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HOLY LAND OF ASIA MINOR

THE SEVEN CITIES OF THE BOOK OF
REVELATION

THEIR PRESENT APPEARANCE, THEIR HISTORY,

THEIR SIGNIFICANCE,

AND THEIR MESSAGE TO THE CHURCH OF TO-DAY

BY

REV. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.D., LL.D.

AUTHOR OF "OLD HOMES OF NEW AMERICANS," "THE
CONTINENT OF OPPORTUNITY," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1914

COPYBIGHT, 1914, BT

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

Published September, 1914

TO THE MEMORY

OF

REV. EDWARD RIGGS, D.D.

FOR MANY TEAR3 AN HONORED MISSIONARY OF THE
AMERICAN BOARD IN TURKEY, WHOSE COURTESY,
PATIENCE, AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE NATIVE LANGUAGES
SMOOTHED THE DIFFICULTIES OF OUR JOURNEY TO THE

SEVEN CITIES

AND WHO HAS SINCE TAKEN A LONGER JOURNEY TO THE
NEW JERUSALEM, OF WHICH, ALSO, THE REVELATOB WROTE

TO
MRS. EDWARD RIGGS

AND TO

MY WIFE

MY OTHER TRAVELLING COMPANIONS IN THE

HOLY LAND OF ASIA MINOR

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

INTRODUCTION

When we speak of the "Holy Land"
we usually refer solely to the little sec-
tion along the shores of the Mediterra-
nean, called Palestine, which was trodden
by the feet of our Lord and his im-
mediate disciples. But there is another
Holy Land and one scarcely less sacred
to the Christian. It is the Holy Land of
Asia Minor, especially its western part,
which was comprised largely in the an-
cient province of Asia. Here the Apos-
tles laboured and taught. Here some of
the earliest churches were formed. Here
martyrs suffered for their faith as in no
other part of the world.

Over these hills (and a traveller in
Asia Minor is never out of sight of them)

• •

vu

viii INTRODUCTION

and along these river-courses Paul made
his toilsome way, and Timothy and John
Mark, and, in later years, Irenaeus and
Polycarp and others scarcely less distin-
guished in the history of the church.

Through the ports of Smyrna and
Ephesus so many eminent Christians
and church fathers sailed on their way
to Rome and to death that they were
called "The Gateways of the Martyrs."

Here Christianity received its earliest
development as a universal religion, a
faith for Jew and gentile alike.

Above all, it was here that the gentle
Apostle who leaned on Jesus' breast
planted his churches and watched over
them with more than a father's solici-
tude, rejoicing in the steadfastness of
some, mourning over the declension of
others, and to them he wrote the mes-
sages inspired by the Spirit of God which
have been for the encouragement, the
comfort, the warning, the rebuke of the

INTRODUCTION ix

churches in all the continents and in all
the ages since.

In this Holy Land of Asia Minor, as
we shall see, were the churches that
epitomised all the churches of the future,
and as to-day we wander beside the
Meander and the Caicus and the golden
Pactolus; as we stand beside the ruins of
Satan's Throne"; as we go through the
open door" to the Regions Beyond,
which the church of Philadelphia entered
and the church of Laodicea refused to
enter; as we think of those who, among
these hills and valleys, preached and
wrought and suffered and lived and died
for their Lord, and who have left their
undying impress upon the churches in all
the ages, we say to ourselves: "Take off
thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground."

It had long been my dream and hope
that some time I might visit the site of

x INTRODUCTION

the Seven Cities of Asia. Recently, in
connection with other duties, I was able
to carry out my long-cherished design of
visiting the sites of these seven historic
cities. It was considered just at that
time, in March, 1912, a somewhat fool-
hardy attempt by many of my friends,
since Turkey was at war with her neigh-
bours, her harbours were mined and in
danger of bombardment, and an out-
break of cholera was threatened at any
moment. However, the lions disappeared
as they were faced, and we found no
serious difficulty, though some hard-
ships and many inconveniences, in visit-
ing Ephesus and Smyrna, Pergamos and
Thyatira, and Sardis and Philadelphia
and Laodicea.

It is surprising how few people attempt
to visit, at least in any consecutive man-
ner, these cities of the Apocalypse. Jeru-
salem numbers its pilgrims by tens of
thousands. Bethlehem, Nazareth, Da-

INTRODUCTION xi

mascus have fewer, but still a great com-
pany each year. But the Seven Cities of
Asia Minor to which the Alpha and
Omega wrote wonderful messages, which
were not for them alone but for the
churches of all time, are seldom visited
and still more seldom described. Li-
braries of volumes have been written
about Jerusalem and the holy places of
Palestine, but the literature of the holy
places of Asia Minor is scanty indeed.

Ephesus, being but a short distance
from the great port of Smyrna, is visited
by many tourists, or at least many get as
far as Ayasolouk, the railroad station
three miles from the ruins of ancient
Ephesus, though many of these tourists
are satisfied with a hasty glimpse of the
ruins of the Church of Saint John, so
called, the few scattering marbles that
mark the site of the ancient Temple of
Diana, and a good dinner at the Ephesus
Hotel, after which they return on a fast

xii INTRODUCTION

train to Smyrna and the steamer which
brought them there, having accomplished
their hasty mission to one of the Seven
Churches in the space of some five hours.
Even the missionaries and Christian
workers who live in the country have
seldom been permitted by their arduous
duties to visit these sites of such intense
interest to the Christian. But such a
journey now is altogether practicable.

Since the Young Turks came into
power the former restrictions and annoy-
ances that attended travel in Turkey
have been largely removed. The Turk-
ish custom-house has no longer any terror
for the honest traveller. The officials
are polite and courteous and are willing
to give what information they possess.
The meagre railway service of Turkey
has been extended of late years so that
the traveller can go by rail to six of the
Seven Cities, and he can travel with as
much safety to life and limb, if not with

INTRODUCTION xiii

as much comfort, as he can in England
or America. On one line of railway, which
is controlled by a British company, he
can, by starting from Smyrna, visit
Ephesus and Laodicea and the no less
interesting Hierapolis, which lie to the
south and east of Smyrna. By another
line he can reach, in a few hours, Sar-
dis and Philadelphia, which are almost
directly east of Smyrna. Going north
from Sardis, on a branch line, he comes
to Thyatira. Northeast of Thyatira is
Soma, the present terminus of this French
line of railway. A six-hour journey from
Soma by araba or on horseback brings
him to Pergamos, where " Satan's Throne "
was, the only one of the Seven Cities
which is not directly on a railway line.

There are many by-products of such a
journey which should not be forgotten,
though not of chief interest to the Chris-
tian traveller. The scenery in which
one finds himself in visiting the Seven.

xiv INTRODUCTION

Churches is grand and picturesque, almost
beyond the power of expression. The trav-
eller is never far from lofty mountains,
at some seasons of the year snow-capped,
at other times cloud-capped, but always
magnificently impressive. The curious
serrated walls and battlements of the
hills in the vicinity of Sardis and Phila-
delphia, worn by the gnawing tooth of
time into a thousand fantastic shapes,
are worth going far to see.

At other times the traveller finds him-
self journeying up the peaceful valley of
the serpentine Meander, or crossing by
stepping-stones the waters of the fabu-
lously rich Pactolus, or looking down from
the acropolis of Pergamos upon the beau-
tiful green valley of the Caicus. He will
see much that will interest him in the
Turkish villages and larger towns, in the
cosmopolitan population of the region,
with its many types of humanity and its
vast variety of costume. If he is not too

INTRODUCTION xv

squeamish he will enjoy the nights in a
Turkish khan, or a Greek hotel, or the
restaurant where no one has the fear of
microbes before his eyes, and where the
edict against the pestiferous fly has not
gone forth.

The archaeologist will find more in
this ancient province of Asia to interest
him than in any similar portion of the
earth's surface, more great cities of an-
tiquity awaiting the pick and shovel of the
excavater, more ruins of magnificent tem-
ples, palaces, gymnasiums, and theatres,
than he can find elsewhere in the same
space if he should search the world around.

But our interest in these chapters lies
chiefly in the religious significance of the
Seven Cities of Asia, for they still have a
meaning and a message for every city in
the world and for every Christian as well.

While this book is largely a record
of personal experiences and conclusions,

xvi INTRODUCTION

the best authorities have been consulted,
and the author desires to express his
especial obligation to Sir William Ram-
say, whose researches in Asia Minor and
whose illuminating books have made the
whole religious world his debtor.

Much of the material in these chapters
was printed serially in the Christian
Herald, and the kindly reception it re-
ceived has induced the author to put it
in more permanent form.

Boston, June, 1914.

CONTENTS

CHAPTEB pAGH

I. The Revelator and the Revelation 3

II. Ephesus, the Church of Waning

Enthusiasm 14

III. Smyrna, the City of the Noble Crown 33

IV. Pergamos, the City of Satan's Seat 52

V. Thyatira, the City of the Iron Rod

and the Morning Star .... 73

VI. Sardis, the Buried City .... 92

VII. Philadelphia, the City of the Open

Door 113

VIII. Laodicea the Lukewarm .... 135

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

Grotto of St. John, Isle of Patmos, in which, by-
tradition, he saw the visions in Revelation.
The Monastery of St. John on the hill-top . . 6

Ruins of the Double Church of Ephesus ... 24

Ruins of the theatre, Ephesus 26

Ancient Roman aqueduct, near Smyrna ... 34

Two famous mosques of Smyrna 40

Ruins of the gateway to the theatre of Pergamos.
The city is seen through the archway in the
distance 58

Some modern Pergamonians 66

Ruins of Roman bath of Pergamos, dating from
early Christian times. Part of this bath is
used as a Greek Orthodox church to-day . . 70

Street in modern Thyatira 74

An ancient sarcophagus of Thyatira converted
into a fountain. A Turkish bey (or feudal
lord), a Greek Protestant pastor, and Dr.
Clark. The bey in the centre 84

Sardis. The excavations in April, 1910 . . . 94

xix

xx ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

The old acropolis of Sardis, part of which fell and
buried the city in 17 B. C. House of the Amer-
ican excavaters at the right 104

Sardis. The excavations as they are to-day . . 106

Some of the very few objects as yet discovered at
Philadelphia — ancient Greek funeral monu-
ments 120

Ancient sarcophagus at Philadelphia made into a
fountain. Two eminent missionaries, Dr. and
Mrs. Riggs, standing at either side .... 122

Ruins of the fortress of Laodicea 144

THE HOLY LAND OF ASIA MINOR

THE HOLY LAND OF
ASIA MINOR

CHAPTER I

THE REVELATOR AND THE
REVELATION

How magnificently the message to the
seven churches is prefaced: "Grace be
unto you and peace," says the revelator,
"from him which is and which was and
which is to come, and from the seven
spirits which are before the throne, and
from Jesus Christ who is a faithful wit-
ness, and the first-begotten of the Head,
and the prince of the kings of the earth."
Was ever a series of letters begun in such
an exalted strain! "The Alpha and the

4 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

Omega, the Beginning and the Ending,
the Lord who is and was and is to come,
the Almighty One," told the revelator
what to write and what to send to
Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamos and
Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia
and Laodicea.

A pathetic interest is added to the
preface to these letters in the personal
and intimate word of greeting from John,
the scribe of the Spirit, "your brother and
companion in tribulation," as he calls
himself, "and in the kingdom and pa-
tience of Christ." He had need of pa-
tience, indeed, for in his old age he had
come to a period of the severest Ro-
man persecutions, probably in the reign
of Domitian, most cruel of persecutors.
His punishment took place, we are told,
"at a time when the penalty for Chris-
tianity was already fixed as death in the
severer form, that is, by fire or cruci-
fixion, or as a public spectacle at games

THE REVELATOR 5

or festivals for persons of humbler pro-
fession or provincials, and simple exe-
cution for Roman citizens. . . . Banish-
ment, combined with hard labour for life,
was one of the grave penalties. Many
Christians were punished in that way.
It was a penalty for humbler criminals,
provincials, and slaves. It was in its
worst forms a terrible fate; like the
death penalty it was preceded by scourg-
ing, and was marked by perpetual fetters,
scanty clothing, insufficient food, sleep
on the bare ground in a dark prison, and
work under the lash of military over-
seers. It is an unavoidable conclusion
that this was Saint John's punishment."
As we think of this fate, which would
be so terrible for any one who was not
"in the spirit" and who could not see
the vision of the new heaven and the
new earth, we find a new and tear-
compelling pathos in the words: "Your
companion in tribulation and in the

6 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,
who was in the isle that is called Pat-
nios, for the word of God and for the
testimony of Jesus Christ."

Patmos is one of the group of islands
called the Sporades. It is now called
Patino, and lies twenty-four miles dis-
tant from the coast of Asia Minor, a
little south of Ephesus. It is a tiny
little islet compared with some of its
larger neighbours, and has an area of
only sixteen square miles and at pres-
ent a population of four thousand souls.
In John's time there were still fewer in-
habitants. Yet before the days of re-
corded time the island was inhabited,
for cyclopean remains are found there
which show its prehistoric antiquity. It
is said that in the Middle Ages it was
called Palmosa because of its numerous
palm-trees, but the traveller who to-day
sees its scorched hillsides, its scanty,
seared vegetation, and its forbidding

THE REVELATOR 7

rocks can scarcely believe that it ever
deserved this name.

There are not many things of great in-
terest in Patmos except as the memory
and the spirit of Saint John suffuses
every landscape with his gentle spirit of
love. There is, however, the Cave of the
Apocalypse, in which, tradition tells us,
the Apostle saw the vision which he has
recorded in the last book of the New
Testament. There is also the Monas-
tery of Saint John, founded eight hun-
dred years ago, which once contained
an important and valuable library now
found in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.

But it is not what Saint John saw in
Patmos that interests us, but what he
saw far away as he looked out from his
island prison. Looking to the north and
east, he could doubtless see the great
mountains of Asia Minor, among which
lay the seven churches to which the letters
were written.

8 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

The scenery and situation of Patmos
give us a key to much of the imagery
of the book of Revelation. Patmos was
one of the islands of an archipelago. High
and rocky headlands could be seen on
every side, and around all, shutting him
in from country and plain and fellow dis-
ciples, was the mysterious sea, the real
prison wall, mysterious and dangerous.
As we think of this situation of the aged
seer we can more fully understand his
imagery when he tells us that "every
mountain and island shall be moved out
of their places"; "that every island fled
away and the mountains were not found."
Everywhere throughout Revelation we
read of the sea: the things that are "in
the heaven and in the earth and in the
sea"; "the mountains which shall be
cast into the sea"; "the angel that stood
with his right foot upon the sea"; 'the
sound of many waters," and at last,
toward the end, the revelation that must

THE REVELATOR 9

have seemed so joyous to this sea-im-
prisoned saint, the revelation of the time
when there shall be "no more sea."

In writing the Apocalypse Saint John
adopted a common literary style of Jew-
ish writers called the apocalyptic style.
It was not exactly prophecy, though al-
lied to prophecy, and the letters to the
Seven Churches were not epistles intended
to be read to the churches, but to be
read together with the rest of the book of
Revelation. The Seven Churches to which
they were addressed stood as representa-
tives of seven groups of churches, and
yet all the Seven Churches were not of
equal importance. Smyrna, Ephesus,
and Pergamos were three of the great
cities of Saint John's time; three of the
mighty capitals of the world. Phila-
delphia and Thyatira were humbler cities,
cities of the second class we should call
them. Sardis had had a magnificent his-
tory and perhaps even then might have

10 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

been numbered with the three foremost
cities already mentioned, though it had
lost much of the ancient glory and im-
portance which it had when it was the
capital of Crcesus and of Cyrus the Great.

