had been only among the flowers, must now
learn more perilous walking and more painful,
as the dignity, the passion, and the grief of her
mission pressed on her. Since then, all
subsequent romance has passed from Bethlehem,
and the idyls are completed. The House of
Chimham is now the basilica of the Holy
Nativity, the church which the empress Saint
Helena built, at least if Mr. Dixon's
topography be correct; and we must look for no
more advents or portents thence. Time and the
generations to come, must work out the problem
for themselves.

The next noticeable point in his book is the
account of Bethany, and the idyls enacted there.
"Towards the end of the fall, while the olives
were being shaken from the trees, and the
grapes were being trodden in the wine-press,
JESUS and his little band of disciples came back
from the mountain of the Transfiguration to the
lake country; not to abide there any more, but
to rest for a few days, to say adieu to old
friends, and push on to the city in which the
Son of Man was ordained to render up his life.
The harvest being got in, and the Feast of
Tabernacles nigh, large companies of Jews were
gathering about the lake, preparing to attend
this feast; making their journey to Jerusalem
in caravans for safety against the Arabs, and by
way of the Jordan valley, so as to avoid touching
Samaria, and rendering themselves unclean."
But our Lord walked alone, letting his disciples
go up to Jerusalem with the caravans, while he
took the hill country of Samaria, going "by
way of Shechem, Shiloh, and Bethel, the three
sacred cities which preceded Zion as the
selected Mounts of God." More than sixty
generations have come and gone since JESUS
entered Bethany, yet the aspect of the place
remains the same It is a collection of mere
hovels; "a heap of stone sheds, mixed with
some ruins, and peopled by a rabble of
Arab peasants, too lazy to work, too abject to
thieve. Only two miles from Jerusalem, only
one mile from Galilean's Hill, it is yet out
of the world; standing on a ledge of live
rock, looking down into the Cedron gorge,
across to the opposite ridge of Abu Dis, then
into the intricate maze of limestone hills which
go dropping from shelf to shelf into the plain of
the Dead Sea. A track from Jerusalem to
Jericho winds through it, over slippery sheets of
stone, on which horse or camel finds it difficult
to keep his feet. A carob here, a fig-tree there,
make the absence of verdure more keenly felt."
This was the spot which the Messiah chose as
his resting-place instead of Jerusalem, in which
city it does not appear that he ever passed a
night. But with Lazarus, the sheikh of
Bethany (the place is now called by the Arabs
El Azariyeh, from the name of Lazarus, whom
the country traditions make to have been the
sheikh or chief of the village), and in the house
of Simon the Leper, he found love and faith,
and wrought his good works unhindered. Then,
as now, Bethany was a place owning no beauty,
possessing no charm, alluring no sense; it was
a mere hiding-place for the poor and smitten,
for the outcast, the degraded, and the diseased.
This was the village which our Lord made his
home in preference to the stately streets of
Jerusalem.

Things do not change in the East; as Abraham
pitched his tent in Bethel, so does an Arab
sheikh now set up his camp; as David built his
palace on Mount Zion, so would a Turkish
pasha now arrange his house; in every street
may be seen the hairy children of Esau, squatting
on the ground, devouring a mess of lentils
like that for which the rough hunter sold his
birthright; along every road plod the sons of
Rechab, who have sworn to drink no wine, plant
no tree, enter within no door; at every khan
young men sit round the pan of parched corn,
dipping their morsel into the dish; Job's plough
is still used, and the seed is still trodden into
the ground by asses and kine; olives are shaken
from the boughs as directed by Isaiah; and the
grafting of trees is unchanged since the days of
Saul. Among other things left unchanged is
the Syrian house, still, as formerly, only a stone
tent as a temple was but a marble tent. What
is seen now in Bethany, may be taken as the
exact likeness of the house of Lazarus where
Mary listened and Martha toiled, or as the house
of Simon the Leper where the precious box of
ointment was broken, and whence Judas set out
to betray his master.

An oblong building of some twelve or fifteen
feet in height, with a blank wall broken by
small square holes, and a low flat roof without
cornice or chimney—when of two stories the
upper windows perhaps latticed, and in good
houses an upper room or tower-like building
on a house-top—this is the general outline of
an ordinary Syrian house. In the houses of old
cities, the flat roof, laid with a plaster of lime
and sand, has sometimes a parapet of open tiles
and clay round it to prevent children and the
heedless from falling off, while keeping the
women unseen. On this flat roof, within their
guard of tiles, the Syrian women, without veils,
cloaks, or slippers, spread their maize to dry,
feed their doves, and in the evening bathe and
spin. In the front of the house is the lewan;
a great arch and recess, answering to the door-
way of an Arab tent. The lewan is sometimes
level with the ground, and sometimes raised a
step or two; and, like the roof, is spread with
a thin layer of mud and lime. "On each side
of the recess a doorway opens on a room. In
a big house, two or three rooms may extend
from each wing; but this extension is rare;
and every house that is more than a hole in the
earth or a sty upon it, has a lewan in the centre,
and an apartment on each flank. A piece of
ground, enclosed by a hedge of rough stones,
advances from the wings and bows out in front;
forming a little court or garden, in which there
is commonly planted either a fig-tree or a vine.
For three parts of the year the lewan and the
court are the real house of poor people; the
two rooms being rarely used. A Syrian household,
father, son, and grandson, gathers in the