"And I besought the LORD at that time, saying, I pray Thee, let me go over and see that good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain and Lebanon."-Deut. iii. 23, 25. THE Passover was nigh at hand,' and pilgrims from all parts of Asia were already gathered at Smyrna, waiting to sail for Jerusalem. I agreed to join some of them; and the day of our departure was fixed. But ere I left the shores of Ionia for the land of Canaan, I must pay one last visit to old and sacred haunts, where I was wont to sit and think. For the last time, then, I went to the banks of the Meles, and there watched the eddy of the stream playing as of old among the drooping branches of myrtles and of B oleanders always in bloom, where nightingales sing and king-fishers sit; and where swallows twitter at even a plaintive ditty to the name of Mæone, the mother of Homer. There I sat again and listened to the low murmur of the brook as it flows around the sacred hill, and whispers lays of deeds we cherish;-a dream of ancient days. From thence I returned through the cypress grove which is around the temple of Cybele, and by the ruins of the theatre, to a more hallowed spot. I mean where Polycarp, the aged disciple of S. John, was arraigned before the Roman governor for the faith of CHRIST. It was here that the valiant saint was strengthened in his last hour of trial, by a voice from heaven that said to him, "Polycarp! quit thyself like a man; thy reward is great!" He then took courage; and in presence of the crowd assembled to witness his sufferings, he boldly told the Roman governor who bade him swear by the Emperor and deny CHRIST, that he never would recant. "Hear it once for all," said the holy martyr, "I am a Christian. And as to reviling CHRIST, for more than eighty-six years I have served Him, and He has never injured me; how could I deny my King, my SAVIOUR ?" "I have wild beasts at hand," said the proconsul. "Send for them!" replied Polycarp. "Why tarriest thou ?" "To the stake then!" "That, and whatever else thou listest," added the aged saint, "I never will recant!" So they tied him to the stake, and the people ran and lighted the pile. But in the midst of the flames Polycarp was heard giving thanks to CHRIST for being found worthy to suffer death for His sake. And having looked up to heaven, he knelt down and yielded his spirit into the hands of GOD in sight of his own church; of the church to which the LORD Himself had said, "Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer; but be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." I then left this holy spot and walked up to the top of the hill that rises above the town, from whence the eye ranges over the blue waters of the bay; by Clazomena and the isthmus of Chalcis, on to Chios, Lesbos, and Mitylene; then across the wide fields of the Hermus, on which, here and there, a few gaunt cypresses stood like sentinels over the surrounding plain, to the foot of Mount Sipylus, as far as the banks of the Caïster on the road to Ephesus. The sky was without a cloud, and the air-how fresh and pure! At last the hour of setting sail arrived. It was at the close of a bright day of the early spring, as spring is wont to be on the classic shores of Ionia, when as in Eden, |