Laodicea lay at some distance from
Ephesus, its nearest neighbour among the
seven, and though by no means equal to
the great four was an important centre
of trade and commerce, not far from two
other large centres with which the Bible
also makes us familiar, Hierapolis and
Colossae.

The Seven Cities were evidently cho-
sen not because they were all the greatest
and most important, but because they
were representative cities and each was
a centre of other churches. It is sup-
posed, too, that each of them was a postal
centre; and, though the government had
established no letter route, commercial
houses had already done so, and the
Christians of the different churches in

THE REVELATOR 11

the vicinity followed their example and
were in peculiarly close communication
with the other churches in their particu-
lar group.

Each church had its own individuality,
but each was also a representative of
other churches, and it may be said that
the seven epitomised all churches in all
ages — churches which were ardent and
faithful; churches that had lost their
early enthusiasm; churches that har-
boured heresy and unbelief; churches
that temporised with the world; churches
that did not rebuke sin in its grossest
forms; and, on the other hand, churches
that maintained the faith, kept their
early zeal aglow, reprobated the wrong,
stood steadfast unto the end, and which
should receive at last the crown of life.
Such were the Seven Churches of Asia,
and such are the seventy times seven
thousand churches of to-day. In this
universal quality lies the special interest

n THE SEVEN CHURCHES

of the Seven Churches of Asia to us of the
twentieth century. As the great French
preacher, Bossuet, said when contem-
plating the book of Revelation: "All the
beauties of the Scripture are concen-
trated in this book; all that is most
touching, most vivid, most majestic in
the law and in the prophets, receives
here a new splendour and passes again
before our eyes that we may be filled
with the consolations and the graces of
all past ages."

In succeeding chapters we will visit
each of the Seven Cities, see them as they
look to-day in their ruins or inhabited
with their twentieth-century population;
consider their present characteristics as
we try to recall their ancient glories;
look upon the mountains that tower
above them, the streams that peacefully
wend their way through them, and the
unchanging yet ever-changing clouds and
sky that bend above them; thus we hum-

THE REVELATOR 13

bly hope to make more vivid and real to
our readers the messages to the Seven
Churches which were in Asia.

CHAPTER II

EPHESUS, THE CHURCH OF
WANING ENTHUSIASM

I know of no passage in the Bible which
is more important for the modern church
to read and ponder than the message
to the ancient church in Ephesus. This
church had many good points and is
praised for its good works; nor is it con-
demned unqualifiedly in any respect as
are some of the Seven Churches. But it
had lost its first love. The fine enthu-
siasm of its earliest days, when Paul lived
there and when Timothy, Aquila, Pris-
cilla, Tychicus, and Apollos helped to
mould its character, had evaporated.

This message was probably written
some thirty years after the founding of

14

EPHESUS 15

the church by Saint Paul. The luxury,
the intellectual atmosphere of which the
inhabitants were so proud, the spirit of
criticism and unbelief, the natural ac-
companiment of such an atmosphere, the
undue emphasis on Christian liberty, had
all united to bring about a degeneration
in the sturdy fibre of the early Christian-
ity of the Ephesian church.

This church has ten thousand proto-
types to-day. Churches that are active
and zealous in philanthropies, whose be-
nevolences are unstinted, whose patient
continuance in well-doing is to be com-
mended, and yet they have lost their
enthusiasm, their joy in service, their
aggressive, compelling power to awaken
sinners and turn them to Christ.

In a recent article describing an at-
tempt to evangelise a community where
various social means were used to inter-
est the people and where a Gospel address
concluded the effort, the writer takes

16 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

much pains to declare that there was no
emotion and to repeat that "emotional
excitement was entirely absent." I im-
agine the same thing might have been
said of the church of Ephesus. It had
left its "first love"; it had lost its emo-
tion, and, consequently, though it did
good work and laboured with patience,
it was not doing its "first works' with
the zeal and love and holy joy of its
earliest days.

The site of a church which has so
much in common with many churches of
these latter days is of peculiar interest.
To visit it we started from the great sea-
port of Smyrna, where was situated also,
as we remember, one of the Seven Churches
of Revelation. The journey to Ephesus
is by no means a long or arduous one.
Indeed, so short and easy is it that more
tourists by far visit the site of ancient
Ephesus each year than all the other six
together.

EPHESUS 17

We take the train at the substantial
Caravan Bridge station, in the heart of
Smyrna. A score or more of two-horse
public carriages are hurrying passengers,
each with a great pile of miscellaneous
baggage, to the station. Ragged camels,
loaded with huge panniers on either side,
dispute the way with the modern landaus.
On the railway platform boys are selling
the morning papers. Others tempt the
passengers with large rings of bread
hung upon a long pole, while others offer
for sale rahatlakoum, or Turkish delight,
or perhaps refresh the thirsty traveller
with booza, a concoction far more harm-
less than its name sounds, or with silep,
a drink made from orchid roots with a
sprinkling of cinnamon and ginger on
top.

Soon the train pulls into the station
from Smyrna Point, and we take our seats
in a comfortable car built mainly after
the American style, though the train also

18 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

contains some small compartments for
travellers who do not like to mingle with
hoi polloi.

Our train may be said to start in a
cemetery, for the Caravan Bridge station
is barely outside of a great cypress grove
which contains two large Turkish ceme-
teries with their leaning and dilapidated
and altogether disreputable headstones.
A minute or two after pulling out of the
station we pass the burial-ground of the
Jews, and another of the Christians, with
beautiful monuments of white marble.

Every rod of the way has its peculiar
interest to the traveller. Under frown-
ing Mount Pagus, crowned with the
ruins of the ancient citadel, the rail-
way passes and ascends a lovely valley,
through which chatters a beautiful brook.
A magnificent aqueduct, built only two
centuries ago, spans the valley, and
higher up is a far older aqueduct which
takes us back, perhaps, to Roman times.

EPHESUS 19

At the first stop, four miles out of the
city, the guard cries out: "Paradise!
Paradise!" We are not looking for para-
dise in Turkey, but if any place in the
Sultan's domains deserves the name it is
doubtless this little station, for here are
the fine buildings of the International
College of Smyrna, an American Chris-
tian college manned by American teach-
ers and built by liberal donations of
American money. Here are gathered
hundreds of students of different races
and languages, to be trained not only in
the lore of the schools but in the higher
knowledge which is "the beginning of
wisdom."

Every few miles we stop at some little
Turkish town, but few of them have any
special interest for the modern travel-
ler, though each of them has a history
that runs back thousands of years, and
through each of them has probably passed
victorious or defeated armies, marching

20 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

proudly in their triumph or straggling
dejectedly in their defeat.

Everywhere are hills; the narrow val-
ley through which we pass is by them
guarded closely on every side. Every-
where, too — at least when we made the
journey, in the early spring — are beauti-
ful flowers. Gorgeous anemones, scarlet
and purple and white, some of the blos-
soms as large as a silver dollar, make the
banks of the railway gay.

After two and a half hours, some forty-
eight miles from Smyrna, "Ayasolouk"
is called by the guard with stentorian
voice, and we find that we have come
to the railway station of the Church of
Waning Enthusiasms that Saint John and
Saint Paul knew. Ayasolouk, which
means "Holy Theologian" (referring to
Saint John), is itself full of interesting
ruins. Before we step off the railway
train the great Roman aqueduct looms
upon the landscape, an aqueduct so

EPHESUS 21

enormous that it can be seen when many
miles away. In the wretched little vil-
lage of Ayasolouk, which now boasts only
a few hundred inhabitants, the pillars of
this aqueduct, forty-five feet tall, stand
high above the huts like enormous monu-
ments, on the tops of which the storks
have built their nests and at the base of
which they stalk about majestically, sure
that their sacred character will protect
them from harm.

Just beyond the columns of the mighty
aqueduct we come to an ancient gate
which leads to the ruins of the Church of
Saint John, whose enormous size shows
how huge was the basilica dedicated to
the writer of Revelation, while not far
away are the well-preserved ruins of a
great Turkish mosque.

But the most interesting spot in Ayaso-
louk is that which once contained one of
the seven wonders of the world, none
other than the temple of "the great god-

22 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

dess Diana, whom all Asia and the in-
habited earth worshippeth," as Deme-
trius, the silversmith, proclaimed. This
is the temple concerning whose goddess
the mob that would have killed Saint
Paul cried out for the space of two hours
in the theatre: "Great is Diana of the
Ephesians." Or, more likely, it was an
invocation to the goddess which they
repeated vociferously for two hours:
"Great Diana of the Ephesians!'

It is hard to realise as one looks at the
few marbles that are left on the swampy
site near Ayasolouk, stones often covered
with water, that this could have been the
site of one of the wonders of the world, a
temple that rivalled in magnificence, if it
did not excel, the Taj Mahal of Agra,
the most perfect example of ecclesiastical
architecture that the world knows to-day.

We must hurry on to the ruins of the
Roman city of Ephesus, some two miles
beyond Ayasolouk. Here one who longs

EPHESUS 23

to follow in the footsteps of the saints
feels that he is indeed on holy ground.
Much of the ancient city has been ex-
cavated. On these marble pavements,
doubtless, Paul and Apollos walked, per-
haps arm in arm, as they talked over the
affairs of the infant church and the prog-
ress of the kingdom of the Master whom
they loved. Over these pavements, too,
doubtless, John walked in rapt contem-
plation of the things which afterward he
might reveal. According to the ancient
legend, which, unlike many legends, has
marks of verisimilitude, in his extreme
old age the saint was carried through
the streets of the city day by day, saying
to his disciples: "Little children, love one
another!"

The poet Eastwood has beautifully
told this story in his lines about Saint
John the Aged:

"What say you, friends?
That this is Ephesus and Christ has gone

24 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

Back to His kingdom? Ay, 'tis so, 'tis so:
I know it all: and yet, just now, I seemed
To stand once more upon my native hills,
And touch my master. . . .
Up! Bear me to my church once more,
There let me tell them of a Saviour's love:
For by the sweetness of my Master's voice
I think He must be very near.

"So, raise up my head:
How dark it is! I cannot seem to see
The faces of my flock. Is that the sea
That murmurs so, or is it weeping? Hush!
'My little children! God so loved the world
He gave His Son: so love ye one another,
Love God and men. Amen.' "

In one of these side streets which lead
out of the main marble thoroughfare
very likely Priscilla and Aquila wrought
at their trade, perhaps with Paul's help,
during the long winter evenings.

There are so many spots of supreme
historical and Biblical interest about
Ephesus that a volume might be written,
as many volumes have been written in
the past, about this most fascinating

Ruins of the Double Church of Ephesus.

EPHESUS 25

city. Here is the great " Double Church,"
so called, where one of the important
councils of the church was held. Here
are ruins of tombs, one of which is
called the tomb of Saint Luke, and the
temples of many gods, the ruins of the
agora, or market-place, of the great gym-
nasium, of the stadium where the Gre-
cian youths exercised themselves, more in
physical than intellectual life, somewhat
according to the custom of the youth of
our own day.

But perhaps the most interesting of
these perfect ruins is that of the great
theatre, capable of seating 24,500 people.
As in all these old theatres, the seats
followed the semicircular excavation in
the hillside. The marble slabs on which
the people of Ephesus sat as they wit-
nessed the games have been taken away,
though it is not difficult to mark their
former position. In the proscenium are
heaped together in endless confusion

26 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

capitals and friezes and drums of columns
and architraves. Here it was that the
mob shouted their praise of Diana for
two long hours. Here it was that at last
the town clerk of Ephesus quieted the
people by telling them that every one
knew that Ephesus was the temple-keeper
of the great goddess Diana and of the
image that fell down from Jupiter, and
thus, by his shrewd opportunism and ap-
peal to their religious pride, he quieted
the people, assuring them that Paul and
his companions were neither robbers of
temples nor yet blasphemers of the god-
dess, and that Demetrius, if he had any-
thing against them, could prosecute them
in the courts.

As we stand in the theatre to-day we
can hear in imagination the hoarse shouts
of the angry mob as they monotonously
invoked the goddess. We can hear the
politic words of the town clerk and see
Alexander the Jew vainly trying to gain

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EPHESUS 27

a hearing from the people who would not
listen to a despised Israelite.

But the message in Revelation comes
to a church that has escaped its early
dangers, and that, likewise, as is often
the case, has lost its early enthusiasm.
In Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians there
is no indication that he noticed any spir-
itual declension. His words are words
of confidence and approbation, quite dif-
ferent from his letter to the Galatians
and the Colossians.

But a generation had passed when
Saint John wrote the book of Revelation,
and though their works and the labour
and the patience of the Ephesian church
and its reprobation of evil are still known,
yet the Master has somewhat against
it. It had lost its first love. "No evil
is more marked among the Christian
churches of this day," said Horace Bush-
nell, "than precisely the absence of this
spirit of burning which the Ephesians

28 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

lacked. There is plenty of liberality and
effort, there is much interest in religious
questions, there is genial tolerance and
wide culture, there is a high standard of
morality and, on the whole, a tolerable
adherence to it, but there is little love
and little fervour. Where is that Spirit
which was poured out on Pentecost?
Where are the cloven tongues of fire?
Where the flames that Christ died to
light up?"

For this lack of its earlier and more
fervent zeal the Ephesian church is
warned to remember whence it has fallen
and to repent and do the first works,
or else the Master will come quickly and
remove the candlestick out of its place.
This threatened penalty has been under-
stood to mean not an utter destruction
of the church of Ephesus but as indicat-
ing that the church would be removed to
another spot. Grotius interprets it: "I
will cause thy population to flee away to
another place."

EPHESUS 29

Sir William Ramsay characterises Eph-
esus as the "city of change." And
truly it has seen marvellous changes and
its inhabitants many removals. In the
days of Saint Paul and Saint John
Ephesus was a city of the seacoast; the
waters of the iEgean lapped its busy
wharves; now the traveller in Ephesus
cannot imagine that he is near the sea.
To all appearances he is as far away as
on one of our inland prairies. The
Cayster during all these ages has brought
down mud and silt from the mountains
until now Ephesus is miles from the sea-
shore. Even in Saint John's time the
port was kept open only by strenuous
effort and constant dredging.

These changes wrought by nature have
compelled frequent changes on the part
of the inhabitants. "The original city
was built not far from Ayasolouk, and
the whole Ephesian valley was an arm
of the sea dotted with rocky islands and
bordered by picturesque mountains and

30 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

wooded promontories," we are told. As
the sea receded in the course of the cen-
turies the population moved with it,
until the Roman city, the city of Saint
Paul and Saint John, was some miles
from the original site. At last this port
became impossible, and the inhabitants
moved farther back, nearer to the site
of the more ancient city, where to-day
the few inhabitants that still remain are
found.

In its government as well as its situ-
ation Ephesus has been a city of change.
Among the earliest inhabitants the Phoe-
nicians introduced their religion, and
the people worshipped the symbol of
the moon as the goddess of the sea; the
priests were named "king bees" and the
priestesses "bees," and bands of armed
women as well as men — for suffragettes
then had all their rights — formed the
temple guard.

