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church those noble orations which had made his name illustrious, even before his removal to Byzantium.

Owing to this felicity of its situation, Antioch continued to flourish long after the apostolic age, and to survive disasters which would have ruined most other cities. Even after Constantinople became the metropolis of the Roman empire in the East, the glory of Antioch was only gradually eclipsed by that of the imperial city; and in Chrysostom's day, it still numbered 200,000 inhabitants, of whom one-half, or even more, were Christians. And the church there maintained 3000 poor, and afforded occasional relief to many more. It continued to be a great and populous city in the time of the Crusaders, who gained possession of it in 1098, and erected it into a Christian principality. Even down to the year 1268, when it received its final overthrow as a great city from the hand of the Sultan Bibars, it was still so populous that it supplied 100,000 persons to captivity, and 17,000 to the sword. Since the date just mentioned, it has never risen to any higher rank than that of a fourth-rate town; and from even this rank it has declined since 1822, when an earthquake destroyed onefourth of its 20,000 inhabitants. Had the Egyptians retained possession of the country, it might possibly have risen once more, for it was the full purpose of Ibrahim Pasha to make it the capital of Syria. When he took measures for this end in 1835, the population of Antioch was ascertained to be not more than 5600, exclusive of about 6000 Egyptian troops.

Of the buildings, with which a long line of Syrian kings and Roman emperors delighted to adorn 'The Gate of the East,' we may not expect to find that much remains in a city so often ruined by earthquake and by war. The ruins of gates, bridges, castles, towers, and churches, may mostly be traced to the Byzantine and Saracenic periods, and to the age of the Crusades.

In an antiquarian point of view, the walls are the more interesting. Of their immense strength, ample proof exists in their ruins. They encircled the town in every direction, running down from the highest ridges of the mountains til they

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reached the embankment of the Orontes, where they were carried on in a line parallel with the river, here running nearly due north and south. The gates leading to the bridge by which the river is crossed in proceeding towards Seleucia, are to this day of immense strength, while the bridge itself is one of the finest specimens of architecture in the East. Parts of it have been renewed and patched up, but the arches are of very ancient construction, and still promise to hold out for ages longer against the perpetual warfare they sustain from the rapid waves of the Orontes, which already tell upon the modern portions, though less exposed than the ancient to their action. The old walls, as well as the strong buildings of the Crusaders, were to a great extent blown up with gunpowder by Ibrahim Pasha, for materials wherewith to beautify the modern city. The magnificent barracks, built to accommodate 10,000 men, as well as his beautiful palace upon the banks of the Orontes, were built with such materials; but these are already in a state of tottering dilapidation, while the towers and buttresses built ages ago, are still as strongly held together by their mortar and lime as at the time of their erection.

The walls appear, from the existing remains, to have extended about seven miles. But the modern Antakiyah covers only a small part of the site of the ancient city, the remainder being, for the most part, occupied with mulberry groves, vineyards, and fruit gardens. It contains several baths, two khans, some fountains, a Mohammedan college, and fourteen mosques. The Jews worship in a room in the house of the chief among them; and the Christians meet for prayer in a cavern dedicated to St. John. The inhabitants still cherish the remembrance of Paul's visit to their city; and one of its gates—that leading to Aleppo-is still, among all classes, called by his name. The houses are Turkish as to plan, but of inferior construction, usually of stone, though frequently consisting of a wooden frame filled up with sun-dried bricks, and having a pent roof covered with red tiles. Antakiyah is, in fact, the only town in Syria or Palestine where tiles are used in roofing the houses; and this singular deviation from ordinary oriental

practice may probably have been introduced from the west by the Crusaders, as a better protection from the frequent and heavy rains of the locality than the oriental roof can afford. Exterior stone doors lead from a court shaded by orange and pomegranate trees to corridors and balconies; and the doors and windows of the buildings usually face the west, for the sake

