sengers of truth shook off the dust of their feet against them, as a token of the certain ruin consequent on rejecting the counsel of the most High. Nothing now remains of the city but the ruins of a Pagan temple, a Christian church, and inscriptions commemorating the idolatry of the old inhabitants, found by Mr. Arundel on an elevated plateau to the south of the Meander-the sole surviving traces of the Pisidian capital,

PATARA.

In the Acts of the Apostles, it is incidentally mentioned that Paul, proceeding from Ephesus by sea to Judea, came to Patara, and found a ship there bound for the place of his destination, in which he embarked. The scene of his re-embarkation is sufficiently identified by a number of Greek sepulchral inscriptions, found by Sir C. Fellows during his researches in Lydia. Patara, once a busy maritime spot, and described by Strabo as a large city, now presents nothing but tombs and ruins, in which some monuments of the Christian age are discernible. These are partially buried under the gradually accumulated sands, which in the course of ages have cut off the place from the sea, and covered the splendid bay in which the waters rolled in the time of Paul, into a plain upon which vegetation has seized and planted clusters of palm-trees.

One other general observation may well be made respecting the ruins of the Asiatic churches and cities. These have disappeared, some of them not having left a visible vestige on the face of the earth. But the Epistles of St. Paul, his "parchments," a far more perishable material, and

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ST. JOHN'S LAST SERMON.

less likely, humanly speaking, to be preserved, have been transmitted to us entire, down through the dark ages, from one barbarous country to another, over pathless tracts thousands of miles in extent, and through one language after another, and not one chapter or verse, jot or tittle, has perished; notwithstanding that the writings of Greece and Rome, countries more civilized and nearer home, have been much mutilated or altogether lost. And why? Because God willed it so.

Let the following notice of the old age of St. John conclude this chapter. After the death of Domitian, John returned to Ephesus, where he lived for several years, and governed three of the Asiatic churches. Jerome tells us that he was preserved to the age of almost a hundred years for the benefit of the church of Christ and as an inestimable pattern of charity and goodness. The following anecdote, which we have on the same authority, is characteristic of "the disciple that Jesus loved." When John was very old and feeble, he was carried into the church at Ephesus, and being unable to say much, his constantly repeated sermon was, " Children, love one another." Being asked why he told them only one thing, he answered, "Nothing else was needed."-Let the reader of this humbly seek the aids of the Holy Spirit that he may fear God, trust in the Redeemer's death, and love the brethren. And then may the Judge of all be merciful to our souls!

CHAPTER XVII.

TROY, THE HELLESPONT, CONSTANTINOPLE, THE SEA OF

MARMORA, THE BOSPORUS AND THE BLACK SEA.

As the seven churches of Asia are situated around Smyrna like a crescent, and as I felt desirous to visit them and to acquire every possible information regarding them, I was induced to prolong my stay at that city beyond what suited the convenience of my travelling companions. One of them, who had accompanied me for seven weeks, and all the way from Cairo, took his passage homeward by Trieste, and the others branched off in various directions. The only one who stuck close by me as my shadow was the walking corpse from Scanderoon, with a whole budget of infectious diseases hanging about his constitution. It is distressing at all times to be separated from those in whose intimate fellowship we have long delighted, and I felt this the more severely as I was far from home in a land of strangers. But my feelings soon rose above the freezing point as the notion bore me up that I was about to enter the Hellespont, the porch which divides the Eastern from the Western world, and where I would be in a position to shake hands at the same moment with the ghosts of Japhet and Shem, should they appear on the borders of their respective territories betwixt the jaws of

Europe and Asia, and where great men and events have involved the destinies of all the civilization of this earth. The voyage now before me up as far as the Black Sea, teemed probably with more classical associations than any other in the world. It was the chosen scene of the most wondrous epic poem ever produced,-every point of it contains a history, -and across its narrow sea two Persian monarchs, Alexander the Great, the crusading armies of Europe, and the Mahommedan conquerors of Constantinople,

have all in succession carried their warlike hosts.

I halted at the island of Mitylene, the ancient Lesbos, standing at the mouth of the Adramyttic gulf, and deriving its name from one of its kings who reigned before the Deucalion flood. The apostle Paul passed through Mitylene in his way from Corinth to Jerusalem. It is the birthplace of Sappho, and was considered by the ancients the seventh in the Ægean sea first governed by a democracy. It has been subject to the Persians, the Athenians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Venetians, and the Turks. Here, and for fifty miles around, I found the coast and crops had been so entirely eaten up by locusts that famine would be the consequence. I found the inhabitants in a state of great alarm, and altogether helpless in the circumstances. mend my friends the farmers, I said, to our northern latitude, as being the best climate, with all its faults, in the world. A drenching wet harvest or a frosty morning, or even the potato blight, are never once to be compared to a visitation of locusts. The British Consul at Mitylene told me that they fell on the country like a cloud, and ate up every green thing they met with. Their number was so great as to obscure the light of the sun; and when they were

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A VISITATION OF LOCUSTS.

415

seen in the air, everybody was seized with consternation and terror; and the ravages they committed were rapid and dreadful. In their van the land was like a blooming paradise, but in their rear they left a desolate wilderness. No fruit, flower, leaf of a tree, or pile of grass, or grain of any sort, escaped their devastation. They flew with such a noise on their wings that they were heard at a distance of six or seven miles; and the sound of their teeth when eating resembled that of a torrent of wind when driving flames before it. They flew in such order that every one kept his place like the squares in a pavement. They seemed like the bees, to have a government and a king: and they sent forth scouts before them to select the best places for committing ravages. When they alight, they sometimes form a solid bed six or seven inches deep, and thus the ground is covered with them for the space of several leagues. When one host has departed, the ground is occupied by a second, a third, and a fourth. Nothing can stop their advance. While most other animals flee away at the sight of man, the locusts, of their own accord, attack him. Accordingly, when they came to the coast of Mitylene, as there was no prospect or possibility of repelling them, everybody retired into their houses that they might not be exposed to their rage. But they enter houses, adhere to clothes, and mingle with food;-they consume every plant, not even sparing the root;-they eat not only the leaves, but the bark and body of the tree; so that no place is secure from their bold invasion or can hinder their access.

A friend told me that in less than half-an-hour's time he saw them destroy every vestige of verdure upon a hundred acres He also saw them at another time near Smyrna,

of

crop.