a similar offense by the people of the beautiful valley of Siddim, and the consequent sinking of that valley with its inhabitants beneath the waters of the Dead Sea. Very similar to the accounts of the saving of Philemon and Baucis are those of the saving of Lot and his family.

But the myth-making and miracle-mongering by no means ceased in ancient times; they continued to grow through the mediæval and modern period, until they have quietly withered away in the light of modern scientific investigation, leaving to us the religious and moral truths they inclose.

It would be interesting to trace this whole group of myths: their origin in times prehistoric, their development in Greece and Rome, their culmination during the ages of faith, and their disappearance in the age of science. It would be especially instructive to note the conscientious efforts to prolong their life by making futile compromises between science and theology regarding them; but I shall mention this main group only incidentally, confining myself almost entirely to the one above named,— the most remarkable of all, the myth which grew about the salt pillars of Usdum.

I select this mainly because it involves only elementary principles, requires no abstruse reasoning, and because all controversy regarding it is ended. There is certainly now no theologian with a reputation to lose who will venture to revive the idea regarding it which was sanctioned for hundreds, nay, thousands, of years by theology, was based on Scripture, and was held by the universal Church until our own century.

The main feature of the salt region of Usdum is a low range of hills near the southwest corner of the Dead Sea, extending in a southeasterly direction for about five miles, and made up mainly of salt rock. This rock is soft and friable; and under the influence of the heavy winter rains, it has been without doubt, from a period long before human history, as it is now, cut ever in new shapes, and especially into pillars or columns, which sometimes bear a semblance to the human form.

An eminent clergyman who visited this spot recently, speaks of the appearance of this salt range as follows:

"Fretted by fitful showers and storms, its ridge is exceedingly uneven, its sides carved out and constantly changing;

and each traveler might have a new pillar of salt to wonder over at intervals of a few years."

Few things could be more certain than that, in the indolent dream-life of the East, myths and legends would grow up to account for this as for other strange appearances in all that region. The question which a religious Oriental put to himself in ancient times at Usdum was substantially that which his descendant to-day puts to himself at Kosseir: "Why is this region thus blasted?» "Whence these pillars of salt?" or "Whence these blocks of granite?" "What aroused the vengeance of Jehovah or of Allah to work these miracles of desolation ? »

And just as Maxime Du Camp recorded the answer of the modern Shemite at Kosseir, so the compilers of the Jewish sacred books recorded the answer of the ancient Shemite at the Dead Sea; just as Allah at Kosseir blasted the land and transformed the melons into bowlders which are seen to this day, so Jehovah at Usdum blasted the land and transformed Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, which is seen to this day.

No more difficulty was encountered in the formation of the Lot legend, to account for that rock resembling the human form, than in the formation of the Niobe legend, which accounted for a supposed resemblance in the rock at Sipylos: it grew up just as we have seen thousands of similar myths and legends grow up about striking natural appearances in every early home of the human race. Being thus consonant with the universal view regarding the relation of physical geography to the Divine government, it became a treasure of the Jewish nation and of the Christian Church,— a treasure not only to be guarded against all hostile intrusion, but to be increased, as we shall see, by the myth-making powers of the Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans for thousands of years.

The spot where the myth originated was carefully kept in mind; indeed, it could not escape, for in that place alone were constantly seen the phenomena which gave rise to it. We have a steady chain of testimony through the ages, all pointing to the salt pillar as the irrefragable evidence of Divine judgment. That great theological test of truth-the dictum of St. Vincent of Lerins would certainly prove that the pillar was Lot's wife; for it was believed so to be by Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans from the earliest period down to a time almost within present memory" always, everywhere, and by all." It would stand perfectly the ancient test insisted upon by Cardinal Newman, "Securus judicat orbis terrarum" [The world judges infallibly].

For ever since the earliest days of Christianity, the identity of the salt pillar with Lot's wife has been universally held, and supported by passages in Genesis, in St. Luke's Gospel, and in the Second Epistle of St. Peter,- coupled with a passage in the book of the Wisdom of Solomon, which to this day, by a majority in the Christian Church, is believed to be inspired, and from which are specially cited the words, "A standing pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul."

Never was chain of belief more continuous. In the first century of the Christian era Josephus refers to the miracle, and declares regarding the statue, "I have seen it, and it remains at this day"; and Clement, Bishop of Rome,- one of the most revered fathers of the Church, noted for the moderation of his statements, expresses a similar certainty, declaring the miraculous statue to be still standing.

In the second century that great father of the Church, bishop and martyr, Irenæus, not only vouched for it, but gave his approval to the belief that the soul of Lot's wife still lingered in the statue, giving it a sort of organic life: thus virtually began in the Church that amazing development of the legend which we shall see taking various forms through the Middle Ages,— the story that the salt statue exercised certain physical functions which in these more delicate days cannot be alluded to save under cover of a dead language.

