of the Dee. It is the
site of a Calvinistic Theological School of fifty
students under the presidency of Dr. Lewis
Edwards. But it owes its chief fame to
that apostolic man, Kev. Thomas Charles,
the real originator of the British and For-
eign Bible Society, and aU kindred organi-
zations. Mr. Charles was the pastor of a
Calvinistic Methodist church in Bala, and
very active in promoting religious schools

342 The Nile to Norway.

and study of the Scriptures. But Bibles
were scarce and very dear. One day when
he was questioning one of his Sunday-school
girls, she said, " The weather has been so
bad this week that I could not get to see
a Bible." He found that the poor girl had
to walk seven miles every week to get a
look at a copy of God's Word! He deter-
mined at once to go to London, and induce
rich Christians there to organize a society
to supply the Scriptures to the people of
Wales. The thing was done, and it proved
to be the seed-corn out of which grew the
greatest Bible Society on the globe.

About a mile from Bala^ we passed the
good man's grave, imder a clump of yew-
trees on the banks of a beautiful Uttle lake.
On reaching the railway station, we crossed
the River Dee by the " Mwn-wyl-y-Llyn
Bridge." (I defy any one but a Welshman
to pronounce that name, or the name of a
village called Ynyscymbanarn !) Up in the
town I came upon the chapel in which Mr.
Charles once preached — or rather the new

A Run into Wales. 343

edifice that takes its place. In front of the
tasteful edifice is a fine statue of the man
himself in pure white marble. Upon the
pedestal is a bas-relief representing him dis-
tributing Bibles among his neighbors. In
the neighboring parsonage I had a pleasant
interview with the Rev. Mr. Edwards — a son
of the College President, and a grandson of
Thomas Charles. It must be an inspiration
to him to get a look at his noble ancestor's
countenance in marble every time he walks
past to his pulpit.

From Bala I came to lovely LlangoUen,
and thence past Chirk and Cressford valleys
to Chester and Liverpool. Here ends my
happy, eventful, and instructive five months'
pilgrimage. Since leaving home, I have trav-
elled more than nine thousand miles. I have
seen sojne of the most famous cities on the
globe. Of these, the five that have inter-
ested me most deeply have been Cairo, Je-
rusalem, Athens, Stockholm, and London.
This last named city is a kingdom of itself.
It has been permitted me to study the pro-

344: The Nile to Norway.

gress of Christ's cause and glorious Grospel,
and to hold pleasant converse with many
honored missionaries, ministers and philan-
thropists. The goodness and mercy of God,
and the kindness of many friends, have fol-
lowed me at every step. But I can honestly
say that after beholding all the Old World
could show me, I care more to see the faces
of that beloved flock who sent me on this
trip to the Orient, than any object this side
of the ocean. Towards them I set my face
to-morrow, and then " Point home my coun-
try's flag of stars." When I see that ensign
at the mast-head of the steamer Algeria,
my heart will leap like the roe. America is
never so welcome to an American as when
he returns thither from a foreign land. And
if I am permitted to set foot on its dear
soil, I can chant the hymn of the Pilgrims
to Plymouth Rock:

"Who thought on England's fields of green,
Nor wept that ocean rolled between;
But praised the Lord — the Lord their Guide —
Who brought them o'er the swelling tide."

XXXI.

HOMEWARD.

Steamship "Algeria," August 22.

TV/TT summer passage homeward was as
■^ '-■" pleasant as a good ship, good weath-
er, and good company can make it. On the
evening before our departure I visited the
noble bunding of the Young Men's Christian
Association — whose corner-stone was laid by
our American Evangehst Mr. Moody. There
is an extensive suite of apartments, such as
reading-room, class-rooms, parlor, gymnasium,
etc., all very attractive to the young men of
Liverpool for whom it was reared. Looking
into the lecture-haU, I found a social meeting
of ladies and gentlemen with Mr. Alexander
Guthrie (a son of the celebrated Edinburgh
orator) in the chair. In the course of an

34.5

346 The Nile to Norway.

ofF-hand address I took occasion to urge the
greater development of the laity in the spir-
itual work of the churches. In the English
and Scotch churches the private members
are not called out into various activities as
much as they are in our American congrega-
tions. For example, it is the custom with
us to commit the weekly devotional meetings
to the management of the lay-officers — the
elders, or deacons, or class-leaders or other
office-bearers — -and the meetings are open
for every member of the church to take part
in the services, if they desire. But in Britain
these weekly meetings are too much monop-
olized by the pastors. The result is that
the ministers are overworked, the spiritual
gifts of the church-members are not devel-
oped, and one great element of interest and
profit disappears from the meetings. The
social gatherings of a Christian Church ought
to have the unrestrained freedom of a fam-
ily. How preposterous it would seem if
at a Christmas-dinner the "paterfamilias"
should either monopolize the conversation

Homeward. 347

or else allow eacli child to utter a syllable
by special permission. Our American pray-
er-meetings are not faultless, but they are
-free from one very serious fault of the
mid-week services of many of the English
churches.

