the darkest aspects of paganism; the scenes that gave rise to the
pagan ideas of heaven and hell; the splendid temples in which the
human soul had debased itself to objects beneath the dignity of its
own nature, and thus prepared itself for all moral corruption; and the
massive sepulchral monuments in which the hopeless despair of
heathenism had, as it were, become petrified by the Gorgon gaze of
death. That Appian Way should be to us the most interesting of all the
roads of the world; for by it came to us our civilisation and
Christianity--the divine principles and hopes that redeem the soul,
retrieve the vanity of existence, open up the path of life through the
dark valley of death, and disclose the glorious vista of immortality
beyond the tomb. And as we gaze upon the remains of that road, and
feel how much we owe to it as the material channel of God's grace to
us who were far off, we can say with deepest gratitude of those
apostles and martyrs who once walked on this lava pavement, but are
now standing on the sea of glass before the throne, "How beautiful are
the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad
tidings of good things!"




CHAPTER III

THE CUMÆAN SIBYL


A part of the monotonous coast-line of Palestine extends into the
Mediterranean considerably beyond the rest at Carmel. In this bluff
promontory the Holy Land reaches out, as it were, towards the Western