ry they have a mystical meaning and beauty, because they belong
to the country where Jesus walked with His fishermen-disciples, and took
the little children in His arms, and healed the sick, and opened blind
eyes to behold ineffable things.

Every touch that brings that country nearer to us in our humanity and
makes it more real, more simple, more vivid, is precious. For the one
irreparable loss that could befall us in religion,--a loss that is often
threatened by our abstract and theoretical ways of thinking and speaking
about Him,--would be to lose Jesus out of the lowly and familiar ways of
our mortal life. He entered these lowly ways as the Son of Man in order
to make us sure that we are the children of God.

Therefore I am glad of every hour spent by the Lake of Galilee.

* * * * *

I remember, when we came across in our boat to Tell Hum, where the
ancient city of Capernaum stood, the sun was shining with a fervent heat
and the air of the lake, six hundred and eighty feet below the level of
the sea, was soft and languid. The gray-bearded German monk who came to
meet us at the landing and admitted us to the inclosure of his little
monastery where he was conducting the excavation of the ruins, wore a
cork helmet and spectacles. He had been heated, even above the ninety
degrees Fahrenheit which the thermometer marked, by the rudeness of a
couple of tourists who had just tried to steal a photograph of his work.
He had foiled them by opening their camera and blotting the film with
sunlight, and had then sent them away with fervent words. But as he
walked with us among his roses and Pride of India trees, his spirit
cooled within him, and he showed himself a learned and accomplished man.

He told us how he had been working there for two or three years,
keeping records and drawings and photographs of everything that was
found; going back to the Franciscan convent at Jerusalem for his short
vacation in the heat of mid-summer; putting his notes in order, reading
and studying, making ready to write his book on Capernaum. He showed us
the portable miniature railway which he had made; and the little iron
cars to carry away the great piles of rubbish and earth; and the rich
columns, carved lintels, marble steps and shell-niches of the splendid
building which his workmen had uncovered. The outline was clear and
perfect. We could see how the edifice of fine, white limestone had been
erected upon