over its tracts of wood and wil derness, has scarcely left a vestige of its passage. But in the land of the olive and myrtle" historic associations present themselves at every turn to the mind's eye; tales of heart-moving interest crowd upon the memory; there

are

"Tongues in the trees, books in the running streams, Sermons in stones,"

recounting some story of patriot worth, some deed of desolating crime, or instance of Christian virtue. The skies are the same that lighted Israel in the wilder ness; the country the same that Abraham traversed when he went out to the land which he knew not; and the varied aspects of hill and vale, and wood and wave, are the same identical scenes as those which the footsteps of the Son of God visited, and through which the heralds of his mercy journeyed. A certain writer tells us, that when he first stood in the gallery of the House of Commons, Hampden, and Pym, and Bradshaw, and Cromwell were present to his fancy; we all remember Dr. Johnson's description of his feelings when he landed on Iona, which once enlightened northern Britain with its literature; but the territory where truth triumphed over error, religion vanquished the efforts of oppression, and patient submissive virtue overcame the despotism of lawless power-where events occurred involving the concerns not merely of individuals or nations, but of the world-where Christianity won its earliest and most imposing victories-has a more powerful charm, and excites a far deeper feeling than the spot consecrated merely by learning, or the heroic struggles of liberty. Let us then sit down to our wellbeloved desk, and visit in imagi

N. S. NO. 109.

nation the mountain-fastness mentioned at the head of this article; and let us strive to learn a lesson from the changes that have occurred since first it received its designation-the passions that have burned and fretted the human spirit-the cities in its neighbourhood, which once echoed with the melody of human converse, now deserted and in ruins-and the communities around it which have descended from the high eminences of religious attainment into the depths of superstitious ignorance and error.

Placing a map of the Lesser Asia before us, we behold a chain of mountains at a short distance from the southern coast, extending from the most western part of the peninsula, the ancient Caria, along its whole extent to the east, until it pierces the bosom of the huge Asian continent. From one extremity to the other, the distance may be some six hundred miles; from the western summits of the chain we look down upon the blue waves of the Mediterranean, from its eastern height upon the sluggish though erratic Euphrates; at the one end we have the old Greeks, at the other the Caliphs; the land of poetry and of prophecy; the glorious region where the blind bard of Chios wandered with his songs, and the river with its willows, where the captive Jews sat down to weep at the remembrance of Zion. The chain is irregular, and frequently broken; here a bold curve, there an abrupt angle, and, anon, a projection north and southward, while a range seems totally disjointed, as if fled from the ranks, impatient of control, or cast off as one of dame Nature's wild, rebellious, and prodigal offspring. These mountains are frequently mentioned by the ancients, under the

D

general appellation of Taurus; whether Carian, Phrygian, Caucasian, or Armenian; but, properly speaking, the cognomen belongs to the noble wall of granite which separates Phrygia and Pamphylia from Cilicia. Who has not read of the vine and the pomegranate, the ilex and oak; "the fir tree, the pine tree, and the box together;" the indigenous vegetation of Taurus, as well as Hermon and Libanus-covering its steeps with a mantle of nature's freshest green, studded with gems of fruit, while its noble headlands are left bare and uncovered, as if from reverence for their mighty Master.

Taurus is celebrated for its defiles, dark, tortuous, and narrowthe last wounds inflicted upon the world's surface in its battle with the retiring waters of the deluge,-formerly the strong holds of many of the local deities of heathenism, now abandoned to the passing traveller, and the roving Turcoman. There are four principal passes connecting the interior of the peninsula with the coast, which are called by the ancient authors Pylæ, into one of which let us for a time transport ourselves. We are then far away from the haunts of men, threading a wild, intricate, and frequently dangerous chasm, some miles in length, in several places so narrow as to be not many paces from rock to rock, but occasionally expanding, so as to form grand and magnificent amphitheatres. A streamlet flows through the opening, fretting along its stony channel, gradually increasing into a river of some size, as it escapes from the confinement of its native fastnesses, and reaches the open country. Beautiful evergreens and majestic pines adorn the mountains on each side, and sometimes hang over in each other's embraces, hiding the bright blue sky from the gaze of the wayfarer,