Then came the Ionians, a thousand

EPHESUS 31

years before Christ, who had to fight
with the armed virgins, afterward known
as Amazons. Following them came the
Greeks as conquerors, who in turn were
conquered by Croesus, and he by Cyrus
the Great and later by Xerxes. Then
came Alexander the Great as the ruler
of the world, who made Ephesus one of
its chief capitals. Octavius Caesar with
Mark Antony, after the battle of Phi-
lippi, were the rulers of the city. Under
all these monarchs it maintained its
pre-eminence, and the great temple of
Diana was its chief glory. The Ephesians
were even proud of the title of Neocori,
or "Temple-Sweepers " of the great Diana.
In Christian times it was important
ecclesiastically and politically, and in the
Middle Ages the Church of Saint John
at Ayasolouk was almost as famous as
the old temple of Diana. Its annual rev-
enues amounted to nearly one hundred
thousand dollars. Then came the Turks

32 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

in the twelfth century, and there they
have been ever since. Truly it has been
a city of change in every sense of the word.
The Lord's prophecy has been fulfilled,
and the "lamp of the church," as the
"candlestick" should be translated, with
its light and glory, has been removed out
of its place.

For a time the warning of Saint John
seemed to have had a good effect. The
church was revived and regained its
first love, according to Ignatius, but in
later centuries it again lost its enthusiasm
and its devotion; and at last the Moham-
medan crescent supplanted the Christian
cross. The church was, indeed, removed
out of its place and that forever. Every
memorial that there was once a church
there has departed, and not one Christian
family now lives in the desolation, the
dry land, and the wilderness that Ephe-
sus has become.

CHAPTER III

SMYRNA, THE CITY OF THE
NOBLE CROWN

It is an interesting fact, and perhaps
not altogether without genuine spiritual
significance, that Smyrna, the only city
of the seven except Philadelphia whose
church receives from the Master un-
qualified praise, is also the only city of
the seven which is to-day great and
prosperous. Next to Constantinople, it
is the largest and most important city
of the Turkish Empire. Its situation,
too, is almost as fine as the peerless site
of the city on the Bosphorus.

Seated majestically on rising ground
on the southeast shore of the Gulf of
Smyrna, it seems as one looks from its
wharves as though built on the banks

33

34 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

of a great inland lake. A large island
blocks the view as one gazes out to the
iEgean, and yet the entrance is so deep
and safe, and the harbour itself so spa-
cious, that, according to the hackneyed
saying, the navies of the world can ride
at the water-front of Smyrna.

To be sure, the city has no mighty
Olympus to keep guard over it as has
Salonica; it has no narrow thoroughfare
through which constantly ply the vessels
of many nations as has Constantinople;
but it has glories all its own. Splendid
mountains surround it on almost every
side. Mount Pagus, the old citadel of
Smyrna, up whose steep side many of
the houses of modern Smyrna are climb-
ing, is like a great fist, as some one has
expressed it, thrust out by the hills be-
hind the city and connected with the
mountain ranges to the south — a fist
which in the early days, when crowned
with a mighty fortress and manned by

SMYRNA 35

tens of thousands of soldiers, seemed to
be shaken threateningly in the face of
every invader.

I have approached Smyrna both from
the sea and from the land, and whether
one journeys across the iEgean from
Athens, after an eighteen hours' voyage,
or comes overland from Constantinople
by rail, a long two days' journey, he is
impressed not only with the picturesque-
ness of the situation but also by the
seeming vigour and vitality of the city.
Though Smyrna claims to be at least
three thousand five hundred years old,
and her recorded history goes back for
nearly three thousand years, she is as
alert, enterprising, and busy as though
she had her birth in the last century, on
one of our own great lakes, instead of
on the shore of the oldest sea of the civi-
lised world.

Let us in imagination go ashore from
one of the great black steamers of the

36 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

Messageries Maritime. We land on a
noisy, bustling quay alongside of which
runs a little horse-railway. Great ships
from most of the leading ports of the
world are tied up to the quay by their
stern. On the other side of this broad
street, the only one in Smyrna to which
this adjective can be applied, are large
warehouses and one or two pretentious
hotels.

Passing through a cross street, we come
to the great business artery of Smyrna,
the so-called "Frank Street," which has
doubtless obtained its name from the
fact that so many Franks, a generic name
for foreigners, do business on it. This
street is only fifteen feet wide, and yet it
is the chief business thoroughfare of a
city of a quarter of a million inhabitants.
Two people stretching out their arms and
touching hands in the middle could span
the street, and yet through it hurries a
constant stream of foot-passengers, dash-

SMYRNA 37

ing cabs, stately camels, donkeys and
donkey-boys, beasts of burden and men
of burden, carrying every conceivable
article that people of the Orient or the
Occident might want; for this is one of
the chief cities where East and West meet
on a common footing.

At its upper end Frank Street de-
bouches into one of the ever-fascinating
Oriental bazaars. A celebrated English
author speaks of these bazaars as " a net-
work of narrow, ill-paved, dirty lanes"
forming the great business centre of
Smyrna. Everything is sold in these
dismal quarters, he says, "and they
doubtless give a faithful picture, in the
unchanging East, of the Smyrna of the
days of the Apostles."

There is no doubt that these bazaars
are narrow, ill paved, and dirty, but they
cannot be said to be dismal, for there is
no mart of trade in all the world that has
more kaleidoscopic changes, more bril-

38 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

liant colours, or, to the stranger, more
interesting people than the bazaars of
Smyrna. Here every trade is being car-
ried on under your very eye; all the
goods, so to speak, are in the shop-win-
dows. Not that there are any shop-
windows or windows of any other kind
in these bazaars, which are lighted from
the open ends and from apertures in the
roof, but every merchant has brought
all his goods to the front, and usually
sits cross-legged behind them, waiting
for a customer, while he sips his thick
coffee and reads the paper or the Koran.
Some of the bazaar merchants of
Smyrna, however, are more enterprising
than their brethren in other cities, and
send out touts and barkers to induce you
to patronise their shops, especially those
who, to tempt the unsophisticated for-
eigner, deal in curios, ancient armour,
antiquated daggers and weapons, all of
which very likely were made day before

SMYRNA 39

yesterday. It is hard to shake off these
persistent salesmen, who plead with you
a thousand times over to "Come, visit
my shop? Very fine antikkers. You no
need buy anything; you just look!" If,
however, one is beguiled to go and look,
he will find it exceedingly difficult to get
away from the wily, persistent merchant
without buying some trinkets for which
he will afterward find but little use.

Jewellers and money-changers, rug-
dealers and saddlers, spice-merchants
and sellers of figs and dates and oranges
and grains, shoe-stores and fez-shops,
hardware and dry-goods and guns, are
all mixed up in endless confusion, or at
least appear so to the newcomer. At one
end of the bazaar we hear a tremendous
din, as though we were approaching a
dozen boiler-shops, but we find that we
are only drawing near to the copper
bazaar, where the workmen are labori-
ously pounding out bowls and platters

40 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

and water-pots and saucepans and dishes
of all shapes and sizes. Through these
bazaars drivers with two-horse phaetons
are constantly charging, and the un-
lucky foot-passenger must flatten himself
against the wall to avoid being crushed
either by a carriage or a loaded camel.
All sorts of vehicles and four-footed
creatures as well as human bipeds are
straggling or rushing through the shops
instead of through the streets where they
would seem to belong.

Not far from the bazaars is Fish-market
Street, another interesting though some-
what unsavoury and ill-smelling thorough-
fare. Here fine mackerel, sole, and cod
have to compete for popularity with the
humble squid, the hideous devil-fish, the
octopus, and the inky cuttlefish. The
streets are all narrow and tortuous, and
there are fewer fine buildings, mosques,
and churches than either in Salonica or
Constantinople.

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SMYRNA 41

Architecturally Smyrna must have de-
generated since the ancient days, for we
are told that then the streets were broad
and handsome, well paved and running
at right angles with each other. There
were then a number of squares and por-
ticoes and public libraries, a museum, a
stadium in which Olympic games were
celebrated with great enthusiasm, a grand
music-hall or Odeion, a Homerion, and
many temples, of which the most famous
was that of the Olympian Jupiter, in
which the reigning emperor was prac-
tically the god worshipped.

The ancient Smyrniotes were inordi-
nately proud of their city; they called it
the "First of Asia," though the Ephesians
violently disputed this claim. The in-
habitants also called their city the "City
of Homer," who they claimed had been
born and brought up beside their sacred
river Meles. They put his image upon
their coins, which they called a Home-

42 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

rion, a name also given to one of their
temples.

A paragraph from Apollonius of Tyana
is worth quoting, not only for the beauti-
ful sentiment it contains, but because it
shows the esteem in which ancient Smyrna
was held by famous writers of the day.
"Though it is the most beautiful of all
cities under the sun," he writes, "and
makes the sea its own, and holds the
fountains of Zephyrus, yet it is a greater
charm to wear a crown of men than a
crown of porticoes, and pictures and gold
beyond the standard of mankind, for
buildings are seen only in their own place,
but men are seen everywhere and spoken
about everywhere, and make their cities
as vast as the range of countries which
they can visit."

This allusion of the ancient writer to
the crown of porticoes suggests the most
imposing characteristic of ancient Smyrna,
a characteristic to which the writer of

SMYRNA 43

Revelation evidently alludes, and that
was the crown of noble towers and for-
tresses and other buildings that sur-
mounted Mount Pagus, the mighty acrop-
olis of Smyrna. "iElius Aristides, who
himself lived in Smyrna," says Sir Wil-
liam Ramsay, "compares the city as the
ideal city on earth to the crown of
Ariadne shining in the heavenly constel-
lation. He can hardly find language
strong enough to paint the beauty of the
crown of Smyrna. Several of his highly
ornate sentences become clearer when we
note that he is expressing in a series of
variations the idea of a crown resting on
the summit of the hill."

Mount Pagus is still there, but its
crown has largely disappeared. Enor-
mous fragments still remain, to be sure,
showing what tremendous buildings once
occupied the broad plateau on the sum-
mit of the acropolis, and, as one rebuilds
in imagination these wonderful piles, he

44 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

can easily forgive the Smyrniotes of old
for their grandiloquent praise of their
lovely city and its beautiful crown.

On the side of this crowned hill is the
most interesting spot for the Christian
pilgrim to-day, the tomb of the martyr
Polycarp, who, in the middle of the
second century, was here burned at the
stake. He was the Bishop of Smyrna
and disciple of Saint John himself. Ire-
nseus, who was Bish p of Lyons at the
close of the second century, was the
pupil of Polycarp and writes about him
most lovingly and touchingly. Thus we
have unbroken links in a chain of testi-
mony extending through two centuries
which take us back to Christ himself:
Irenaeus the disciple of Polycarp, Poly-
carp the disciple of Saint John, Saint
John the disciple of Christ. Who does
not cherish the beautiful saying of the
aged bishop, when on the stadium of
Smyrna at two o'clock of a Saturday

SMYRNA 45

afternoon in the year 156, as the flames
mounted around him and he was asked
to save his life by renouncing Christ, he
cried out: "Eighty and six years have I
served Him, and He has done me no ill;
how then can I blaspheme my King who
hath saved me."

The traditional spot of his martyrdom
is now guarded by a great cypress-tree,
and under this is a green-painted Mo-
hammedan tomb with a marble fez, the
Moslem embellishment of a grave, on the
top, and this is said to be Polycarp's
tomb! It seems strange and sad that
even his traditional resting-place should
be in a Turkish cemetery and in a Turk-
ish tomb, for he belongs pre-eminently
to the Christian church, though the
Moslems also regard him as a famous
saint. "Polycarpa Tomba! Polycarpa
Tomba!" cried a little black girl as we
approached the tomb. These were her
two English words, though she was

46 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

abundantly familiar with the word "back-
shish," and followed us half a mile from
the tomb, begging for a few more paras.

Some forty years before he died, Poly-
carp wrote an epistle to the Philippians,
in which he quotes profusely from the
apostolic writings, showing that they
were well known in the Christian church
only a few years after the death of Saint
John.

Ephesus was called "the passageway
of the martyrs,'' because through Ephesus
most of them passed on their way to die
at Rome. But Smyrna, also, was a high-
way of the martyrs, and through this
city the great Ignatius, Bishop of An-
tioch, passed to his glorious death at
Rome. Here he was met and comforted
by the Christians of Smyrna, and in writ-
ing back to Poly carp he says: "I give
exceeding glory that it hath been vouch-
safed me to see thy blameless face."

We have been describing modern Smyr-

SMYRNA 47

na and old Smyrna, but there was an
older Smyrna still, for the most ancient
city was said to have been founded by
Tantalus some three thousand five hun-
dred years before Christ at the extreme
end of the bay, some three or four miles
from the modern city, which was also the
site of the city of Polycarp and Saint
John. As I climbed the rough and rugged
hill, leaping from boulder to boulder,
dodging the prickly shrubs where the
hardy goats alone can find any suste-
nance, I felt that indeed I was getting
back to ancient days, as I gazed at the
so-called tomb of Tantalus and the cy-
clopean wall which surrounds it, which
antedates the records of historic times.

Two characteristics of Smyrna, it has
been pointed out by eminent authorities,
are alluded to in the beautiful commen-
datory words of Saint John. A thousand
years before Christ Smyrna was a great
Grecian city, but it was conquered and

48 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

destroyed, wiped off the face of the map
indeed, by the Lydian King Alyates about
six hundred years before Christ. Smyrna
was dead, and yet, though the city was
destroyed, it lived, for there were many
villages round about the ancient city that
constituted a state named Smyrna. The
One who sends the message to Smyrna
through John is spoken of as the One
"who was dead and is alive," alluding, of
course, to our Lord's death and resur-
rection, and perhaps with a secondary
allusion to the city which for hundreds
of years was dead and then lived again,
for the writer in a wonderful way makes
every part of the message, even the in-
scription, appropriate to the history and
the situation of the city to which he
writes.

Not a word of censure or a suggestion
of blame is found in this message. This
absence of reproof it shares alone with
the message to the church of Philadel-

SMYRNA 49

phia. But it was not a rich church in
the usual sense of the word. The Reve-
lator knew its poverty and its tribula-
tions as well as its good works. And here
is inserted that significant and beautiful
parenthesis, "but thou art rich"— rich
in good works, rich in heavenly treasure,
rich in the truest kinds of wealth.

Then the writer predicts the sufferings
which would surely come to this noble
church: "The devil shall cast some of
you into prison that ye may be tried,
and ye shall have tribulation ten days."
Ten days is a limited period of time
which will come to an end. The tribu-
lation is not hopeless and measureless.
Even if death comes it matters little, as
was proven in the case of Polycarp and
many another martyr in the awful per-
secutions of those terrible years of suffer-

ing.

Then comes the glorious reward. "Be
thou faithful unto death," faithful as

50 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

Smyrna had been to the Roman power,
with which she had early thrown in her
lot and been known as the "faithful
city' during all the vicissitudes and the
many changes of Roman rule. So be
thou faithful to thy religion and thy
Master, says the Revelator, "and I will
give thee the crown of life"; a nobler
crown than that which surmounted the
citadel of Mount Pagus; a nobler crown
than the splendid fortresses and buildings
to which every citizen of Smyrna looked
up with admiration and pride; a nobler
crown even than Apollonius described
when he told them it was a "greater
charm to wear a crown of men than a
crown of porticoes" — even the crown of
life, which should be given to the faith-
ful church by him who was the First
and the Last, who was dead and yet lived
again.

This, too, is a message that every
Christian may well take to heart. The

SMYRNA 51

poor, those who have much tribulation
and suffering, those who are ostracised,
as were the Christians of Smyrna by the
Jews who belonged to the synagogue of
Satan, all these sons and daughters of
men, yea, all true Christians, may well
take to heart these words: "Be thou
faithful even unto death, and I will give
thee the crown of life. He that over-
cometh shall not be hurt of the second
death."