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of the cool breeze coming from that quarter during the greater part of the summer. The houses are seldom more than one storey high, and each house is entirely enclosed by a wall as high as the house itself. Thus the whole street has the appearance of one continuous stone wall, with entrance doors at intervals of twenty or thirty yards, the tiled roofs being the only indication to people in the streets of habitations within. The streets may be called wide for an eastern town, and are paved about a yard and a half on either side, with a deep ditch or gutter in the centre. Foot-passengers keep to the pavements, and horsemen and laden animals must confine themselves to the ditch. Like all Turkish towns, Antakiyah would be poisoned with filth, were it not that it is built on a gently rising

ground up to the foot of the high hill behind. When a shower occurs, torrents of water come pouring down the ravines and chasms of the mountains, and forcing an exit through the streets of the town, carry away everything moveable before them into the fast-flowing waters of the deep Orontes. The result is, that when the rain is over, the streets have been most effectually purified. It is on these occasions that those antique coins and stones are collected for which the place has long been famous. No sooner have the waters begun to abate, than swarms of children may be observed busily occupied in the numerous gutters, armed with sieves, sticks, and brooms, sweeping and clearing away the mud, and earnestly occupied in hunting for antiques. Seldom is the search fruitless. Some of the young seekers find copper coins, others silver, and some few rejoice in the discovery of gems. Thus do the new gene

rations of Antiochians seek for the memorials of the ancient glories of their city in the very mud of its streets.

Dr. Kitto's geography is here a little at fault. Antioch lies some fifty miles south of that angle formed by the junction of the coasts of Syria and Asia Minor in the Gulf of Issus. And, moreover, the range of Lebanon terminates at the 'entrance of Hamath,' more than a hundred and twenty miles south of Antioch. The mountain chain, which runs along the coast southward from Antioch, was anciently called Mons Bargylus; and that which extended from it northwards to Taurus was called Mons Amanus. Antioch was situated on the south bank of the Orontes, at the spot where it turns sharply to the westward, and runs through the deep and narrow valley which divides the Amanus from the Bargylus range. Antioch, the proud capital of the Seleucidæ, the third city in the Roman empire, famous for the magnificence of its architecture, the splendour of its palaces, the wealth and luxurious refinement of its inhabitants, has fallen to the grade of a poor Arab town. The name 'Christian,' invented here eighteen centuries ago, is still borne by a few hundreds of its people; but the spirit and the purity of apostolic Christianity have long since gone. Nothing, in fact, is left of the Antioch of olden times save the name, and that wanton licentiousness for which it was notorious.

Forty-sixth Week-Fifth Day.

AGABUS AND THE DEARTH.-ACTS XI. 27-30.

In the course of the transactions at Antioch which have lately engaged our attention, probably during the year of Barnabas' and Saul's joint labour there, certain 'prophets' arrived from Jerusalem. One of these, named Agabus, impelled by the Spirit, stood up in the congregation of the believers, and declared that there should be great dearth throughout all the world.' The historian adds, that this prediction was accomplished in the days of Claudius Cæsar.' The disciples, having full faith in this intimation, determined that every one of them, according to his means, should send relief to the brethren in Judea. A collection was accordingly made for the purpose, and the arnount thus realized was remitted to the elders at Jerusalem by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.

This is the plain statement of the facts; but out of it one or two questions arise, which are well entitled to our consideration.

Who were these 'prophets,' of whom Agabus was one, and the only one to whom any foretellings are ascribed?

The word 'prophet' does certainly, in its primary sense, denote one who foretells future events. As, however, such prophets were commonly regarded as public instructors in religion, and as they constantly appear in that capacity in the Old Testament, the more general idea of a public teacher came to be expressed by the word. In this sense it frequently occurs in the New Testament, where there is no apparent reference to the prediction of things future.1 It therefore seems that the 'prophets' of the New Testament were such disciples as applied themselves to public teaching and preaching, and were occasionally enabled, under the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, to foretell things to come which it concerned the church to know. We suppose that, although to foretell 1 See Rom. xii. 6; 1 Cor. xii. 10, 28, xiii. 2, 8, xiv. 3, 5, 24.

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