Here and there a fortress in ruins nods upon the summit of some stupendous cliff-a khan is situated at the southern entrance of the defile

Let us then sit

the stones used by the Romans in the construction of a paved way are scattered up and down, having been torn up by succeeding ages of barbarism. Never see a mountain, says Dr. E. Clarke, without getting at its summit!-never see a river, says Mr. Planche, without tracing its course! down in this secluded spot, where no sound is heard, except at intervals the hum of the passing caravan, the wild scream of the nighthawk and jackal, or the voice of the impatient stream. The defile is the Pyla Cilicia-the stream is the clear sparkling Cydnus-and the narrow pathway is the high road from the interior of the ancient Cappadocia to the Juliopolis of Cæsar, the Tarsus of Paul, and the Tersoos of Mahomet.

It would be difficult to select a spot that has witnessed so many changes, and received such a succession of masters as this Cilician defile; the native pirates, the Assyrian, Persian, Macedonian, Roman, Turk, and Christian have alternately conquered its strong holds; while, amid the ever-shifting scenes of its history, nature remains the same, and presents the same distinctive features as those upon which Cyrus and Alexander gazed. A statue found by the latter among the ruins of Anchialus, then a small town upon the coast, points out to us the origin of Tarsus, the capital of the province, and the birth-place of Paul. It was a statue of Sardanapalus, the last monarch of Upper Assyria, which crowned the summit of a monument erected to his memory. The statue was represented as in the act of clapping its hands, and the inscription was characteristic of the man,

whom Mitford has attempted to elevate, upon the strength of this device, to the character of a moral philosopher.

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Sardanapalus, the son of Anacyndaraxes, built Anchialus and Tarsus in one day. But do you, O stranger, eat, drink, and be merry, as all other human pursuits are not worth this.*

The Pyla Cilicia was visited by the elder Cyrus, in his campaign against Croesus; it was passed by the younger Cyrus in his contest with his brother Artaxerxes; it was traversed also by Alexander, who halted the body of his troops in it, while he advanced at the head of his favourite Agrians to the attack of Tarsus. The city was threatened with conflagration by its Persian governor, at the approach of the conqueror, but the extraordinary activity of the assailant saved it from destruction. It was summer; and overpowered with heat and exertion, he ventured to bathe in the waters of the Cydnus; but the stream partook more of the temperature of the melted snows of Taurus, than of the circumambient atmosphere; and the consequence was, a violent fever, which had well nigh terminated his career of ambition.

now

Tarsus submitted to the Roman arms under Pompey, who purged Mount Taurus of its predatory bands; it was embraced in the government given to Cicero as Proconsul; its name was changed into Juliolopolis for a time, in honour of Cæsar, who spent some days in it:

and it was the scene of Mark Antony's first interview with the beautiful but unprincipled Queen of Egypt. Their embarkation upon the Cydnus, for the land of the Ptolomies, was accompanied with gorgeous festivities :

* Alluding to the clapping of his hands.

"She has stepped on the burning sand! And the thousand tongues are mute! And the Syrian strikes, with a trembling hand,

The strings of his gilded lute! And the Ethiop's heart throbs loud and high

Beneath his white symar,

And the Lybian kneels as he meets her eye

Like the flash of an eastern star!
The gales may not be heard,
Yet the silken streamers quiver,
And the vessel shoots-like a bright-
plumed bird-

Away, down the golden river!
Away by the lofty mount!
And away by the gushing of many a
And away by the lonely shore!
fount,

Where fountains gush no more! -
Oh! for some warning vision, there,
Some voice that should have spoken
Of climes to be laid waste and bare,
And glad, young spirits broken!

