re me, I
felt that the last shadow had rolled away from my brain. My mind was now
as clear as that sky--my heart as free and joyful as the elastic morning
air. The sun never shone so brightly to my eyes; the fair forms of Nature
were never penetrated with so perfect a spirit of beauty. I was again
master of myself, and the world glowed as if new-created in the light of
my joy and gratitude. I thanked God, who had led me out of a darkness more
terrible than that of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and while my feet
strayed among the flowery meadows of Lebanon, my heart walked on the
Delectable Hills of His Mercy.

By the middle of the afternoon, we reached Baalbec. The distant view of
the temple, on descending the last slope of the Anti-Lebanon, is not
calculated to raise one's expectations. On the green plain at the foot of
the mountain, you see a large square platform of masonry, upon which stand
six columns, the body of the temple, and a quantity of ruined walls. As a
feature in the landscape, it has a fine effect, but you find yourself
pronouncing the speedy judgment, that "Baalbec, without Lebanon, would be
rather a poor show." Having come to this conclusion, you ride down the
hill with comfortable feelings of indifference. There are a number of
quarries on the left hand; you glance at them with an expression which
merely says: "Ah! I suppose they got the stones here," and so you saunter
on, cross a little stream that flows down from the modern village, pass a
mill, return the stare of the quaint Arab miller who comes to the door to
see you, and your horse is climbing a difficult path among the broken
columns and friezes, before you think it worth while to lift your eyes to
the pile above you. Now re-assert your judgment, if you dare! This is
Baalbec: what have you to say? Nothing; but you amazedly measure the
torsos of great columns which lie piled across one another in magnificent
wreck; vast pieces which have dropped from the entablature, beautiful
Corinthian capitals, bereft of the last graceful curves of their acanthus
leaves, and blocks whose edges are so worn away that they resemble
enormous natural boulders left by the Deluge, till at last you look up to
the six glorious pillars, towering nigh a hundred feet above your head,
and there is a sensation in your brain which would be a shout, if you
could give it utterance, of faultless symmetry and majesty, such as no
conception of yours and no other creation of