it was conveniently approached by the caravans from
Mesopotamia and Arabia. It united the inland advantages of Aleppo
with the maritime opportunities of Smyrna. It was almost an Oriental
Rome, in which all the forms of the civilized life of the Empire
found some representative.

At the rugged bases of the mountain, the ground was leveled for a
glorious street, which extended for four miles across the length of
the city, and where sheltered crowds could walk through continuous
colonnades from the eastern to the western suburb. The whole was
surrounded by a wall, which, ascending to the heights and returning
to the river, does not deviate very widely in its course from the
wall of the Middle Ages, which can still be traced by the fragments
of ruined towers. This wall is assigned by a Byzantine writer to
Tiberius, but it seems more probable that the Emperor only repaired
what Antiochus Epiphanes had built.
[End illustration]

{447}

THE CHRISTIAN WARRIOR

But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake
you as a thief: for ye are all sons of light, and sons of the day: we
are not of the night, nor of darkness; so then let us not sleep, as do
the rest, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in
the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let
us, since we are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of
faith and love: and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God
appointed us not unto wrath, but unto the obtaining of salvation
through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake
or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore exhort one
another, and build each other up, even as also ye do.

--_I Thessalonians 5:4-11_.

Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Put
on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood,
but against the principalities, against the powers, against the
world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of
wickedness in the heavenly places. Wherefore take up the whole armour
of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having
done all, to stand. Stand therefore, {448} having girded your loins
with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and
having shod your feet with the pr