CHAPTER IV

PERGAMOS, THE CITY OF
SATAN'S SEAT

We left Soma, the terminus of one
branch of the Anatolian Railway, early
one bright February morning for Per-
gamos, or Pergamum as it is called in
the revision, the ancient capital and
most important city of the province of
Asia. Soma is a good place to get away
from, and, to vary a modern gibe, con-
cerning Boston, of which New York peo-
ple are fond, the best thing about Soma
was the araba which took us away from
it. This araba is a strong spring cart,
covered with dirty white canvas, looking
not unlike a butcher's cart. It has no
seats and our two missionary friends and

52

PERGAMOS 53

ourselves piled our suitcases, our rugs,
and other impedimenta in the bottom of
the araba to afford as comfortable seats
as possible for the bouncing, jolting
journey of forty-two kilometres that lay
before us. Our driver was a picturesque-
looking Greek, sad and gloomy but hand-
some and with a Byronic cast of feature.
But his actions were not as handsome as
his face and he proved, before we were
through with him, to be a grasping rascal.
Pergamos is the only one of the seven
cities that must be reached by araba or
on horseback, for all the rest lie within
walking distance of one of the three lines
of railway in Turkey. The February air
was crisp but not too cold, for spring
comes early in this part of Asia Minor.
The apricot and peach-trees were in full
bloom and the almond-trees flourished on
every side, reminding us of Solomon's de-
scription of the hoary head of the aged
saint.

54 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

The ride is a charming one, so far as
the scenery is concerned, and if as much
could be said for the road over which we
travelled one could not wish a more de-
lightful journey than that from Soma to
Pergamos. But like all Turkish roads the
highway in many parts is abominable.
There are stretches of decent road alter-
nating with other stretches which are
quite indescribable, where the araba sways
and pitches and rolls like a ship in a
heavy sea. Much of the way we seemed
to be on the edge of a great natural bowl
or saucer, with the valley below us and
the outer rim of the bowl on the opposite
horizon. In the early morning and in
the sunset light the purple hills in the
distance are beautiful beyond compar-
ison. Especially in the evening a long
afterglow illumines them, a glow even
more characteristic of Asia Minor than
of Switzerland.

We pass many groves of olive-trees

PERGAMOS 55

and others of mulberries, while cherries
and peach orchards abound in many
places. This is a cotton country too, and
the bolls of last year's crop, a few still
ungathered, decorate the dried stalks.
Now and then we pass a rude little
Turkish village, heralded in advance,
usually, by a cemetery filled with cypress-
trees and dilapidated tombstones.

As we drive farther from Soma small
streams become more numerous and we
rattle across many rude wooden bridges,
unless our arabaji prefers to drive
through the stream in order to tighten
up his tires and lave the feet of his tired
horses. Kilometre after kilometre is
passed and at last a turn in the road
shows us a glorious spectacle — the lofty
citadel of ancient Pergamos, the city
which for some hundreds of years was the
most noted, wealthy, and powerful me-
tropolis in the whole province of Asia.
A noted traveller and archaeologist writes :

56 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

"History marked it out as the royal
city, and not less clearly has nature done
so. No city of the whole of Asia Minor,
so far as I have seen, and there are few of
any importance which I have not seen,
possesses the same imposing and domi-
nating aspect. It is the one city of the
land which forced from me the exclama-
tion: 'A royal city!' There is something
unique and overpowering in its effect,
planted as it is on its magnificent hill,
standing out boldly in the level plain,
and dominating the valley and the moun-
tains on the south." *

Though I can scarcely share to the full
Sir William Ramsay's enthusiasm for the
site of Pergamos, it is certainly striking
and imposing, and still more so when
viewed as he viewed it in the light of its
splendid history.

For twenty-five hundred years a city,
larger or smaller, has stood upon the

* Sir William Ramsay.

PERGAMOS 57

slope of this commanding hill or nestled
at its feet, but it was not until three cen-
turies before Christ that Philetaerus re-
volted from King Lysimachus, whose
vassal he was, and founded the kingdom
of Pergamos. A succession of brilliant
kings named Attalus reigned in Perga-
mos, and the last of them, Attalus III,
when he saw that the Roman power was
to become dominant throughout the
world, made over by will his kingdom to
the Roman Emperor. Then it became
the "Province of Asia," to which fre-
quent allusion is made in the Bible, and
Pergamos for two centuries and a half
more was the capital of this great prov-
ince.

A fact most interesting to us in study-
ing the history of the seven churches of
Asia — and, by the way, all these Seven
Churches were situated within the borders
of the ancient kingdom of Pergamos — is
the fact that the first temple where the

58 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

Emperor was worshipped in any provin-
cial Roman city was Pergamos. Here,
about thirty years before Christ, was
built this splendid temple in honour of
Rome and Augustus, and to it was
brought in after years many a Christian
who was commanded to worship the
statue of the Emperor and burn incense
before it. If he refused, the most awful
fate probably awaited him — martyrdom
by burning at the stake. Or perhaps he
would be transported to Rome and there
thrown to the wild beasts in the Colos-
seum.

When we remember these facts, and
that this temple was the place where
idolatrous worship was enforced by all
the mighty power of Rome, we can under-
stand why Saint John, the Revelator,
should call it " Satan's Seat," or "Satan's
Throne." Pergamos had long been a
peculiarly idolatrous city. The native
Anatolians worshipped animal gods, and

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PERGAMOS 59

though, when the Greeks came, they in-
troduced more spiritual or at least more
artistic divinities like Jupiter, Minerva,
and iEsculapius, yet the animal gods
still were worshipped by the common
people, the natives of the province. One
of the coins of Pergamos represents
Caracalla, the Emperor, adoring the ser-
pent god at Pergamos. Another coin
represents a serpent wriggling out of the
mystic box of Dionysos.

Another characteristic of Pergamos
was that its governor had the right of
life and death. He had absolute author-
ity to kill or to spare, and in Saint John's
time this absolute authority with which
the ruler of Pergamos was invested was
bitterly hostile to the Christians. The
one who wielded the power of life and
death, the Jus gladii, or the right of the
sword, hated them with a cruel hatred.

All of these facts we must bear in mind
as we study the words of the Revelator,

60 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

the one who styled himself, when he
wrote to the angel of the church at Per-
gamos, as "He that hath the sharp sword
with the two edges," an evident refer-
ence to the right of the sword possessed
by the proconsul of Pergamos.

It may be of passing interest to know
that Pergamos to-day seems to be the
seat of a considerable manufacture of
cutlery and swords, and one of the me-
mentoes which I have brought away from
the modern city was not a sharp sword
but a sharp knife with two edges of a
style such as I have seen in no other part
of the world.

The Revelator goes on to say to the
beleaguered Christians in this idolatrous
city, "I know where thou dwellest, even
where Satan's throne is," the great Tem-
ple of Rome and Augustus, where is set
up the image of the Emperor before
which the inhabitants bow down and to
which they burn incense as a sign of

PERGAMOS 61

their loyalty to him. But even there
where Satan's throne is "thou holdest
fast my name, and hast not denied my
faith."

These must have been precious, com-
forting words to the faithful few. One
of these faithful ones is singled out and
mentioned by name: "Antipas, my faith-
ful witness, who was slain among you
where Satan dwelleth." But doubtless
there was many another Christian who
shared the same fate, perhaps hundreds
of them brought from all the country
around and taken to "Satan's throne'
to be tested as to the reality of their
faith in Jesus Christ. Alas ! all the Chris-
tians of Pergamos were not like An-
tipas, and the One that hath the sharp
sword, because of them, had a "few
things" against the church in Pergamos.

Those that held the doctrines of Ba-
laam were largely represented in the
church. Doubtless these doctrines were

62 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

the same as those of the Nicolaitans, who
were elsewhere denounced.

They were the lax, yielding Christians
of their day, who found it easy to conform
to the ways of the world and the temp-
tations of the time. They had little of
the Puritan blood in their veins, and they
could easily excuse themselves, doubtless,
not only for eating things sacrificed to
idols but for occasionally bowing before
the statue of the Emperor and burning
a little incense before it.

"The Lord knows," they doubtless
said, "that we are simply showing our
loyalty to Rome by conforming to the
custom of the day. The Emperor is a
mere man and his image we do not wor-
ship, but only bow before it to show our
obedience to the authority of our Em-
peror."

Doubtless the Nicolaitans of those
days had quite as many excuses for their
worldly practices as the Nicolaitans of

PERGAMOS 63

modern times. But to them comes the
sharp and terrible reproof: "Repent or
else I will come unto thee quickly and
fight against thee with the sword of my
mouth."

But to the faithful members of the
church in Pergamos comes a blessed and
appropriate reward. The "hidden man-
na' was to be theirs, which they might
eat and gain strength for their terrible
trials. According to Jewish history, King
Josiah, or the prophet Jeremiah, when
Solomon's temple was destroyed, hid a
pot of manna which the Israelites had
gathered in the wilderness, and had kept
it in the holy of holies that it might not
be captured by Nebuchadnezzar's army.
What became of this pot of manna was
the subject of different traditions — one
that it had been carried up into heaven,
another that it was concealed in a cave
of Mount Sinai to be revealed when the
Messiah came.

64 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

But more significant still was the white
stone which was to be given to the
Christian who did not deny his Lord,
even in Satan's seat. In the stone was
his new name. It was an old Jewish
custom, when a man was sick even unto
death, as it was supposed, to give him
another name by which, if he recovered,
he was known throughout the rest of his
life. To those who were faithful, who
overcame the sharpness of death and were
not afraid of its terrors, a new name
was to be given, written upon the white
stone, a name showing that they were
Christians. This very word itself was a
new name, given not many years before
at Antioch to this despised and perse-
cuted sect.

What do we find at Pergamos to-day?
We see, in fact, two cities: a city of ruins
without a single inhabitant and a city
of the living, now called Bergama, mean
and squalid, to be sure, in comparison

PERGAMOS 65

with its ancient glory, but busy and
bustling and interesting as a typical cen-
tre of modern Greek and Turkish life.
Long caravans of camels march through
its streets in almost endless procession,
loaded with wood charcoal, chick-peas,
millet, wheat, sesame, lentils, leeks, car-
rots, black turnips, chopped hay, and
other kinds of produce. The bazaars
are gay with bright cloths, wadded jack-
ets, embroidered saddle-bags, tinsel orna-
ments for the heads of women, and all
sorts of cheap jewellery that Birmingham
or Attleboro can furnish.

The streets are paved with cobble-
stones set on edge and are horrible for
the pedestrian. A sewer runs down the
middle of each street, and garbage and
refuse of all kinds are thrown out of ev-
ery doorway for the pariah dogs to fight
over. There seem to be as many dogs
as men, most of them miserable, depressed
creatures who fight with one another over

66 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

a swill-pail or lie curled up in the sun by
the hour together.

One of the most attractive features of
Bergama are the fountains, and many
an old sarcophagus beautifully sculptured
on every side is now used as a water-
ing-trough. Veiled Turkish women with
the tips of their noses showing, unveiled
Greek women, and a multitude of men
in baggy blue trousers are the principal
people whom one meets on the street.
In the provision-shops one sees groceries
of various kinds : oranges, dates, and pea-
nuts; leeks, onions, and garlic; spinach,
turnips, and potatoes; long strings of
dried okra, cauliflower, and cabbages;
dried squid and devil-fish from the iEgean,
and the various kinds of helva in which
the Turkish heart delights.

Such a modern city, however, you
might find almost anywhere in Turkey,
but no other such city as the ancient
Pergamos do you find the wide world

Some modern Pergamonians.

PERGAMOS 67

around. Climb with me the steep slope
of the ancient citadel, at first through
the narrow street lined with the stone
huts of modern Pergamenians, and very-
soon we come to the borders of the an-
cient walled city.

More than thirty years ago the Ger-
mans began to excavate ancient Pergamos
and made some wonderful finds, most of
which are transported to the Pergame-
nian museum in Berlin, but still there
is much left to remind the traveller of
the glorious city on whose grave he is
walking. There are many white stones
lying about on every hand, not the white
pebbles of which the revelator spoke, on
which the new name was to be written,
but great masses of marble, fine capitals
beautifully carved, lofty columns, some
standing erect and others prostrate, wuth
their drums scattered about. A few
headless torsos and fragments of arms
and legs strew the ground. Here is a

68 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

great gymnasium, covering many rods in
length, with many beautiful columns still
standing, where the Grecian youths exer-
cised themselves in games of all sorts,
and there the remains of a stately old
palace.

Above this, on a higher slope, are thea-
tres and temples, the great altar of Zeus,
of which there is nothing left but an
enormous base of solid masonry. Still
higher up on the hill is the Temple of
Athense Polias, a library, and beyond
this, perhaps the most interesting spot
of all to the Christian, the ruins of the
Temple of Rome and Augustus, "Satan's
Seat" or "Satan's Throne," where the
cruel test which meant either death or
denial of their Lord was offered to so
many Christians. Not far away are the
ruins of the Temple of Julia and, most
massive of all, a magnificent piece of the
acropolis wall, built of enormous stones,
fully a hundred feet in height and but-

PERGAMOS 69

tressing part of the hill itself and extend-
ing some feet above it.

No description can give the reader an
adequate account of these extensive ruins.
They cover acres and acres and acres.
To see them all one must wander for
miles over rough and steep paths,
often climbing over huge fragments of
marble and masonry, mute relics of past
glories.

The view from the summit is far more
beautiful and scarcely less impressive
than the ruins themselves. Fifteen miles
away one catches a glimpse of the bright
waters of the Mgesm. In the nearer
distance rise three great tumuli some
hundreds of feet in height, the graves of
forgotten kings. Pausanias, writing nine-
teen hundred years ago, tells us that they
are the tombs of Auge, the mother of
Telephus, of Andromache, and of Per-
gamos.

Close to the base of the citadel lies

70 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

the modern town, which we have al-
ready described, but it looks better from
a distance, and its fifteen slender min-
arets relieve the city of the sordid ap-
pearance which it presents when one is
in its crowded streets.

The most striking ruin within the con-
fines of the modern town is a vast library
of Roman times. This reminds us that
our word parchment is derived from
the name Pergamos or Pergamum, where
sheepskins were first tanned for literary
purposes. In this library, it is said, were
stored no less than two hundred thousand
volumes, or rolls of parchment, which
Mark Antony gave to Cleopatra in or-
der that her great library at Alexandria
might not be surpassed by the library of
Pergamos.

Beyond the city stretches the wide and
beautiful valley of the Caicus, charm-
ing as we saw it in the greenery and
blossoms of early spring, and hemmed in

o

PERGAMOS 71

on the farther side by glorious moun-
tains that stretch far up toward the
clouds.

A little touch of homely modern life
did our hearts good as we stood upon
the ancient citadel, for some young girls
from the modern town had come up to
the ruins with their baskets of provisions
to enjoy a picnic amid the marble col-
umns. Here they played "Drop the
handkerchief," "Puss, puss in the cor-
ner,' and other games as familiar to
the children of America as to the de-
scendants of the ancient Pergamenians.
From a spot of greensward below came
the voices of many smaller children that
sounded pleasantly as they mingled with
the tinkling of the distant camel bells,
the lowing of the water-buffaloes, and the
occasional cry of the muezzin calling to
prayer from the minaret.