"A dream of other days!That land is a desert now! And grief grew up to dim the blaze Upon that royal brow! The whirlwind's burning wing hath cast Blight on the marble plain, And

sorrow, like the simoom, past O'er Cleopatra's brain!"

The time had now arrived foreseen in the night-visions of the Jewish prophet, when the " God

of heaven"

should set up his kingdom; when the powers of "the lion," "the bear," "the leopard," and the beast" diverse from all the others," should be dominion, and the greatness of the broken; and "the kingdom and kingdom be given to the people of the saints of the Most High!” The most successful instrument employed in the establishment of the spiritual monarchy, was born on the banks of the Cydnus; a Cilician Jew, who was called to minister the faith of Christ, and to effect some of the grandest moral with which the achievements

history of the church is adorned. "I am a man," said Paul to the

Roman captain, which am a

Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen

of no mean city."* Bold, enterprising, and enthusiastically devoted to Israel's glory, his passions and prejudices in behalf of the faith and worship of his fathers were conquered by a miracle -the teachings of his rabbinical masters were corrected by a voice of indignant rebuke, affecting appeal, and pathetic persuasion from the excellent glory-and his Jewish blindness was removed by the visible light of heaven shining in vivid brightness upon his path? There was something peculiarly fitting in the conversion of such a man, being accompanied with this grandeur of spectacle and solemnity of circumstance-in that glory which had honoured the birth of Messiah dawning upon the new birth of his servant, and presiding over the inauguration of his greatest messenger; it was an emblem of the splendid career upon which he was now entering as the apostle of the human race, divinely appointed to let loose the streams of mercy unrestrainedly upon the world at large-to triumph over the religion of his ancestral and native country-and to write the law of righteousness upon the hearts of Jew and Greek, Barbarian and Scythian !

From the lips of Paul himself we know that Tarsus was

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no

city." mean According to Strabo, it was one of the most learned of the Greek cities, the favourite resort with Alexandria and Athens, of philosophy and science. The apostle being a native, was doubtless taught to read and speak the Greek language, besides being instructed in the Hebrew of his family. The period of his birth is uncertain;t

* Acts xxi. 39.

†The epistle to Philemon is supposed to have been written about A. D. 62; and as the vulgar era commenced at least

but at an early age he left his relatives to be educated in Jerusalem.* His return to his native city was with views and feelings widely different to those with which he had left it; his character had been changed by an immediate communion with the Divinity-the bigot of the Jews had become the apostle of the Gentiles-the persecutor of Stephen was himself a fugitive from the Hellenists, EXλnvisas, with whom he had been associated. "They went about to slay him, which when the brethren knew, they brought him down to Cæsarea, and sent bim forth to Tarsus."

two years after the birth of Christ, this would be really the 64th year after that event. The apostle, in the epistle, calls himself "Paul the aged;" he could not, therefore, have been then much less than 60 years old. Upon this computation, he would have been in his 26th lic ministry in his 30th, consequently four year when our Lord commenced his pub

years younger.

* Acts xxii. 3; xxvi. 4.

The time when Paul returned a con

verted Jew to Tarsus is determined in the following manner. Upon his departure from Jerusalem, the persecution which drove him from thence terminated; "Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria," Acts ix. 31. This "rest," it is conjectured, with great probability, was occasioned by the irruption of the Roman governor, Petronius, at the head of three legions, into Judea, to enforce the Emperor Caius's order, to set up his statue in the temple of Jerusalem. The mandate of Caius, as it so intimately affected the Jews, would stay their persecution of the Christians; the threatened destruction of their own religion, and the march of a powerful army to effect it, would effectually prevent any further attempts to destroy that of others. It was in the third year of the reign of Caius, mission, or A.D. 39; and at the close of that Petronius was despatched upon this the year 39, or the commencement of 40, he entered the province. The churches then began to rest," immediately previous to which Paul withdrew to Tarsus, which fixes the date of that event in the year 39.