But there is a more satisfactory 'evidence' to be derived from a view of the sacred localities, which has hardly been enough regarded by those who have written on the subject. Facts, it is said, are stubborn, and geographical facts happily the most stubborn of all. We cannot wrest them to meet our views; but neither can we refuse the conclusions they force upon us. It is by more than a figure of speech that natural scenes are said to have witnessed' the events which occurred in their presence. They are witnesses' which remain when the testimony of men and books has perished. They can be cross-examined with the alleged facts and narratives. If they cannot tell the whole truth, at any rate, so far as they have any voice at all, they tell nothing but the truth. If a partial advocate like Volney on one side, or Keith on the other, has extorted from them a reluctant or partial testimony, they still remain to be examined again and again by each succeeding traveller; correcting, elucidating, developing the successive depositions which they have made from age to age. It is impossible not to be struck by the constant agreement between the recorded history and the natural geography both of the Old and New Testament. To find a marked correspondence between the scenes of the Sinaitic mountains and the events of the Israelite wanderings is not much perhaps, but it is certainly something towards a proof of the truth of the whole narrative.1 To meet in the Gospels allusions, transient but yet precise, to the localities of Palestine, inevitably suggests the conclusion of their early origin, while Palestine was still familiar and accessible, while the events themselves were still 1 See Chapter I. b PREFACE. recent in the minds of the writers.' The detailed harmony between the life of Joshua and the various scenes of his battles, is a slight but true indication that we are dealing not with shadows, but with realities of flesh and blood. Such coincidences are not usually found in fables, least of all in fables of Eastern origin. 3 If it is important to find that the poetical imagery of the prophetical books is not to be measured by the rules of prose, it is not less important to find that the historical books do not require the latitude of poetry. Here and there, hyperbolical expressions may appear; but, as a general rule, their sobriety is evidenced by the actual scenes of Palestine, as clearly as that of Thucydides by the topography of Greece and Sicily. That the writers of the Old and New Testament should have been preserved from the extravagant statements made on these subjects by their Rabbinical countrymen, or even by Josephus, is, at least, a proof of the comparative calmness and elevation of spirit in which the Sacred books were composed. The copyists who, according to Origen, changed the name of "Bethabara" into "Bethania," or "Gergesa" into "Gadara," because they thought only of the names most familiar to their ears, without remembering the actual position of the places, committed (if so be) the error into which the Evangelists were almost sure to have been betrayed had they composed their narratives in the second century, in some city of Asia Minor or Egypt. The impossible situations in or 'See Chapters III. V. X. 3 It is said, for example, by Rabbinical authors, that Hebron could be seen from Jerusalem; that the music of the Temple could be heard at Jericho (Joma iii. 2, Tamid iii. 2); that the superficial area of Palestine is 1,440,000 English square miles. (Schwarze, p. 30.) In Josephus may be instanced the exaggerated descriptions of the precipices round Jerusalem. (Ant. XV. ii. 5.) 4 See Chapters VII. and X. numerous instances selected by the inventors of so-called traditional sanctuaries or scenes, from the fourth century downwards-at Nazareth,' at Tabor,2 on Olivet,3 at the Jordan-are so many testimonies to the authenticity of the Evangelical narratives, which have in every case avoided the natural snares into which their successors have fallen. This kind of proof will have a different kind of value in the eyes of different persons. To some, the amount of testimony thus rendered will appear either superfluous or trivial; to others, the mere attempt to define sacred history by natural localities and phenomena will seem derogatory to their ideal or divine character. But it will, at least, be granted that this evidence is, so far as it goes, incontestable. Wherever a story, a character, an event, a book, is involved in the conditions of a spot or scene still in existence, there is an element of fact which no theory or interpretation can dissolve. "If these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." This testimony may even be more important when it explains, than when it refuses to explain, the peculiar characteristics of the history. If, for example, the aspect of the ground should, in any case, indicate that some of the great wonders in the history of the Chosen People were wrought through means which, in modern language, would be called natural, we must remember that such a discovery is, in fact, an indirect proof of the general truth of the narrative. We cannot call from the contemporary world of man any witnesses to the passage of the Red Sea, or to the overthrow of the cities of the plain, or to the passage of the 1 See Chapter X. 2 See Chapter IX. 3 See Chapters III. and XIV. Illustration of the scenes of events. Jordan. So much the more welcome are any witnesses from the world of nature, to testify on the spot to the mode in which the events are described to have occurred; witnesses the more credible, because their very existence was unknown to those by whom the occurrences in question were described. Some change may thus be needful in our mode of conceiving the events. But we shall gain more than we shall lose. Their moral and spiritual lessons will remain unaltered: the framework of their outward form will receive the only confirmation of which the circumstances of the case can now admit. V. Even where there is no real connection, either by way of cause or explanation, between the localities and the events, there remains the charm of more vividly realising the scene; if only that we may be sure that we have left no stone unturned in our approach to what has passed away. Even when, as in the last period of the Sacred History, local associations can hardly be supposed to have exercised any influence over the minds of the actors, or the course of events, it is still an indescribable pleasure to know what was the outline of landscape, what the colour of the hills and fields, what the special objects, far or near, that met the eye of those of whom we read. There is, as one of the profoundest historical students of our day1 well observes, a satisfaction in treading the soil and breathing the atmosphere of historical persons or events, like that which results from familiarity with their actual language and with their contemporary chronicles. And this pleasure is increased in proportion as the events in question occurred not within perishable or perished buildings, but on the unchanging scenes of nature; on the Sea of Galilee, and 1 Palgrave's History of Normandy and England, i. 123. Mount Olivet, and at the foot of Gerizim, rather than in the house of Pilate, or the inn of Bethlehem, or the garden of the Holy Sepulchre, even were the localities now shown as such ever so genuine. This interest pervades every stage of the Sacred History, from the earliest to the latest times, the earliest, perhaps the most, because then the events more frequently occurred in connection with the free and open scenery of the country, which we still have before us. It is also a satisfaction which extends in some measure beyond the actual localities of events to those which are merely alleged to be such, a consideration not without importance in a country where so much is shown of doubtful authenticity, yet the objects of centuries of veneration. Such spots have become themselves the scenes of a history, though not of that history for which they claim attention; and to see and understand what it was that has for ages delighted the eyes and moved the souls of thousands of mankind is instructive, though in a different way from that intended by those who selected these sites.1 In one respect the sight and description of Eastern countries lends itself more than that of any other country to this use of historical geography. Doubtless there are many alterations, some of considerable importance, in the vegetation, the climate, the general aspect of these countries, since the days of the Old and New Testament.2 But, on the other hand, it is one of the great charms of Eastern travelling, that the framework of life, of customs, of manners, even of dress and speech, is still substantially the same as it was ages ago. Something, of course, in representing the scenes of the New Testament, must be 1 See Chapter XIV. 2 See Chapters I. II. 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