There is no Protestant church and per-
haps no Protestant disciple in Pergamos,

72 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

but the representatives of the Christians
to whom the Revelator wrote belong to
the Greek Orthodox faith.

As a last view from the citadel it is
pleasing to rest our eyes upon one section
of the ancient library, before alluded to,
which has been made over into a Chris-
tian church, the Church of Saint Antipas.
It is an enormous circular church forty-
five feet in diameter and over seventy
feet high, while the walls are seven feet
thick, and there is an opening in the top
something like that in the Pantheon at
Rome. Let us hope that in this Church
of Saint Antipas there may be many
Orthodox Greek Christians who, like
Antipas of old, are Christ's faithful wit-
nesses, who will receive at last the "hid-
den manna' and the "white stone with
the new name."

CHAPTER V

THYATIRA, THE CITY OF THE
IRON ROD AND THE MORN-
ING STAR

At first sight nothing would seem more
incongruous than the conjunction of
these two figures of speech, the iron rod
and the morning star, and yet the
promise is given to the faithful in Thya-
tira that they shall "rule the nations
with a rod of iron" and that to them
shall be given "the morning star." We
may be able to see later the significance
of these striking figures.

It cannot be said that the traveller, as
he approaches the modern city of Thya-
tira, or Ak-Hissar (White Castle, in En-
glish), as it is called to-day, can see in

73

74 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

this second-rate Turkish town anything
to remind him of iron power over the
nations or of the brightness of the morn-
ing star, for it is mostly built of mud,
the streets are narrow and straggling, its
bazaar is uninteresting, and it has all
the appearance of a decadent but self-
satisfied little city whose position in the
centre of the long valley that connects
the two great valleys of the Hermus and
the Lycus gives it a certain amount of
business importance which its own en-
terprise or spirit of progress scarcely de-
serves.

Now, as always, Thyatira is on an
important trade route. Now a branch
railway line runs one or two mixed and
exceedingly slow trains of freight and
passenger cars through the city each day.
In the ancient times the caravans of
horses and camels brought much busi-
ness to its doors, as a sort of half-way
house between the great capitals of Sar-

Photograph by Mrs. F. E. Clark.

Street in modern Thyatira.

THYATIRA 75

dis and Pergamos. Moreover, in Roman
times, when John wrote the message of
the Son of God to Thyatira, the city was
a station on the imperial post-road that
connected Rome with all the great cities
of the East.

To-day Pergamos is a mere shadow of
its former greatness; Sardis is a heap of
ruins buried under a mountain avalanche;
Rome is no longer the world's capital,
and the great cities of this old post-road
are of no consequence as emporiums of
trade. In consequence of this, Thyatira
has declined with them, for she was al-
ways dependent for her prosperity upon
her greater and stronger neighbours.
And yet we find much that is interesting
in one of these back eddies of civilisation
such as Thyatira has become.

In going from Smyrna by rail we change
cars at Manisa, a place of considerably
more importance to-day than Ak-Hissar.
Manisa is the old Magnesia, which gave

76 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

its name to the magnetic iron which was
first found in its vicinity, and hence to
our common English word magnet and
its derivatives as well as to the well-
known drug magnesia.

Two hours by rail from this junction
brings us to a substantial stone sta-
tion across the front of which we read
the name "Ak-Hissar." We have come
to old Thyatira. One of the broadest
streets in Turkey, lined with pleasant
trees, leads from the station to the heart
of the town half a mile away. There is
little of striking and unusual interest to
describe in modern Thyatira. It has no
great citadel or acropolis as has each one
of the other Seven Cities. The little rise
of ground which formerly contained the
fortifications of the city is now a Turkish
gentleman's private grounds. The great
cypress-trees are the one redeeming fea-
ture which add a touch of beauty to the
town.

THYATIRA 77

Some twenty thousand people live in
Ak-Hissar to-day, and the nationalities
are about equally divided between the
Greeks and the Turks. Our hotel is a
kind of khan, with a few tolerably clean
rooms opening upon a wide courtyard,
in the centre of which is a great plane-
tree shading an ever-flowing fountain.
Horses, goats, camels and donkeys, hens
and ducks, and a multitude of doves
flying to their windows, share the hos-
pitality of the courtyard with ourselves.
Our landlord furnishes only room and
bed for the two "pieces of eight' which
he charges us, and so we must go out
and forage for ourselves for supper. In
the straggling bazaar it is not difficult to
find sufficient food for a frugal supper,
with eggs at ten paras, or one cent, each,
small oranges at two for a cent, a large
loaf of bread hot from the oven for four
cents, and buffalo's milk for three cents
a quart.

78 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

Commonplace and uninteresting as
Thyatira appears at first sight, it is yet
a city with a great and varied history.
Its position on one of the great com-
mercial routes of the world made it
indispensable to the successive rulers of
Asia, and yet it was impossible, owing
to its exposed situation, in the midst of
a fertile valley, with no great citadel and
no commanding hills near by, to defend
itself from a stronger foe. So, more than
almost any city of antiquity, it has been
captured and recaptured, destroyed and
built up and destroyed again, sacked
and pillaged and burned and laid low,
and then has risen once more from its
ashes.

It was founded first by Seleucus I,
one of the greatest generals of Alexander
the Great, whose mighty realm stretched
far to the eastward from the Hermus
valley to the mountains of India. Ly-
simachus was a contemporary ruler to

THYATIRA 79

the westward, and, in order to defend
Thyatira against his invasions, a colony
of Macedonian soldiers was established
in Thyatira about three hundred years
before Christ. But Thyatira was be-
tween the upper and nether millstones of
Pergamos on the north and the kingdom
of the Syrian King on the south and east,
and it did not escape the fate of the corn
between the millstones.

About the year 190 B. C. it came under
the power of Rome, and, though in the
days of the Republic it suffered much
from oppression and extortion, great
commercial prosperity came to it with
the inauguration of the Roman Empire.
About the time that Saint John wrote
the Revelation it was at the height of its
wealth and prosperity as a great business
city. It is known that there were more
trade guilds in Thyatira than in any
other city of Asia, for inscriptions tell us
that there were guilds of linen-workers,

80 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

wool-workers, dyers, bronze-smiths, pot-
ters, bakers, tanners, and slave-dealers.
The selling of ready-made garments was
an important business of Thyatira, but
whether there was the accompaniment
of Jewish sweat-shops, long hours, and
scanty pay, as with us in the same busi-
ness, we are not told.

There were certainly Jews in Thyatira,
however, for Seleucus was always hos-
pitable to this race when he founded a
new city. One of these was Lydia, though
she was probably a proselyte to the Jew-
ish religion from among the heathen. At
any rate, she was a woman of Thyatira
and a "seller of purple," and of all the
people that ever lived in this ancient city
she alone is of special interest to the
modern Bible student.

We remember how Paul found her by
the riverside in Philippi, when on the
Sabbath day he went there to the place
" where prayer was wont to be made."

THYATIRA 81

We know how attentive she was to the
words of Paul, how she was baptised with
her household and "besought" Paul and
his companions and even "constrained"
them to come into her house and abide.
Since Thyatira was settled first by Mace-
donian soldiers, it was natural that the
city should keep up its trade connections
with the parent country, and equally
natural that Lydia should go there to
sell her fine wares.

The purple with which she dyed her
linen was made from roots found in the
vicinity of Thyatira, where it still grows
in abundance. We should scarcely call
the colour purple, however, nor does the
Greek word indicate the colour which we
now know as purple. One of our party
obtained a quantity of this madder root
in Thyatira, and after boiling it for sev-
eral hours produced a dye of a rather
unsatisfactory reddish colour. Doubtless,
had she had Lydia's recipe for making the

82 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

dye, the results would have been more
satisfactory. It is pleasant to believe,
though we have no scriptural authority
for it, that the devout Lydia, after she
was baptised and had been instructed in
Philippi by Paul and Silas and Luke and
Timothy, went back to Thyatira and es-
tablished the church of good works and
love and service and faith of which the
Revelator speaks.

The fact that the one who sent the
message to the church at Thyatira is
described as "One with eyes like unto a
flame of fire, and his feet like molten
brass," or shining bronze, as it might be
translated, reminds us that the bronze-
smiths of Thyatira constituted a famous
guild. One of the extant coins of the
city represents a bronze-worker fash-
ioning a helmet for Minerva. Thus, in
every way the message is fitted to the
people to whom it is sent.

Modern Ak-Hissar, like ancient Thya-

THYATIRA 83

tira, is still in the midst of a bountiful
valley and the fertility of the soil seems
unimpaired. Cotton and wheat, maize
and olives, still constitute the riches of
the city. We made an interesting call on
a feudal lord who lives on a low hill com-
manding the town, the ancient acrop-
olis of Thyatira. The bey is an inter-
esting, well-educated man, belonging to
the youngest Young Turk party — that is,
the party that protests against the re-
actionary element of the Young Turks.
He lives in a fine stone house, and in his
large and well-furnished reception-room
he showed us a picture of the landing of
King George and Lord Kitchener at Port
Said, an event which had just taken
place, as well as a statuette of the late
King Edward, for he is an admirer of
England and her institutions.

In his ample grounds is a large foun-
tain made from an old sarcophagus,
covered with an inscription in ancient

84 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

Greek which tells us that it was erected
in memory of a beloved wife. How little
we know and, alas, how little we care for
the unknown widower of two thousand
years ago and the dear wife whose death
caused him so much grief!

Another interesting feature of modern
Thyatira is the manufacture of carpets.
This is carried on in many rather humble
and obscure quarters, but most beautiful
fabrics are the output of these factories.
The girls who weave them are exceedingly
skilful, and they tie and cut the woof of
the rugs with motions so rapid that we
could not see their hands go back and
forth, as when watching the most skilful
piano-player the eye is not quick enough
to follow his swift motions. A rug
that four girls were making, we were
told, would sell on the spot for a hundred
dollars, but it would take these girls
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THYATIRA 85

gion, and two years before our visit was
terribly shaken. Several minarets were
thrown down, and now on the broken
fragment the muezzin comes out five
times a day to proclaim to the people
that "God is great," that "prayer is bet-
ter than sleep," that "prayer is better
than food,"' and that they should "come
to prayer, come to prayer."

Since the message to Thyatira, as to
the other churches, was addressed to the
"angel," who is supposed to be the min-
ister of the church, it is interesting to
know that there is an angel of what we
believe to be the true church still in
Thyatira. His name is George Prus-
saevs. He is the pastor of the Protestant
Greek Church in this city, the only one of
the seven, save Smyrna, that can, so far
as we know, boast a single Protestant
Christian. He is an earnest, faithful
minister of the church, trained in one
of the mission theological schools of the

86 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

American Board, with a wife who is a
true helpmeet and three beautiful little
children, Syntiche, Lydia, and Chloe.
May the little Lydia of Thyatira, as she
grows up, rival in faith and good works
the older Lydia, the purple-seller who
made her native city famous!

As to the message to the church in
Thyatira, it is an obscure and difficult
one to interpret, since we know so little
of the prevalent customs and heresies of
that time. Commentators differ as to
the "woman Jezebel," some claiming that
she was a heathen priestess who stood
for all manner of licentious rites and evil
practices, and others that she was the
leader of the Nicolaitans, a division of
the church that claimed to be none the
less Christian because it tolerated some
heathen customs, like eating meat offered
to idols, offering incense to the statue of
the Emperor, joining social clubs, which
were numerous in those days and which

THYATIRA 87

often fostered much debauchery and even
licentiousness.

Many of these clubs were connected
with the trade guilds, and on this account
Thyatira, which was famous for these
guilds, offered special temptations to the
Christians who belonged to them to con-
done, even if they did not approve of,
the unchristian practices of many of the
members.

The praise accorded in the first part of
the message to the church of Thyatira
seems to give colour to this interpretation,
for the Son of God himself says: 'I know
thy works, and love and service and
faith, and that thy last works are more
than the first/' It is thought by many
that the Nicolaitans, though their doc-
trines were wrong, and their compliance
with the practices of the heathen neigh-
bours was most dangerous, yet were still
active in good works, and perhaps vied
with their stricter and more puritanical

88 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

church members in acts of benevolence
and subscriptions to all good causes, so
that the "last works were more than the
first."

Nevertheless, the seeds of failure and
destruction of the church lay in the lax-
ness of the Nicolaitans. It is the old,
ever-recurring struggle of expediency
against duty. How far shall we go?
how far conform to the world, indulge in
their amusements, join their clubs, and
live their life? Doubtless, the Nicolaitans
had a thousand good reasons, or reasons
that seemed to them good, for their doc-
trines and their manner of life. "They
could do more good by remaining in
these clubs and exerting a good influence
within them." They did not wish to
appear "sour" and "strait-laced' and
'puritanical." They could perform just
as many acts of charity and benevolence
as though they were the strictest puri-
tans.

THYATIRA 89

But the Revelator does not accept
their excuses or their reasoning. He
knows that either the church or the
world must prevail, and that to conform
to the heathen world is sure death to the
church. Therefore, he had "a few things"
against the church of Thyatira: it has
not cast out the " woman Jezebel, " but al-
lows her and her followers to remain in
good and regular standing in the church.

A terrible woe is denounced against
this woman who called herself a proph-
etess and was a leader of the Nicolai-
tans, but not, perhaps, exactly the woe
that the words at first blush seem to in-
dicate. The "bed' is supposed to be
the couch where, at the club, the revellers
reclined while they feasted, and the pas-
sage denouncing Jezebel has been freely
translated: "I set her on a dining-couch
and her vile associates with her. I gave
her space to repent and she repented not,
and I will kill her disciples with a mys-

90 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

terious disease, and all the churches shall
know that I am He that searcheth the
reins and the heart."

But, in spite of Jezebel and the Nico-
laitans, the writer is sure of the final
triumph of the church and of the right.
Those who have not followed the teach-
ings of Jezebel are not required to leave
the world for a hermit's cave, to cut off
all intercourse with the heathen, for "no
other burden' is put upon them than
that which was decided by the Apostles
in former days to be absolutely necessary
for the preservation of the purity of the
church, "that they abstain from fornica-
tion and from things offered to idols. ':

To those who keep themselves pure a
glorious reward is promised. Their power
shall exceed the power of Rome that
ruled over the nations. They, too, shall
rule with a rod of iron. Even this di-
vided church in this comparatively ob-
scure and unimportant city of Thyatira

THYATIRA 91

shall triumph, and its faithful members
shall become ruling princes with the al-
mighty power of the Father. The con-
trast between weak Thyatira and this
promise of victory and mighty power is
all the more striking. But not only shall
the faithful have power, but brightness
and glory, for the morning star shall be
given to them. Obscure, despised, re-
proached for their puritanism and their
separateness, they shall yet shine in the
firmament, the observed of all observers.
By this beautiful passage we are re-
minded of the glorious promise of the
prophet: "They that be wise shall shine
as the brightness of the firmament, and
they that turn many to righteousness as
the stars for ever and ever."

He that hath an ear let him hear what
the Spirit saith unto the churches.

CHAPTER VI

SARDIS, THE BURIED CITY

Of all the Seven Cities of Asia, perhaps
Sardis has the most interesting and ro-
mantic history, and yet, with all its nat-
ural advantages — its wealth, its famous
rulers, its wise counsellors, its victorious
armies — it was the greatest failure of
them all, and its church merited the
severest reprimand from the Revelator of
any of its sisters. The richest man in
the world, Crcesus, had been the King of
Sardis; the wisest man, Solon, had been
her guest; and yet, as we shall later
see, through overconfidence and lack of
watchfulness, time and again it was sur-
prised, conquered, and all but destroyed,
until at last the disintegrating rock and

92

SARDIS 93

soil from its own citadel, loosened by
the winter rains and hurled down by
destructive earthquakes, buried the city
thirty feet deep from the sight of man.