Two evenings previous to my saihng I
visited Southport at the invitation of a dear
friend who was once an active member of
my Brooklyn church. Southport is an at-
tractive suburb of Liverpool, with forty thou-
sand residents, many of them doing business
in the great city. During the evening I
preached in the "West End Congregational
Church " to an audience composed of various
denominations. The edifice stood on a beau-
tiful plat of verdure, surrounded by shrubbery
and bright flower-beds. We have something
to learn from our English kinsfolk in the
matter of adorning the grounds around their
sanctuaries; it is not only the ivy upon the
walls, but the well-trimmed grass, and flow-
ers beside the walls that make many a house
of God so picturesque in its settings. While

348 The Nile to Norway.

at Liverpool I was pained to learn that
tlie Rev. Dr. Maclaren the brUliant Baptist
preacher of Manchester is now laid aside,
by ill health, from his pulpit. Among aU
the volumes of discourses that have come
over to us lately in America none have ex-
celled his in fresh suggestiveness of thought
or felicity of style. They possess raany of
the rare merits of Frederick W. Robertson
without any of Robertson's idiosyncracies in
theology.

When conversing with my fellow-passen-
gers I find that their Sabbath experiences
have often resembled my own. Over much
of the Continent the only opportunity for
Americans to hear the gospel in their own
tongue is afforded by the various chapels
which have been opened by the churches
of England or Scotland. Outside of Paris,
these are commonly very dry services. At
Dresden, for example, I went to a chapel
where the minister conducted the service in
a most lifeless way — his voice being about
as audible as the faint squeak of a mouse

Homeward. 349

in the waE. At the close the congregation
sang "Jerusalem the golden" with hearti-
ness, and that was really the only satisfaction
which the otherwise inanimate service af-
forded me. It reminded me of the stranger
who was bluntly asked by the minister, "Well,
what did you think of my preaching this
morning ? " and the ingenuous reply was, ' ' I
thought you gave us two good psalms." If
it were not for uniting with fellow-Christians
in divine worship and listening to God's
Word either read or sung, one might almost
as well abide with his Bible in the quiet
of his lodging-room. Why is it that these
chapel-services are so often a perfunctory
formahty and that such meagre diet is af-
forded to travellers who become especially
hungry for a good sermon while in a strange
land?

Among the pleasant company on board of
the Algeria is Professor Thorold Rogers of
Oxford and the Member of Parliament for
the borough of Southwark. He is a brilliant
converser as weU as an able political econo-

350 The Nile to Norway.

mist; during our civil war he warmly es-
poused the side of Union and Emancipation.
Perhaps he enjoys the generous fare on
board aU the more from his having been
kept on "Irish stew" for the last three
months in Parhament. The Enghsh Church
is represented by Canon Prichard, and by
the Rev. James McCormick the portly and
genial Vicar of Kingston-on-HuU. Mr. M.
tells me that no two men in the Estabhshed
Church rank higher for the best quaUties of
head and heart than the present Archbishops
of Canterbury and York. Those two emi-
nent sees have seldom been so ably fiUed, or
with men more staunch in their devotion to
sound doctrine. I was sorry that during my
sojourn in London I failed to hear Dr. Ma-
gee the eloquent Bishop of Peterborough who
is famous both for his impulsive oratory and
his Irish humor. When I made the attempt
at Westminster Abbey, the crowd were
blockading the doorways an half hour before
the tim^ of service, and thousands, like my-
self, went away, unable to gain admission.

Homeward. 351

Many stories are current of the Bishop's
Hibernian pleasantries. The Archbishop of
Canterbury (Dr. Tait) once said to him,
"Bishop Magee, I fancy that I am also of
Irish liaeage, and that my family may date
back to the days of Brian Boroimhe." The
Bishop of Peterborough waggishly replied —
"Well, I never heard that we had any Taits
in Ireland, but we have plenty of taters."

