fatally tainted with oriental dualism, making evil a principle independent of good and identifying it with all material and physical existence; hence their asceticism. They differed in this from the Jewish Nazarites, who renounced all things from the truest motives and had ever been the mainstay of orthodox Judaism.

THE PEREA AND THE TRANSJORDAN.

Across the Jordan, the country stretching away east and north almost to the gates of Damascus was only in part a division of the Holy Land. It was roamed over by wild and scattered tribes, forefathers of the freebooting Bedouins of our own times, who had no share in the religious convulsions which we are going to narrate. To the Jews these people were like a thorny wilderness enclosing a fruitful vineyard. Exception, however, must be made in favor of the region just east of the river lying between the Lake of Genesareth and the Dead Sea, and called the Perea. In spite of a sprinkling of pagans, its inhabitants were Israelites, fervent in their observance of the law of Moses. Their country was the land of Galaad, the native land of mighty Elias the Thesbite. Through the mountain passes of the Perea the twelve tribes had come out of the desert to the banks of the Jordan, and it had been assigned to the tribes of Reuben and Gad as their portion of Israel's heritage-a stalwart people, ever ready to change the shepherd's crook for the Bedouin's lance in defence of the nation or of its God

GATE OF DAMASCUS.

Jehovah. There, too, in Mount Phogor, the heathen
Balaam, having come out to curse the hosts of Israel,
was forced by the Lord to bless them. Mount Nebo,
also, was there, from whose summit Moses had re-
joiced in the blessed sight of the Land of Promise,
and seemed still to watch over the peo-
ple of God and to renew the prophecy
of a Saviour.

SAMARIA.

BEDOUIN SHEPHERD BOY.

West of the Jordan, and bounded north and south by Galilee and Judea, was a little country called Samaria. Its people professed the Mosaic law, but were completely severed from the Jews, who hated them worse than swine-flesh and rated them lower than the heathen. They were of mingled Hebrew and pagan blood, being remnants of the original Israelites of the region who escaped the Babylonian captivity, but who were absorbed into Assyrian colonies planted among the hills of Ephraim. The Samaritans gave back hate for hate. Masters of the best route from Galilee to Jerusalem, they molested the pilgrims on their journeys to and from the Holy City, often forcing them to take the roundabout way beyond the Jordan. Secretly they penetrated into the Temple and polluted the holy places; they had a rival temple on Mount Garizim, in which ministered a schismatical priesthood. They rejected many books of the Hebrew Scriptures, holding only to the Pentateuch, of which they claimed to have the only genuine version. Mon-. grel in race, they were also mixed in religion; for if they adored Jehovah, they also honored the pagan gods-midway, as our Saviour placed them, between

the Jews and the heathen, saying to His Apostles: "You shall be witnesses of Me in Jerusalem and Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth."

Their chief city was Sichem, placed between Mounts Garizim and Ebal. Everywhere Samaria was sanctified by holy memories. Near Sichem, Abraham had sojourned; close at hand was Jacob's well; Josue had died in this vicinity, leaving to his people his wonderful testament. A little to the north of Sichem was the city of Samaria, in later times. called Sebaste, and rebuilt and beautified by Herod the Great; it had been in earlier ages the capital of the wicked race of Israel's kings. From their northern border the Samaritans looked across the plain of Esdrelon and beheld the lofty cliffs of Carmel, the place of prayer for great Elias. Near their southern limit was Siloh, where the Ark of the Covenant had so long been deposited; and near by was Bethel, where Jacob had his vision of the heavenly ladder

TOWER OF BETHEL.

and had wrestled with the angel.

GALILEE.

North of Samaria lay Galilee of the Gentiles, so called from its occupancy during many generations by pagan communities, only partially driven out by the Machabees. It embraced the ancient territory of the tribes of Issachar, Zabulon, Aser, and Nephtali. In its interior districts the population was genuinely Hebrew, but its capital, the city of Tiberias, on the shore of Lake Genesareth, was Gentile in race and religion and Greek in life and manners; the same

may be said of some other scattered communities. But the country people and the dwellers in many of the smaller cities were full-blood descendants of Abraham. Yet their brethren in Judea looked upon the Galileans almost as half-caste, ridiculed their barbarous accent and their rustic manners, and at best patronized them as rough country cousins. Nevertheless, they were loyal children of Israel and a sturdy, handsome race besides. They were faithful to God and to their national traditions, brave in battle, industrious and thrifty in time of peace. Their land, everywhere beautiful, was mostly fertile, though the northern part was broken by wooded hills and ravines, often the refuge of bandits and sometimes of insurgents. About the Lake of Genesareth Galilee was like a beautiful garden, the climate favoring all the products of the temperate, and many of the tropical zone, amid the most radiant beauty of landscape and under a genial sky; answering the prophetic blessings of Moses upon its early Hebrew owners, the tribes of Aser and Zabulon. The high road from the Mediterranean to Damascus and inner Syria passed across Galilee and around the north end of Lake Genesareth, taking in Tiberias and Capharnaum. This artery of trade was of no small benefit to the Galileans in a material point of view and increased the population of their country; but it did not spoil their virtue.

Nothing could spoil this strong race, in which both patriotism and religion sprang into active life from the same deep-planted root-love of the law of Moses. Every rood of ground furnished heroic memories to nourish these noble sentiments. The Plain of Esdrelon told of Gedeon's battle with the Madianites, of Saul's victory over the Philistines, of Achab's over the Syrians; every hill and valley and stream of Gali

lee was sanctified as a memorial of some achievement of the heroes of old for God and country. The valor of the stalwart tillers of this holy soil is witnessed not only by Josephus but by the Roman annalist Tacitus; a warlike quality too often led astray into foolhardy and disastrous insurrections.

The Messias chose this portion of the people of Israel as his kinsfolk, for they were the best type of Israelites. They were free from the morbid scrupulosity of the Pharisees as well as from the pagan immorality and scepticism which stained the Sadducees. They assembled every Sabbath in their synagogues and listened reverently to their Rabbis expounding the religion of their forefathers, to which they were enthusiastically devoted. Into the gates of the Holy City their dusty caravans were seen passing at every great festival time. Meanwhile their contact with the Gentiles, if it had not corrupted their manly nature and primitive morality, had yet helped them to a broader view of religious questions, and they were less fanatical in the observance of petty details of religious practice than the greater part of their brother Israelites.

THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES.

Among all the people of Israel the opening of the Christian era was an epoch of reviving religious fervor and patriotic sentiment. In the family circle as well as in synagogues, on the streets and in the fields and workshops, the common topic was a mingled praise of the law of Moses and lamentation over the enslavement of the nation. Unfortunately, this movement of minds was not well directed; it fell under control of a powerful school of rigorists called PhariThese obtained a mastery over the people by

sees.