It became a dead city and it was buried
by the forces of nature. The church in
Sardis seems to have shared the charac-
teristics of the city. It, too, was dead,
as we are told, and apparently through
lack of watchful care, for, twice over,
practically the same message comes to it :
"Be watchful; if, therefore, thou shalt
not watch I will come on thee as a thief,
and thou shalt not know what hour I
will come upon thee." This interesting
correspondence between the history of
the city of Sardis and the message to the
church of Sardis will be understood as
the story of the city and of the church is
developed.

Sardis was a very old city, far older
than Thyatira or Pergamos or even
Ephesus. More than three thousand

94 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

years ago it was a great city. Before the
dawn of recorded time it was very likely
inhabited, at least as a robber strong-
hold, for its original situation made it
seemingly impregnable and enabled it
to lay all the country round about under
tribute. But the day of its greatest
glory and splendour did not come until
about twenty-five hundred years ago,
when Croesus became its king. He was
the more famous son of a famous father,
Alyattes. He conquered all the people
round about and reigned in unparalleled
magnificence in his splendid capital.

Sardis, which had at first been merely
the citadel on a steep and almost inac-
cessible plateau five hundred feet above
the plains, had by this time moved down
from its lofty perch to the valley below,
and palaces and temples and gymnasiums
and magnificent private homes made it a
metropolis to be spoken of with wonder
and respect by all the peoples of the

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SARDIS 95

world. The river Pactolus, renowned for
its golden sands, which, according to
tradition, Midas, who turned everything
that he touched into gold, had enriched
as he ploughed his way along its watery
flood, ran through the heart of the city.

Croesus, first of all the kings of an-
tiquity, minted gold and silver coins,
which were a medium of exchange both
in the East and the West, from Baby-
lonia to Greece. Thus, by his shrewd-
ness, he became the banker of the Occi-
dent and the Orient, the Rothschild, the
Rockefeller, the J. P. Morgan of his day,
all combined into one, for his wealth
came not only from the soil but from
his shrewdness as a banker and money-
lender.

But he was not satisfied with his pos-
sessions or glory, and so set out to con-
quer the Persians. He apparently gave
little heed to Solon, the wisest man of
Athens, who visited him in Sardis and

96 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

told him to beware of overconfidence
and not to esteem any man happy until
he was dead and his record fully made up.
He consulted the Delphic oracle of
Greece, and received the answer, which
to him seemed to be reassuring, that if
he crossed the Halys he would destroy a
mighty empire. Full of assurance of his
own resistless might, he did cross the
Halys, and a great empire was destroyed
but not the empire of Cyrus the Persian,
but of Crcesus the Lydian, for after his
first victory Cyrus followed it up by
boldly attacking Sardis the impregnable.
His soldiers, one by one, by digging their
toes into the cracks of the rocks, climbed
up the almost perpendicular slope of the
acropolis, on the side which was thought
to be absolutely unscalable and was hence
left unguarded, and, to the amazement
of the Lydian capital and the surprise of
the whole world, Sardis was taken, its
multimillionaire king was a prisoner, and

SARDIS 97

the lingering death of the proud city had
begun.

It had revivals, to be sure, as well as
reverses, but it never regained the emi-
nence that it enjoyed in the palmy days
of Croesus, and when Saint John wrote
the Revelation it was decadent and still
decaying, and the church was apparently
sharing the fate of the city.

The city still had "a name to live"; it
prided itself on its glorious past; it re-
counted its noble history; it made a plea
in the commune of Asia to erect a temple
to Tiberius and Livia, his mother.

It had little present power or glory to
plead, but only its renowned history, and
the judges who had to decide among
nine cities that claimed the honour of the
temple gave it to Smyrna, the living, in-
stead of Sardis, the dead.

Three centuries after the defeat of
Crcesus the city again suffered the same
fate through carelessness and overcon-

98 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

fidence, for Antiochus surprised and cap-
tured it from its reigning king, Achaeus,
in the same way that the soldiers of Cyrus
had done, by stealing into the fortifica-
tions after scaling what was believed to
be the unscalable mountainside. Sardis
had learned nothing by the experience
of the past, and still needed the warning
words: "Be watchful/'

Upon the later history of Sardis we
need not dwell. It was a city of con-
siderable importance in the Byzantine
times. Its citadel was again a robber
fastness in the early Mohammedan rule,
but it is now absolutely dead, deserted
and buried, for, as has been said, the
mountain, which was once its stronghold
and citadel, disintegrated in the slow cen-
turies, hastened by earthquakes, fell over
in part upon the city it had so long
defended, and thirty feet deep beneath
the soil Sardis lay for centuries, until re-
cent American excavaters brought its

SARDIS 99

temples and its tombs again to the light
of day.

Yet, among all the cities that I have
visited, I know of none which even in its
deadness and desolation is of more thrill-
ing interest to the modern traveller. We
leave the Ottoman railway at Sardes, as
it is called in the time-table, or Sart, as
the Turks call it, a hundred and twenty-
four kilometres from Smyrna, or about
seventy-five miles. There is absolutely
nothing at first sight to remind us that
there was once a great city with its
teeming population in this vicinity.

Few ruins are seen, and those of a com-
paratively modern date, as we follow the
valley of the Pactolus for a mile or more
from the railway station; only the blue
heavens above, some fleecy clouds that
fleck them, and the sun shining in its
strength are the same as in the days of
Croesus. Even the everlasting hills have
changed their shape, for they are made

100 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

up of a friable substance scarcely more
solid than hardened mud, and the great
acropolis which once terminated in a
broad plateau, on which a fortified city
could be built, has now been so washed
away and overthrown by the convulsions
of nature that in places it requires a
steady nerve to thread its narrow, roof-
like summit. Still, it is a most striking
feature of the landscape, more pictur-
esque, possibly, than in the ancient times.
A few ruins of ancient buildings with
enormously thick walls are passed ; a few
miserable huts made of reeds and oc-
cupied by Yuruks, the wandering nom-
ads of this country, are seen; the little
Pactolus gurgles over its rocky bed on
its way to join the Hermus, and the whole
scene is one of desolation and untamed
nature. Scarcely can the furrow of a
plough be seen in any direction as one
approaches ancient Sardis. The beau-
tiful anemones and other wild flowers add

SAUDIS 101

their grace to the scene, but there are no
touches of man's embellishment.

At last, after walking about a mile,
two tall pillars loom upon the sight, and
we know that we are approaching the
ancient Temple of Cybele, or Artemis, as
it is called by more modern explorers.
As we draw still nearer a busy scene pre-
sents itself to our eyes. Two hundred
workmen and more are industriously
digging in the sandy soil. A busy little
tramway loaded with gravel and loam runs
down a slight descent toward the Pac-
tolus by force of gravity, while the empty
trucks are pushed back by the sturdy
Turkish workmen. Half a dozen Amer-
ican scholars and archaeologists and
engineers, under the leadership of Pro-
fessor Butler, of Princeton, are directing
the operation. An eighth of a mile away,
under the crowning acropolis of old, stands
the comfortable house and temporary
museum built by these American archae-

102 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

ologists for their occupancy during the
years that will be required to dig out
this ancient city. All around the ruins
are glorious hills. Opposite the acropolis
that has played so great a part in the
story of Sardis, and perhaps half a mile
away, is another great hill of about the
same height, which was the necropolis
of the ancient city. Here, too, the ar-
chaeologists are at work and have dis-
covered hundreds of tombs of Lydian
and Persian times.

The very day that we reached there a
new sarcophagus had been unearthed in
the hillside, a Persian sarcophagus of
black terra-cotta, beautifully striped and
marked and of oblong shape. It was
opened, and there, seeing the light of the
sun for the first time for thirty-five hun-
dred years, was the body of a Persian
girl, perhaps of the period of Cyrus the
Great. Her glossy black hair was still
perfect, and the jewels and tear-bottles

SARDIS 103

and vases that were buried with her were
unbroken and untarnished. Who wert
thou, O maiden of long ago? What was
thy name and what was thy story? Who
mourned for thee as thou wast laid in thy
grave? Did father or mother or brother
or lover drop tears on thy beautiful cas-
ket? There is no answer to these ques-
tions, but our imaginations are stirred
as we gaze at the dust of this maiden of
the long ago.

Interesting as is this ancient cemetery,
yet the chief centre of attraction is in
the valley between the acropolis and the
necropolis, the citadel and the cemetery,
where the busy workmen are revealing
day by day the glories of ancient Sardis.
The two pillars of which we have already
spoken are only samples of scores of others
belonging to the same Temple of Artemis
which, until the Americans fell to digging
them out, were buried many feet beneath
the soil. These two only were upright,

104 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

with their capitals intact, and stood
thirty-five feet above the ground after
the storms and earthquakes of a thousand
years had done their worst. But even
these were half buried, for almost thirty-
five feet below the surface the workmen
had to dig before they reached the foun-
dation of these pillars of the mighty
temple, each one of which stood sixty-
nine feet above the floor of the temple
and each one of which was six feet in
diameter.

The other pillars are only partially
intact, and some of them entirely pros-
trate, with their enormous drums or
sections scattered about in every direc-
tion. This temple was probably built in
the time of Alexander the Great, about
350 B. C, or perhaps only repaired in his
time, for he was one of the conquerors
of this often-conquered city. Indeed, the
temple seems to have been undergoing
extensive repairs when it was completely

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SARDIS 105

destroyed in the year 17 A. D., for some
of the great columns are not yet fluted,
showing that they were still unfinished.

But more marvellous still are the ruins
of a temple found in a yet lower stratum,
and built not of marble, like the one I
have described, but of a coarser, darker
stone. This is believed to be, without
question, a temple of Croesus, the most
famous of the many kings of Sardis.

Everything of value found here must,
according to the agreement, be sent to
Constantinople, but temporarily they are
stored in the little museum under the
steep acropolis. Here are many curious
things — alabaster vases so thin that they
could easily be crushed in the hand like
an egg-shell. Just such a vase Mary
Magdalene broke when she bathed her
Lord's feet with the precious ointment.
Great earthen jars used for the ashes
and the charred bones of the dead who
had been cremated are found here. Mar-

106 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

ble slabs are here covered with Lydian
inscriptions which cannot yet be trans-
lated, for no one is yet wise enough to
read the ancient Lydian, though the
letters are as sharp and clear-cut as
though chiselled yesterday. I cannot de-
scribe these remarkable finds at length,
nor would I if I could, for that honour
and privilege must be given to the pa-
tient excavaters whose monograph on
the ancient Sardis will be awaited with
the utmost interest by scholars in many
lands.

One of the most marvellous sights that
the traveller sees from the hills of Sardis
is the Bin Tepe, or the plain of a thou-
sand mounds, where the kings and priests
and great men of Lydia were buried, not
in the hillside necropolis which I have
already described, but in a great, wide
plain some two hours' ride from Sardis.

Some of these mounds, or tumuli, are
enormous in extent, one of them being

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SARDIS 107

larger than the Pyramid of Ghizeh in
Egypt. There are not a thousand of
these tombs, but, to be more exact, about
six hundred and sixty-six of them. The
largest is that of the great King Alyat-
tes, which Herodotus minutely describes.
This is circular in form and twelve hun-
dred feet in diameter. As one looks
through the cleft of the mountains that
hem in Sardis, it seems as if this plain
were dotted with green hills, some of
them of a considerable height, but each
one of them is a single tomb of one of
the great men of the mighty kingdom of
Lydia.

Such are the scenes, picturesque and
striking, but, at the same time, desolate
and depressing, which strike the traveller
as he visits the dead and buried city of
Sardis. What is the message sent by
"Him that hath the seven spirits of God
and the seven stars"?

It is the saddest of all the seven mes-

108 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

sages. The Revelator knows the works of
the church, but has no word of praise for
them, as he had for the church of Ephesus,
though in many respects the messages to
these two churches are much the same.
Sardis had not only left its first love, as
had Ephesus, but it was dead, though
it had a name to live. The church was
an empty organisation without life. It
had wheels within wheels, perhaps, but
no living spirit within the wheels. Even
the church at Pergamos that dwelt be-
side "Satan's Seat" was praised for hold-
ing fast the holy name and for not deny-
ing the faith; but there was no faithful
martyr Antipas in Sardis to receive such
praise.

Yet, though the church as a church
was dead, like many another church,
alas, far away from Sardis, there were
a few names even there that had
not defiled their garments. Some things
remained even in a dead church, as to-day

SARDIS 109

a faithful and scanty minority may keep
alive in their own heart the love of
Christ even when they cannot revive
the church of which they are members.
Twice over to the faithful few came the
message: "Be watchful!" Even as the
citadel of Sardis was surprised and taken
twice over and two great dynasties over-
thrown for lack of watchfulness, so the
faithful ones are exhorted to watch that
they may save at least their own souls
and at last be worthy to walk with the
Son of Man in white.

To these few came even a more beau-
tiful and consoling message than to any
other church of the seven. These few
that have overcome shall be clothed in
white garments, like the pure white toga
worn by Roman citizens on days of
triumph as they walked through the
streets of Rome, following the victorious
general who had come with trophies won
in battle over a foreign foe.

110 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

So the faithful ones of Sardis shall
triumph though the dead church shall be
blotted out and buried. The kingdom of
our Lord will win the day, though a
church here and there may become ut-
terly extinct. Though a church lose
even its name to live and be buried deep
as the temples of Sardis, yet, if there is
but one faithful soul who has not defiled
his garments, he shall triumph in the end
and walk in the white procession of vic-
tory, for the kingdom of God cannot
suffer defeat whatever may be true of
the individual church.

This lesson also is for us and for all
time. It is a lesson which every church
may well take to heart. Every individual
Christian whose name, like those of the
faithful few in Sardis, is written in the
Book of Life may be sure that it will not
be blotted out.

It is interesting to note that a rem-
nant professing a purer religion than the

SARDIS 111

Mohammedans around them still sur-
vives in the plain of the Hermus, which
was once part of the dominion of Sardis.
We are told that their women usually
bear Christian names. They practise
monogamy and divorce is not permitted,
and they violate many Mohammedan
precepts. It is believed by those who
know them best that they would become
Christians if such a change of faith did
not mean instant death by the Moham-
medans, who consider them as belonging
to one of their own sects.

There is, moreover, in this same plain
a settlement of Slavs from Russia who
preserve at least the Christian name, and
among these people, too, we would fain
see the present-day remnant of the an-
cient church of Sardis.

A dozen filthy Turkish huts, the only
native village near the site of ancient
Sardis, serve to emphasise the fact that
the ancient city of wealth and magnifi-

112 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

cence is dead; but its desolation also
brings out in clearer light and more
vividly the promise to those who over-
came, who are clothed in white garments,
and whose names will never be blotted
out of the Book of Life.

CHAPTER VII

PHILADELPHIA, THE CITY OF
THE OPEN DOOR

In our journey to the Seven Cities of
Asia we approached Philadelphia from
the great table-lands that cover a large
part of the interior of Asia Minor and
which lie for the most part to the north
and east of the Seven Cities. Very early
on a crisp winter morning we had left
Ushak and its unspeakable hotel for a
railway journey that takes one over as
wild and picturesque a region as he is
likely to find in the five continents.