Of the preachers in the Established Church
none are more widely known than Canon
Farrar of Westminster, and Canon Liddon
of St. Paul's. Dr. Farrar attracts great,
crowds on every Sabbath that he preaches
in the Abbey — ; Americans always con-
tributing their full share to the throng.
He is a taU, manly intellectual-looking per-
sonage in the pulpit and speaks with much
earnestness. His unsatisfactory utterances
on Future R&tribution have excited some
prejudice among the Low Church party, and
he is considered as rather too radical by the
Tory High Church party. But his superb
volumes — the Life of Christ, and the Life of

352 The Nile to Norway.

St. Paul — arid his fearless assaults upon the
drinking-usages, of England have won for
him the enthusiastic admiration of tens of
thousands on both sides of the Atlantic.
He is a large-hearted and lovable man,
with a prodigious capacity for hard work.
The rising man in London among the dis-
tinctively "Low Church" is Rev. W. Boyd
Carpenter, who preaches in the neighborhood
of Hyde Park. Dr. Edward Bickersteth, so
well known by his " Yesterday, To-day and
Forever" has a parish on Hampstead HiU.
The Low Church are a minority in the
Church of England, but on the bench of
Bishops they are represented by several men
of fervent piety, and eminent culture. The
influence of such prelates as Thomson, Era-
ser, Tait, Lightfoot EUicott and Ryle "tells"
most effectively for evangelical truth. The
Presbyterian pulpit in London is most ably
manned by such men as Dr. Oswald Dykes
(the successor of Dr. James Hamilton) Dr.
Donald Eraser, Dr. Edmunds, and Dr. Sin-
clair Patterson. The Orthodox Quakers in

Homeward. 353

England are to be weighed rather than
counted; although few m numbers they ac-
complish, in their quiet way, no small
amount of solid good.

Some of my readers may wonder why
the pastor of a Presbyterian flock has not
turned his footsteps towards either Switzer-
land or Scotland. But I have paid several
visits to those countries in former years;
and during my present tour, I had deter-
mined to seek out only those localities with
which (excepting London) I was not already
familiar. The brief inspection I have made
of several lands has confirmed some pre-
vious opinions, but has led me to revise
others quite materially. Travel dispels some
illusions, and discovers unexpected beauties;
there were places in the Bast which I had
thought of as verdant Arcadias which proved
to be but barren rocks or inhospitable moun-
tains. The best portions of Palestine are
better than I expected to find them; its
worst portions are desolate beyond all con-
ception. Over the near future of that land,

354 The Nile to Norway.

so tenderly dear to all Christian hearts, hangs
an unlifted mystery. The prospects of both
Egypt and Syria are brightening under the
steady introduction of Occidental ideas. In
the development of those Arabic-speaking
nations, the American coUege and the mis-
sion-presses of Beyrout are to play an im-
portant part. Mohammedanism is not the
inert and moribund system which we in
America so generally regard it. On the
contrary it holds its own in Asia and is
aggressive in Africa. Only on European
soil does it show signs of decay. As it
sprung from the powerful brain of one man,
so, in the Providence of God, one or more
men may arise within its domain who may
do unto Islam what Luther did unto Ro-
manism in the heart of Europe.

The Greeks impressed me as being the
rising race in the Levant. Greece as a
war-like power is not formidable, but Greek
merchants are growing rich by commerce
and erelong will make Athens one of the
most brilliant cities on the Mediterranean.

Homeward. 355

Turkey when seen close at hand is no less
detestable than when seen at a distance.
The sooner that the "sick man" is carried
across the Bosphorus, the sooner will Bul-
garia advance to her rightful position and
the sooner wiU disorderly Albania become a
habitable country. All through the Orient
- — yes, and all through Europe the perpet-
ual eye-sore is the ubiquitous soldier. In
his various uniforms, white, scarlet, or blue,
he is everywhere. Except in their modern
equipments these colossal standing armies
seem like monstrous relics of the dark ages.
Certainly in our time the sword does not
shape as if it were turning into a plough-
share. Whatever were my impressions of
various countries, one thing is very clear,
and that is that the American Republic is
making a prodigious impression upon the
older continents. It is not merely the com-
ing nation; it has come! The great battle-
field of the next century lies between Ply-
mouth Rock and San Francisco. If the
Devil gets America, the progress of hu-

356 The Nile to Norway.

manity goes back more than ten degrees
on the dial-plate. If the Lord Jesus Christ
gets America, then all the sooner will the
Millennial dawning break. It is not a mat-
ter for empty boasting, but it is a matter
of momentous responsibility to be an Ameri-
can citizen and to bear even the humblest
pail-t in shaping its moral destiny.

Our delightful voyage draws to its close,
and the atmosphere takes on a brighter hue.
The leaden clouds have been left behind us;
the fog-whistle has ceased to disturb our
slumbers, and to-day we have the fore-
tokens of home in a sapphire sky and a
smiling sea. To-morrow morning the cap-
tain promises that we may pasture our
eyes on the verdure of Staten Island. Then
farewell to the Bible-lands that I have left
far beyond these waves — and hail to the
home and hearts around that church-spire
which glitters in the morning sun ! How

Homeward. 357

sweetly natural was the prayer of that ab-
sent shepherd who was yearning to meet
his folk —

"Eijat I mag come unto gou iottf) jog, ig
tl)e ijjill of ®olt, anlj mag, togetljer toitlj gou,
6e refresfjeU."

630 BEOAD"WAT, UEW YOKE,

October, 1880,

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