This addition to the legend, which in these signs of life, as in other things, is developed almost exactly on the same lines with the legend of the Niobe statue in the rock of Mount Sipylos, and with the legends of human beings transformed into bowlders in various mythologies, was for centuries regarded as an additional confirmation of revealed truth.

In the third century the myth burst into still richer bloom in a poem long ascribed to Tertullian. In this poem more miraculous characteristics of the statue are revealed. It could not be washed away by rains; it could not be overthrown by winds; any wound made upon it was miraculously healed; and the earlier statements as to its physical functions were amplified in sonorous Latin verse.

With this appeared a new legend regarding the Dead Sea: it became universally believed, and we find it repeated throughout the whole mediæval period, that the bitumen could only be dissolved by such fluids as in the process of animated nature came from the statue.

The legend thus amplified we shall find dwelt upon by pious travelers and monkish chroniclers for hundreds of years: so it came to be more and more treasured by the universal Church, and held more and more firmly,-"always, everywhere, and by all."

In the two following centuries we have an overwhelming mass of additional authority for the belief that the very statue of salt into which Lot's wife was transformed was still existing. In the fourth, the continuance of the statue was vouched for by St. Silvia, who visited the place: though she could not see it, she was told by the Bishop of Segor that it had been there some time before, and she concluded that it had been temporarily covered by the sea. In both the fourth and fifth centuries, such great doctors in the Church as St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of Jerusalem, agreed in this belief and statement: hence it was, doubtless, that the Hebrew word which is translated in the authorized English version "pillar," was translated in the Vulgate, which the majority of Christians believe virtually inspired, by the word "statue"; we shall find this fact insisted upon by theologians arguing in behalf of the statue, as a result and monument of the miracle, for over fourteen hundred years afterward.

About the middle of the sixth century, Antoninus Martyr visited the Dead Sea region and described it; but curiously reversed a simple truth in these words: "Nor do sticks or straws float there, nor can a man swim; but whatever is cast into it sinks to the bottom." As to the statue of Lot's wife, he threw doubt upon its miraculous renewal, but testified that it was still standing.

In the seventh century the Targum of Jerusalem not only testified that the salt pillar at Usdum was once Lot's wife, but declared she must retain that form until the general resurrection. In the seventh century, too, Bishop Arculf traveled to the Dead Sea, and his work was added to the treasures of the Church. He greatly develops the legend, and especially that part of it given by Josephus. The bitumen that floats upon the sea resembles gold and the form of a bull or camel"; "birds cannot live near it"; and "the very beautiful apples" which grow there, when plucked, "burn and are reduced to ashes, and smoke as if they were still burning."

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In the eighth century the Venerable Bede takes these statements of Arculf and his predecessors, binds them together in his

work on 'The Holy Places,' and gives the whole mass of myths and legends an enormous impulse.

In the tenth century new force is given to it by the pious Moslem Mukadassi. Speaking of the town of Segor, near the salt region, he says that the proper translation of its name is «< Hell"; and of the lake he says, "Its waters are hot, even as though the place stood over hell-fire."

In the crusading period, immediately following, all the legends burst forth more brilliantly than ever.

The first of these new travelers who makes careful statements is Fulk of Chartres, who in 1100 accompanied King Baldwin to the Dead Sea, and saw many wonders; but though he visited the salt region at Usdum, he makes no mention of the salt pillar: evidently he had fallen on evil times; the older statues had probably been washed away, and no new one had happened to be washed out of the rocks just at that period.

But his misfortune was more than made up by the triumphant experience of a far more famous traveler, half a century later, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela.

Rabbi Benjamin finds new evidences of miracle in the Dead Sea, and develops to a still higher point the legend of the salt statue of Lot's wife, enriching the world with the statement that it was steadily and miraculously renewed; that though the cattle. of the region licked its surface, it never grew smaller. Again a thrill of joy went through the monasteries and pulpits of Christendom at this increasing "evidence of the truth of Scripture.”

Toward the end of the thirteenth century there appeared in Palestine a traveler superior to most before or since,- Count Burchard, monk of Mount Sion. He had the advantage of knowing something of Arabic, and his writings show him to have been observant and thoughtful. No statue of Lot's wife appears to have been washed clean of the salt rock at his visit, but he takes it for granted that the Dead Sea is "the mouth of hell,' and that the vapor rising from it is the smoke from Satan's fur

naces.

These ideas seem to have become part of the common stock; for Ernoul, who traveled in the Dead Sea during the same century, always speaks of it as the "Sea of Devils."

Near the beginning of the fourteenth century appeared the book, of far wider influence, which bears the name of Sir John Mandeville; and in the various editions, its myths and legends of