Ushak itself is by no means uninter-
esting; the minarets of the mosques are
tipped with metal, and as we left the
little city they glittered in the light of

113

114 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

the sun's earliest rays. Barley, wheat,
and opium grow in the rich red earth of
this district, and it is especially famous
as the headquarters of the kind of heavy
carpets which we call Turkish carpets.
These are largely made in private houses
and some thousands of women and girls
are employed as weavers, while the men
wash and dye the wool. Since carpet-
weaving is the chief mechanical business
of this region and is a recognised indus-
try of at least three of the Seven Cities,
Smyrna, Thyatira, and Philadelphia, it
may interest my readers if I quote a
paragraph or two to show, a little more
at length than in a former chapter, how
these carpets are made.

"Imagine a large bare room in a pri-
vate house; in front of us is a great
frame, perhaps twenty feet in width; in
front of the frame are seated half a dozen
women and girls whose deft fingers fly
in and out like lightning as they break

PHILADELPHIA 115

off two or three inches of yarn from
several bunches of different colours that
hang over their heads. With incredible
activity they knot this little piece of
yarn to one of the threads of the web,
choosing with marvellous exactness the
right shade to match the pattern that is
before them. So rapidly do their fingers
move that one can scarcely follow them
as with all the skill and exact precision
of a practised piano-player they break
off and tie the little piece of yarn, reach
for another of a different colour, break it
off and knot it, keeping up this exacting
task for hours at a time, until one aches
in sympathy with the tired hands that
are flying in and out in front of the great
frame to make the carpet which will soon
be trodden by profane and dirty feet.

"After a little of the wool has been
knotted to the web it is combed out and
cut even with large shears, and then
pounded down with a peculiar-shaped

116 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

hammer; and yet the most that a skil-
ful woman can weave in a long day's
work is only about ten inches of a carpet
two feet wide. The most important of
the colouring matter used is obtained
from the madder root, which grows abun-
dantly in all this region as well as about
Thyatira, and is doubtless, as we have
seen, the colour with which Lydia dyed
her so-called purple. Of late years the
aniline dyes have largely supplanted the
old Turkey red produced from the mad-
der root, the indigo which came from
India, and the cochineal from the Indies,
greatly to the deterioration of the car-
pets and the loss of the carpet-buying
public."

But we are on our way to Philadelphia
and cannot linger long among the car-
pet looms of Ushak. Soon after leaving
that little city our road begins to wind
down-hill, for Ushak is three thousand
feet and more above the sea, while Ala

PHILADELPHIA 117

Shehr, as the ancient Philadelphia is now
called, is only a few hundred feet above
the sea. During the last part of the
journey to Philadelphia the descent is
very rapid, and the scenery grows every
moment more wild and rugged. Through
tunnel after tunnel the train shoots,
while far down below us we can see a
great plain covered with curious columns
and mounds of soft rock, which have been
sculptured by the storms of many winters
into all sorts of curious shapes.

At last the foot of the hill is reached
and we come to the valley of the Cog-
amus, a tributary of the greater Hermus.
After the magnificent views which the
valley of the Hermus affords and of the
magnificent Boz Dagh the Cogamus val-
ley seems rather tame, but Philadelphia
itself is relieved by some fine mountains
of the Tmolus range which form a splen-
did background for the ancient city.

A walk of half a mile or thereabouts

118 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

from the railway station brings us into
the heart of the modern city of Ala
Shehr, which, though by no means re-
markable for cleanliness, is yet one of
the most attractive and well-kept of the
Turkish cities of the interior. As we ap-
proach the city we see a rapid stream,
two or three feet wide, tumbling riotously
down the main street over the sharp cob-
blestones, and spanned every now and
then by a board a foot wide for the
benefit of pedestrians. This water comes
from the hills and is on its way to the
vineyards on the other side of the city.

When one series of vineyards has been
irrigated the water is turned into another
street, and beyond that, irrigates other
acres of vines, for Ala Shehr is famous
to-day, as was Philadelphia in the olden
times, for its grapes and its wine, which
Strabo eulogised two thousand years ago.

Ancient volcanoes are not far away to
the east and the north, and, as we shall

PHILADELPHIA 119

see later, Philadelphia has suffered ter-
ribly from earthquakes, due perhaps to
the proximity of these volcanoes. But
some compensation has been afforded in
the volcanic tufa the craters have vom-
ited forth and which in the course of the
ages has made the fertile soil in which
the vines, the almond, and the peach
abundantly flourish.

It was winter when we left the table-
lands about Ushak in the early morning;
it was late in the spring when we reached
Ala Shehr a few hours later; the almond-
trees flourished, and the cherries and
peaches were great bouquets of pink-and-
white bloom.

There is little of special interest to the
modern traveller in the Philadelphia of
to-day except as everything reminds him
of the city of the Revelator. In Sardis
and Pergamos the patient pick and spade
of the excavater have laid bare the an-
cient glories of these magnificent cities.

120 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

But in Philadelphia scarcely a sod has
been turned by the archaeologist, except
where a cellar has been dug for some
modern house and a few treasures of
ancient times have been unearthed.

Yet the every-day life of these modern
cities of the Orient is always of interest
to the traveller. Toward sunset great
herds of ugly black water-buffaloes stum-
ble bellowing through the streets, driven
usually by a small boy perched on a
donkey's back. The public bakeries are
found in almost every street, and, mak-
ing their way toward these bakeries, one
often sees a line of women with long
wooden trays filled with unbaked loaves
which will be thrust far into the capa-
cious mouth of the public oven. The
Greek women can be distinguished from
the Turkish women by their unveiled
faces, but you will see no Jews in Ala
Shehr, because its market-day, when al-
most all the trading is done, comes on

PHILADELPHIA 121

Saturday, and it would be a profanation
for a devout Jew to buy or sell or get
gain on the Sabbath day.

Possibly the shrewd Greeks, who num-
ber about five thousand out of twenty
thousand men, women, and children of
modern Philadelphia, have decreed that
the Jewish Sabbath shall be their market-
day for the express purpose of excluding
the Hebrews from their city.

One of the most interesting and be-
neficent natural products of Ala Shehr
is a splendid spring of mineral water,
famous from the time of the Apostles.
The spring rises a mile from the city
and is brought in pipes to a modest hy-
dropathic establishment near the town,
where the water is bottled in large quan-
tities and sent all over Asia Minor. It
is a refreshing, tonicky water, something
like Apollinaris, and is an untold boon
to travellers in Asia Minor, since it can
be had in almost every town of any size

122 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

where the ordinary water is filled with
all sorts of dangerous microbes and is
undrinkable by the stranger.

Though almost no excavation work
has been done in Philadelphia, there are
many indications that it would be most
rewarding could any one be found with
time and money to unearth the buried
treasures. In digging the foundations
for a Greek school an ancient Greek
cemetery was discovered with many beau-
tiful stelae, funeral urns, and mourning
figures; these are preserved in one of the
rooms of the school, which appeared to
be an admirable institution for so remote
a town.

We were told that in a vineyard near
by the workmen who were setting out
vines had recently fallen through the
earth into some large underground cham-
bers. Going out to the vineyard, we
found that the rumour was true, and
here, a few feet under the surface, were

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PHILADELPHIA 123

arches of brick and stone and chambers
with mural decorations still fresh, though
the painter had been dead perhaps for
two thousand years. Wreaths of flowers
tied with ribbons seemed to be the chief
decorations for these chambers, which
perhaps were sepulchres of the olden
times, though so far as I know no one
has yet discovered their use.

The ruins of Philadelphia are few and
uninteresting, and I was not able to dis-
cover the great pillar which some mod-
ern commentators declare is to be found
there, reminiscent of the pillar spoken of
in the Revelation. The most interesting
Greek church which we visited contains a
picture of the Revelator's vision, painted
by an artist whose name and fame have
been forgotten in the long passage of
the centuries. It represents our Lord in
the midst of the "seven golden candle-
sticks" clothed with a long garment
down to his feet and girt about with

124 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

a golden girdle. In his right hand were
the seven stars, and out of his mouth
went a sharp two-edged sword. In
various corners of the picture were the
seven churches, some of which looked
not unlike old New England meeting-
houses, while at the bottom of the pic-
ture, under the feet of his Lord, lay the
prostrate John. The crude literalism of
the painting was most interesting, es-
pecially as one viewed it in one of the
Seven Cities to which He wrote who had
in His right hand seven stars, out of whose
mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword,
whose countenance was as the sun shin-
ing in his strength, and before whom the
Revelator fell at his feet as dead.

Ala Shehr rises from the plain through
which the railway runs and largely covers
the slope of a commanding hill from the
top of which a splendid view can be ob-
tained. Between this hill and the Tmolus
is a deep valley, and up the long cleft of

PHILADELPHIA 125

the Hermus to the table-land of Asia
Minor the eye is never tired of gazing,
so charming is the scene. It was this
situation that gave to the Philadelphia
of old its importance and its unique in-
terest. This long valley of which it
seemed to be the guardian was the open
door to Phrygia and all the region be-
yond, and the most striking figure of the
sacred message to this church is derived
from this thought of Philadelphia as
"the open door which no man could
shut" to the regions beyond.

Sir William Ramsay designates it as
the "missionary city," because it was
established by its founder, Attalus II,
about a century and a half before Christ,
to become the centre of Graeco-Asiatic
civilisation, to spread the knowledge of
the Greek language and customs through-
out the eastern part of Lydia, where it
was situated, and far on into Phrygia. It
was a missionary city, he says, from the

126 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

beginning, founded to promote a cer-
tain unity of spirit, customs, and loyalty
within the realm, the apostle of Helle-
nism in an Oriental land.

It was a successful teacher. Before
A. D. 19 the Lydian tongue had ceased
to be spoken in Lydia and Greek was
the only language of the country. We
have already seen in our chapter about
Sardis how completely the Greek lan-
guage had supplanted the Lydian, and
the Lydian tablets which have recently
been discovered by the American ar-
chaeologists are still untranslatable, so
completely did Philadelphia do its mis-
sionary work and make the Greek lan-
guage and literature and spirit dominant
throughout all the land.

The beautiful name Philadelphia was
derived from the founder of the city,
Attalus Philadelphus, who was so called
because of his marked affection and loy-
alty to his brother Eumenes. On the

PHILADELPHIA 127

ancient coins of Philadelphia are shown
the two brothers exactly alike in limb
and feature and garb, an identity which
symbolised their mutual unity and affec-
tion. One of these coins represents them
as looking upon the genius of Ephesus as
she carries an image of her own goddess
Diana toward her temple. This coin was
struck to commemorate the alliance of
Philadelphia and Ephesus.

I have already said that Philadelphia
occupied a strategic position at the en-
trance to the long Hermus valley, and
that it was the open door to all the region
beyond. It was also on the imperial
post-road which, starting from Rome,
crossed Italy, the Adriatic, Macedonia,
and the ^Egean, and then, after reaching
Asian soil, went by way of Troas, Perga-
mos, and Sardis, through Philadelphia
and on to the far East. So by nature,
as well as by the works of man (and for
nothing were the Romans more famous

128 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

than for their magnificent post-roads),
Philadelphia was the "open door" to the
more undeveloped peoples in the far
region eastward.

Another event in the history of Phila-
delphia must be recorded before we can
fully understand the message of the
Revelator. In the year seventeen of the
Christian era occurred a terrible earth-
quake. We have already noted how it
destroyed the great Temple of Artemis
in Sardis, built by Alexander the Great.
Sardis was perhaps the more completely
ruined in this awful cataclysm, but
twelve other cities were also destroyed;
one of these was Philadelphia.

Strabo tells us that in some respects
Philadelphia was the worst sufferer of
all, since for several years after the earth-
quake the earth tremors continued, mak-
ing it unsafe to live within the confines
of the city, so that the great majority of
the inhabitants moved away or estab-

PHILADELPHIA 129

lished themselves in tents in the sur-
rounding country. Every one who chose
to live in Philadelphia at this period was
considered a fool by outsiders, just as
we wonder to-day how the natives in the
region of Vesuvius can build their houses
and plant their vineyards time after time
on the slopes of the mountain which has
so often poured forth its burning lava
and swallowed up the farms, the homes,
and people who trustingly built their
houses upon its side.

The whole earthquake region on the
edge of which Philadelphia was situated
was called Katakekaumene, or Burnt
District. The Emperor Tiberius, who
was then upon the throne, provided
liberally from the royal treasury for
Philadelphia and the other ruined cities,
and in memory of his generosity the
Philadelphians took another name and
called their city Neokaisareia, the New
Caesar. A temple was also built in honour

130 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

of the Emperor, but whether of Tiberius
or Germanicus, his son, is not quite cer-
tain. However, this temple and the new
name of the city apparently did not last
long. It soon resumed its ancient and
more mellifluous name, and the new tem-
ple, it is thought, soon fell into decay.

Now we can understand, perhaps, more
clearly the message of the Spirit unto the
church of Philadelphia. He who wrote it
was the holy and the true, the one who
had the key of David, the one who
openeth and no man shutteth, and shut-
teth and no man openeth. His very title
evidently refers to the open door, which
in the next verse he says he has set before
the church of Philadelphia.

The open door was a familiar metaphor
to the Christians of Saint John's time.
Saint Paul used it over and over again.
At Ephesus he tells us a "great door
and effectual' is opened to him. At
Troas, too, a door was opened, and the

PHILADELPHIA 131

Colossians were asked to pray that God
may "open unto us a door for the word
of utterance to speak the mystery of
Christ." Though the church has only
a little strength, no man can shut this
door of opportunity. It is interesting
to note that no word of even implied
censure is spoken to the church of Phila-
delphia. It shares this distinction with
Smyrna alone, and it seems no mere
coincidence, in spite of the ridicule that
Mark Twain cast upon the idea, that
these two cities alone of all the seven
have maintained continuously the wor-
ship of Christ through all the centuries
since this letter was written, while the
others have been given wholly over to the
worship of the Turks.

'Because thou didst keep the word of
my patience, I also will keep thee from
the hour of trial," says the Revelator.
The Philadelphians, indeed, knew what
the hour of trial was: the terrible earth-

132 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

quake, the ruin of the city, its bad name
as an unsafe place for residence — which
adhered to it, perhaps, until the time
that this letter was written, for during
many years the inhabitants dared not
live within the confines of the city but
camped out in the open fields.

All these memories were fresh at this
time and gave new significance to the
beautiful promise to him that over-
cometh: "I will make him a pillar in the
temple of my God, and he shall go out
thence no more." No longer in the new
Jerusalem the inhabitants would have to
leave an earthquake-shaken city, but he
would be established as a pillar immov-
able in the holy temple, and upon him
would be written a new name. On the
pillars of the temple dedicated to the
Roman Emperor was doubtless written
the new name of Philadelphia, Neo-
kaisareia, but neither this name nor the
temple on which it was engraved lasted

PHILADELPHIA 133

long, but the name in the temple of the
new Jerusalem would endure for ever.

