's discomfiture
of the priests of Baal; the people were accustomed to resort to the
sanctuary of its "high place" during new moons and Sabbaths; and to
its haunted strand came pilgrims from distant regions, to which the
fame of its sanctity had spread. One of the great schools of the
prophets of Israel, superintended by Elisha, was planted on one of its
mountain prominences. The solitary Elijah found a refuge in its bosom,
and came and went from it to the haunts of men like one of its own
sudden storms; and in its rocky dells and dense thickets of oaks and
evergreens were uttered prophecies of a larger history and a grander
salvation, which transcended the narrow circle of Jewish ideas as much
as the excellency of Carmel transcended the other landscapes of
Palestine.

To this instance of striking correspondence between the peculiar
nature of a spot and its peculiar religious history in Asia, a
parallel may be found in Europe. A part of the long uniform western
coast-line of Italy stretches out into the Mediterranean at Cumae, near
the city of Naples. Early colonists from Greece, in search of a new
home, found in its bays, islands, and promontories a touching
resemblance to the intricate coast scenery of their own country. On a
solitary rock overlooking the sea they built their citadel and
established their worship. In this rock was the traditional cave of
the Cumaean Sibyl, where she gave utterance to the inspirations of
pagan prophecy a thousand years before St. John received the visions
of the Apocalypse on the lone heights of the AEgean isle. The
promontory of Cumae, like that of Carmel, typified the onward course of
history and religion--a great advance in men's ideas upon those of the
past. The western sea-board is the historic side of Italy. All its
great cities and renowned sites are on the western side of the
Apennines; the other side, looking eastward, with the exception of
Venice and Ravenna, containing hardly any place that stands out
prominently in the history of the world. And at Cumae this western
tendency of Italy was most pronounced. On this westmost promontory of
the beautiful land--the farthest point reached by the oldest
civilisation of Egypt and Greece--the Sibyl stood on her watch-tower,
and gazed with prophetic eye upon the distant horizon, seeing beyond
the light of the setting sun and "the baths of all the western stars"
the dawn of a more wonderful future, and dreamt of a--

"Vast brother