uppose it would, mother," the lad said, rising briskly; for his
fits of indolence were by no means common and, as a rule, he was
ready to assist at any work which might be going on.

"I do not wonder at John loving the lake," his mother said to
herself, when the lad had hurried away. "It is a fair scene; and it
may be, as Simon thinks, that a change may come over it, before
long, and that ruin and desolation may fall upon us all."

There were, indeed, few scenes which could surpass in tranquil
beauty that which Martha, the wife of Simon, was looking upon--the
sheet of sparkling water, with its low shores dotted with towns and
villages. Down the lake, on the opposite shore, rose the walls and
citadel of Tiberias, with many stately buildings; for although
Tiberias was not, now, the chief town of Galilee--for Sepphoris had
usurped its place--it had been the seat of the Roman authority, and
the kings who ruled the country for Rome generally dwelt there.
Half a mile from the spot where Martha was standing rose the
newly-erected walls of Hippos.

Where the towns and villages did not engross the shore, the rich
orchards and vineyards extended down to the very edge of the water.
The plain of Galilee was a veritable garden. Here flourished, in
the greatest abundance, the vine and the fig; while the low hills
were covered with olive groves, and the corn waved thickly on the
rich, fat land. No region on the earth's face possessed a fairer
climate. The heat was never extreme; the winds blowing from the
Great Sea brought the needed moisture for the vegetation; and so
soft and equable was the air that, for ten months in the year,
grapes and figs could be gathered.

The population, supported by the abundant fruits of the earth, was
very large. Villages--which would elsewhere be called towns, for
those containing but a few thousand inhabitants were regarded as
small, indeed--were scattered thickly over the plain; and few areas
of equal dimensions could show a population approaching that which
inhabited the plains and slopes between the Sea of Galilee and the
Mediterranean. None could then have dreamed of the dangers that
were to come, or believed that this rich cultivation and teeming
population would disappear; and that, in time, a few flocks of
wandering sheep would scarce be able to find herbage growing, on
the wastes of land which would take the place of this fertile soil.

Certainly no such thought as this occurred to Martha