The later history of Philadelphia was
worthy of its early promise and of the
cordial commendatory words of the Spirit.
It long maintained itself as a Christian
city when all the rest of Asia Minor had
yielded to the Turk. It endured siege
after siege. It was defended with heroic
valour by its Christian inhabitants. They
endured starvation, massacre, almost an-
nihilation before at last they yielded to
the Seljukian Turks toward the end of
the fourteenth century, hundreds of years
after the companion cities had been con-
quered. Even the cool-blooded and often
contemptuous Gibbon is aroused to some-
thing like enthusiasm as he contemplates
the heroism of the early Philadelphians,
and we may well close this story of the
City of the Open Door with his eulogy:

"In the loss of Ephesus the Christians
deplored the fall of the first angel, the

134 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

extinction of the first candlestick of the
Revelation. . . . The circus and three
stately theatres of Laodicea are now peo-
pled with wolves and foxes; Sardis is
reduced to a miserable village; the God
of Mahomet without a rival or a son
is invoked in the mosques of Thyatira
and Pergamos, and the populousness of
Smyrna is supported by the foreign trade
of Franks and Armenians. Philadelphia
alone has been saved by prophecy or
courage. . . . Among the Greek colonies
and churches of Asia, Philadelphia is still
erect, a column in a scene of ruins, a
pleasing example that the paths of honour
and safety may sometimes be the same."

CHAPTER VIII

LAODICEA THE LUKEWARM

I have considered the Seven Cities of
Asia in the order in which they are given
in the book of Revelation, but the order
in which the modern traveller naturally
visits them is to combine in one excursion
the first and the last, Ephesus and Laod-
icea, for these two cities are upon the
same line of railway— a well-managed
English line that runs southeast from
Smyrna. If we examine a map of the
ancient province of Asia which occupied
the western part of Asia Minor in Roman
times we shall see that a line drawn
through the Seven Cities forms an ir-
regular, oblong figure with Pergamos at

135

136 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

its northern point, Smyrna and Ephesus
on the extreme western edge, Thyatira,
Sardis, and Philadelphia on the north-
east, and Laodicea at the extreme south-
eastern point. The distance, in a straight
line between Ephesus and Pergamos, is
something over a hundred miles. Ephe-
sus is some forty miles from Smyrna and
about eighty miles from Laodicea.

While no one of the Seven Cities is, as
the crow flies, more than two-score miles
from one of its neighbours, the extent of
the country occupied by these cities is
very considerable.

The journey from Ephesus to Laodicea
is a most interesting one. Throughout
the whole distance it follows the valley
of the Meander or its scarcely less cele-
brated tributary the Lycus, which joins
the Meander shortly before we get to
Laodicea. This is the greatest fig region
in the world, for most of the celebrated
Smyrna figs come from the Meander

LAODICEA 137

valley, and throughout almost its whole
length we see the beautiful, shapely
trees, with their smooth white bark,
which have contributed throughout all the
ages so much to the wealth of the prov-
ince. Cotton and tobacco and maize are
also raised in this fertile valley. We look
with constant interest upon the crooked
Meander, which winds in and out through-
out the whole length of the valley. Visions
of college classics, of the mythical stories
of childhood, are brought to our minds
by every turn of the meandering stream,
and its banks in the springtime, bright
with millions of gorgeous anemones, make
it seem the fit abiding-place for the
spirits and sprites with which mythology
peopled its banks.

Every town at which our train stops
beckons to us to leave the cars and pay
it a visit, for each one is full of classic
interest. But we cannot linger to see
the ruins of old Magnesia, so old that it

138 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

was destroyed by Cimmerians more than
twenty-five hundred years ago, or Tralles,
where the great Attalus once had his
palaces, or Sultan Hissar, where Strabo,
the historian, to whom we are so much
indebted for our knowledge of ancient
men and manners, once went to school.
The modern Turkish names of many of
these stations on the way to Laodicea are
most interesting; for instance, Balachik
means "Little Place up Above"; Deir-
manjak means "Dear Little Mill"; while
a station still farther south, called Kuyu-
kak, means "Dear Little Well."

At last, after a journey which had
taken nearly the whole day, though we
had covered less than a hundred miles
from Ephesus, the conductor calls out,
"Gonjeli," and we know that we have
reached the station at the foot of the
great hill which is covered with the ruins
of Laodicea, where once was a proud,
rich city and a church which received the

LAODICEA 139

most scathing rebuke of any which was
spoken by the Spirit to any one of the
Seven Churches of Asia.

Laodicea, like Philadelphia, was a City
of the Open Door. It was founded by
Antiochus III some two hundred and fifty
years before Christ as a guardian of the
great road from Smyrna and Ephesus to
the Meander valley, to Phrygia and to
the uplands of Anatolia. It had a com-
manding position on the lower valley of
the Lycus, and all the merchandise and
all the soldiers and their equipments, and
all the officials of the Greek and Roman
empires, in their turn, had to pass through
this great city on their way to the far
East or on their return from the interior
of Asia.

To be sure, the important highway
that passed through Philadelphia reached,
in a measure, the same back country, but
the pass to the uplands which was guarded
by Laodicea was less steep and rugged

140 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

than the road beyond Philadelphia, and
the natural advantages were apparently
altogether with the former city. By rea-
son of these advantages Laodicea grew
rich and prosperous. It became famous
for its banking-houses and its million-
aires, but with all its wealth and pros-
perity it did not perform its mission as
well as poor Philadelphia. It seems to
have made little impression on the Phryg-
ian tribes and to have accomplished
little for the introduction of the Greek
language and civilisation in which Phila-
delphia was so successful.

Laodicea was especially famous for
two things, its wool and its medicine.
A peculiar kind of sheep with long, soft,
glossy black wool had long been bred in
this neighbourhood. The secret of rais-
ing this breed of sheep has now been
lost, but in the days of Saint John this
glossy wool, which came from Laodicea
and was there woven into beautiful and

LAODICEA 141

costly garments, was famous throughout
the world.

The city was also famous for its phy-
sicians and its medicines. An especial
and noted school of medicine flourished
in Laodicea. We are told "that this
school of physicians followed the teach-
ings of Herophilos, who lived about three
hundred years before Christ, and who,
on the principle that compound diseases
require compound medicines, began that
strange system of heterogeneous mix-
tures, some of which have only lately
been expelled from our own pharmaco-
pceia.

The fearful and wonderful combina-
tion of drugs given by some modern
doctors would seem to indicate that they
still belong to this school of Laodicea.
One of the medicines for which Laod-
icea was famous was an ointment for
"strengthening the ears," whatever that
may mean, while another medicine of

142 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

still more interest to the student of
Revelation was the "Phrygian powder,"
made in part from a peculiar kind of
stone pressed into tabloids, afterward
powdered and mixed with some ingre-
dient, to be rubbed on the eye as a cure
for the various diseases which afflict the
optics in Eastern countries. The world-
famous Galen speaks of both these rem-
edies in his pharmacopoeia.

Another far more useful medicine,
which, so far as we know, Galen does not
mention, also grows now and probably
in his time grew in great abundance
about Laodicea. This is the humble
licorice root which is exported in large
quantities from all this region. One of
the commonest sights about Laodicea in
the spring of the year is a company of
veiled Turkish women pulling the long
roots of licorice which grow wild and in
great abundance, and which will after-
ward be chewed with supreme delight by

LAODICEA 143

small boys in many parts of the world
and will also be made up into powder for
medicinal purposes.

On this great hill, whose base the rail-
way now skirts, once stood the proud
and wealthy city of Laodicea. Its banks,
its woollen factories, its medical schools,
its impregnable fortifications, its great
garrisons of soldiers, were famous in all
the region round about. The great men
of the world visited it. Its products
were sought for in the bazaars of all the
nations. It was "rich and increased with
goods and had need of nothing.'5 But
what do we see to-day? It is the most
desolate and God-forsaken of all the
Seven Cities. Even Sardis, though quite
as dead, is far more interesting to the
traveller. The barren, utterly deserted
hill on which Laodicea stood rises above
the mean little Turkish village of Eski
Hissar and contains not a single inhabi-
tant. No wandering shepherd, even,

144 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

pastures his flocks among the ruins; no
living creature picks a scanty subsistence
from between the rocks which strew the
ground so thickly that scarcely a blade
of grass can grow.

At least, this was the impression that
we received when late on the day of our
arrival at the ruins we made our way
over the historic blocks of marble and
granite and tried to reproduce in our
imagination the ancient glories of Laod-
icea which have for ever passed away.
Its former greatness, however, is shown
by its ruins. They cover hundreds of
acres, and though they have been quar-
ried for a thousand years by all the vil-
lagers round about, who have built their
walls, their houses, and their pigsties
from the marbles of the ancient city, yet
there is good building material enough
left to erect another city to-day on the
site of the ancient metropolis.

Here are the ruins of a mighty temple.

LAODICEA 145

Some of its stones I measured, and found
them to be four feet long and three feet
thick. There are the ruins of a noble
aqueduct which brought water from a
hill miles away through a valley which
lies between the Hill of Fountains and
Laodicea, and then carried the water by
a siphon system, which would do credit
to any modern hydraulic engineer, to the
top of a large stone tower, part of which
is still standing with the pipes yet visible
which tell of ancient Laodicea's splendid
water-works. But this aqueduct also
tells of Laodicea's weakness, for all the
water had to be brought from a distance,
and in the case of war with a determined
enemy, though the pipes were brought
underground much of the way, a water
famine in Laodicea would soon be threat-
ened.

But what impressed me most were the
vast theatres and the stadium, for they
seemed to tell more of the character of

146 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

the people than any of the other ruins.
The two theatres are still in a very fair
state of preservation. Many of the
stone seats are still in place. Each one
is built in a natural amphitheatre, and I
estimated that together they would seat
from fifty to seventy thousand people.
The great stadium, where the athletic
events took place, was also an enormous
affair, whose outlines are plainly visible.
Many of the seats of the stadium are
also still in place, and on pacing its length
I found it to be at least half as long again
as the magnificent stadium in Athens,
which seats ninety thousand people.
Probably not less than one hundred and
fifty thousand people could find seats in
this mighty amphitheatre.

And yet Laodicea was not a world
metropolis. Though prosperous and pop-
ulous, it was still a small city as com-
pared with the great capitals of antiquity.
Do not these great theatres and this

LAODICEA 147

mighty stadium give us one clew to the
degeneration of Laodicea, and the sever-
ity of the message which the Spirit sent
to the angel of its church?

It was evidently a pleasure-loving city,
whose places of amusement provided
seats at one time for all the inhabitants
of the city and the surrounding country.
They would not have been built on this
immense scale were they not well pa-
tronised. The theatres of a city tell of
its character, as well as its churches.

The only relief which the traveller
finds in visiting Laodicea he gains from
the mighty mountains of God which sur-
round it. Snow-clad hills eight thousand
and ten thousand feet high keep guard
over the city to the south. In no other
part of Asia Minor did we see more mag-
nificent mountains. One of our party
described them as rising in tiers one be-
hind the other, peering over each other's
shoulders as they seemed to gaze down

148 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

upon the doomed city which was once so
proud and self-satisfied. It had all that
heart could wish. Money flowed into it
from all quarters. The Phrygians con-
tributed their share; from Ephesus and
Smyrna came golden stores; its glossy
black sheep were found nowhere else
and greatly contributed to its wealth ; its
medicines were believed in implicitly and
were sought by the credulous from all
parts of the world.

And yet it made no great impression,
morally or religiously, upon the people
round about it. It was not a missionary
city like Philadelphia; it did not enter
the open door which was placed before it;
it seems to have done little or nothing
to civilise the rude tribes of the uplands
though the road to them led past its very
gates. It was content to make money
and to care for its own interests.

In the reign of Nero it was shaken by a
tremendous earthquake and partially de-

LAODICEA 149

stroyed, but it was too proud to receive
aid from the government or from the
neighbouring cities as other municipali-
ties had done under like circumstances.
It took care of its own destitute people
and managed its own affairs, apparently
neither borrowing from nor lending to
others.

And yet, so far as we know, it was not
an unusually wicked city. It was not
famed for its licentiousness or its roguery,
as were some of the other cities of the
Roman Empire. It had a good name in
the commercial world. It paid its bills
and set a good example of law and order,
but it missed the highest aims. It ap-
parently had no great ideals. Money-
making and money-spending satisfied it.
The Christians of the city evidently fell
into the same complacent, self-satisfied
attitude as the rest of the people. They
were content to let well enough alone,
and to seek not first the kingdom of God

150 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

and his righteousness but their own ease
and comfort and wealth.

Because of this came to them the
scathing rebuke of the Revelator, and be-
cause of this the very name of their city
has become a reproach and a byword
throughout the world. A Laodicean is
one of the meanest types of mankind.
He is neither cold nor hot; he has lost
his enthusiasm; he has no great purpose
except to be comfortable, and so he
causes the man of fine moral purpose to
spew him out of his mouth.

The seventeenth verse of the third
chapter of Revelation describes the at-
titude of the Laodiceans. "I am rich,"
they say, "and increased with goods and
have need of nothing." But the Spirit
said to them: "Thou art wretched and
miserable and poor and blind and naked."
Physical repletion and moral emptiness;
material wealth and spiritual poverty:
that was the character of Laodicea.

LAODICEA 151

But evidently their case was not quite
hopeless. They were counselled to buy
true gold, gold which would make them
rich in spirit rather than in purse, and
white raiment, the robe of righteousness,
that they might be clothed, instead of the
glossy black cloth made from their fa-
mous wool, and eye-salve which would
open their spiritual eyes instead of the
Phrygian powder which might benefit
their weak physical sight.

In this message, as in every other, the
Spirit fits his words of warning to the
peculiar circumstances of the church to
which he writes, and none more exactly
suits the circumstances of the time and
place than the warning to the lukewarm
city.

Now we come to the end of the mes-
sages of the Seven Cities. There are but
four verses more. Sir William Ramsay
considers them as an epilogue which ap-
plies not to Laodicea but to all the

152 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

churches. "All reference to the Laodi-
ceans has ceased," he says, "and the
writer is drifting further and further
away from them." However, since that
is a matter of opinion, I prefer to believe
that these later and more hopeful words
of the chapter apply to the Laodiceans
as well as to the other churches: "As
many as I love I rebuke and chasten."
Surely the Laodiceans were chastened in
the years that follow. Though their love
had grown cold and their zeal feeble, yet
the Master says: "Behold I stand at the
door and knock." There was still a
chance for the church of Laodicea to open
the door of its heart to him that he might
come in and sup. There was still a chance
for them to repent and overcome and to
sit with him on his throne.

Many a tribulation came to the city in
later years, earthquake shock and fire and
siege; and for long it held out against
the Mohammedans, as did its sister city

LAODICEA 153

Philadelphia, though not so long nor so
courageously as did that valiant town.
We read of another city in this same
region, Eumeneia by name, which en-
dured great persecution. In its days of
prosperity it was much like Laodicea it-
self. Christians accepted the Greek cul-
ture, accommodating themselves to the
life of the times, apparently in no very
heroic spirit, but when the persecutions
of the early part of the fourth century
arose, the last great Christian persecu-
tion, the people all gathered in the
church, contrary to the imperial edict. A
battalion of Roman soldiers surrounded
the church. They offered to spare the
lives of the Christians if they would re-
cant, but not one accepted the proposal.
Every one clung to his faith and all were
burned with the church in which they
had taken refuge.

May we not also hope that in the
neighbouring city of Laodicea the luke-

154 THE SEVEN CHURCHES

warm Christians, aroused by the message
of the Revelator, rebuked by his stinging
reproaches, chastened by misfortune, re-
pented and renewed their zeal, opened the
door for the Master's entrance, and finally
were among those who overcame the luke-
warmness of the past, the disadvantages
of an easy prosperity, and at last "sat
down with Him on His throne5 because
they had heard and heeded what the Spirit
said unto the churches ?

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The Holy Land of Asia Minor;

Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library

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