John Ellershaw took the slender, frail hands in his strong warm grasp.

"Yes, darling Verity," whispered a new-born Aunt Di, and her arms tightened round the shadowy figure as if mothering were no new accomplishment. "The Old Grange belongs to John now. We little thought he was the purchaser when it was put up for sale. You know he is a rich man, Verity. Did he tell you of the diamond mine on the farm he bought and its discovery? It has made a millionaire of him. You didn't know?" for Verity shook her head. "And

to think that I, God forgive me, scorned a man of his spirit as a failure!" Aunt Di added humbly. Then she went on, "And there's to be a new mistress at the Old Grange as soon as possible. Don't tremble so, little one! God has given you back to us

"But you, Aunt Di?" Verity stammeringly broke in.

"Our Aunt Di belongs to the Old Grange. She is as much a feature there as the stately oaks. There's plenty of room for her as well as for us, Verity!" John laughed a large, contented laugh, in which, to the dumb surprise of Verity, Aunt Di joined cheerily.

Truly, a new world must this be which the sick girl had crept back to―a world filled with happiness, with thanksgiving, with gratitude to the Giver of all good. Verily, it was sweet to live!

In the Old Grange glad voices wake up the silences; a rush of happy life-a life full of earnest endeavours for good-has transfigured the old selfish existence. The dim corners are lighted up, and the ghosts that lurked in them are scattered by the bright wholesome presence of the new mistress, Peter's girl, John Ellershaw's Verity.

66

And stately Diana Loveridge sits content in Aunt Char's chair, a richer woman than ever, for she is surrounded by the wealth of warm, loyal hearts. More, by the far-reaching mercy of God whose ways are not as our short-sighted ways, she herself is made a new creature by the cleansing fires" of the furnace which have purified her nature from the dross of pride and avarice, leaving the true gold of a meek and quiet spirit. To-day, Diana's treasures are stored up in that heaven "where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”

F all the nations of antiquity, those which are

at present, are probably the ancient realms of Babylonia and Assyria, and the importance of the discoveries that are being made can hardly be over-rated. Possessing, as they did, a literature of a very high antiquity, written upon material of the greatest durability (baked or unbaked clay and stone), their records have withstood for thousands of years the effects of time, and are so numerous that an estimate of their number, with anything like exactness, is at present a matter of great difficulty. The fragments of tablets from Kouyunjik (Nineveh) alone amount to over twenty thousand,1 and a far larger number of documents have been found in Babylonia.

The chief sites where tablets are at present being found are Babylon, Sippar (now Abuhabbah), Niffer, and Tel-loh (the ancient Lagash). The first two sites are being excavated by the Turkish Government, Niffer by the Americans, and Tel-loh by the French. England has, at present, no excavations going on there, but the collection of tablets acquired in former years, and constantly added to by purchase, are, and will probably remain for many years to come, unrivalled. Nevertheless, it is greatly to be wished that the British Government could again obtain a firman to excavate on the site of one or more of the ancient cities whose ruins occur here and there.

Of the many kings of Babylonia, the one whose memory most excites the sympathy of the archæologist and the student of history, is probably Nabonidus, who reigned over Babylonia from about 555 to 538 B.C. Little was known of the history of his reign until the discovery of one of the tablets of the Babylonian Chronicle in 1879, but even before that time more than one of his inscriptions was regarded as of great importance on account of the light they shed on the early history of his country. Records of Nabonidus, discovered later, were so full of material of historical value, and referred so often to his excavations in the foundations of buildings to find ancient inscriptions, that the title of "the antiquarian king," that has been applied to him, will probably not be regarded as unmerited.

66

King, scholar, and dreamer, son also of the deeply-wise prince," called Nabû-balatsu-ikbi, Nabonidus, like his predecessors, inscribed his

1 Many of these, however, are very small, and do not give any connected sense. Most of the more interesting pieces have been published.

2 At least until lately.

knowledge on clay cylinders, and buried them, as was then the custom-just as nowadays coins and newspapers are buried in the foundations of buildings and monuments-for the information of future ages. Thus, on a most valuable cylinder, found by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam at Abu-habbah in 1882, Nabonidus, when referring to the restoration of the temple of the moon-god at Haran, speaks of its destruction by the Medes (Ummanmanda), and of the dream which he had, in which Merodach and the moon god, Nannar, appeared to him and foretold the destruction of the Median army, which took place three years later, when Cyrus, then only "king of Anzan," overcame and captured, with his "little army," Astyages, king of the Medes, and carried off the spoil (of Ecbatana). In this long inscription Nabonidus speaks of Assur-ban-apli (regarded as being the same as "the great and noble Asnapper"), king of Assyria, son of Esarhaddon, whose memorialcylinder he found, together with that of Sulmanasarid, son of Assur-natsir-apli, i.e. Shalmaneser II. (not the Biblical Shalmaneser, he being the fourth of the name). Referring, then, to his restoration of the temple of E-babara at Sippar (now Abuhabbah), he mentions Naram-Sin, son of Sargon of Agadé, who, he says, reigned 3200 years before his own day; and farther on he speaks of the restoration of the temple Ê-ulmas, dedicated to Anunit, goddess of battle, by Sagasalti-Burias, king of Babylon, 800 years before. Six historical facts, of more or less importance, are thus referred to by this king the date of Sargon and NaramSin; the date of Sagasalti-Burias; the restoration of the temple of the moon at Haran by the Assyrian kings, Shalmaneser II. (860) and Assurbani-apli (650), showing that this city was, during their reigns, under the dominion of Assyria; the destruction of the temple at Haran by the Medes, later on; and the defeat of the Medes under Astyages by Cyrus, into whose power Babylonia itself was destined to fall before the life of Nabonidus reached its close. As has been already remarked, other cylinders of Nabonidus have historical references of almost equal value with the above, but these we pass over to speak of the last discovered text of this king, and the increased debt which historians owe to him.

Near Hillah, a village built largely of the bricks of ancient Babylon, lies a mound whose ruins once formed a part of that great city. The present name of the mound is Mujellibeh, or "the overturned," so called from its appearance. Upon this site there is an extensive ruin. Here, in the summer of 1894, workmen were digging for bricks

for the irrigation-channels or ditches connected with the Euphrates, when they came upon a semicylindrical object of diorite, inscribed with seven narrow columns of writing on the curved side, and four columns on the flat portion. The upper part is broken away, but nearly five hundred lines of writing remain, the monument in its present state being about twenty inches in height. Father Scheil, who has described this object in the Comptes Rendus of the Paris Academy of Inscriptions, estimates that rather less than half remains. The importance of the text was pointed out to Hamdy Bey, director of the National Museum (at Constantinople), by M. Pognon, French Consul at Baghdad, one of the first of French Assyriologists, and on its arrival at Stamboul, was studied by Father Scheil, whose description in the abovenamed Comptes Rendus forms the basis of the present article.

The text is of Nabonidus, and resembles his cylinder-inscriptions, etc., in being devoted principally to descriptions of the restorations of temples and similar matters, but, like the texts already referred to, it has several points of historical interest. The first column speaks, as pointed out by Father Scheil, of the conquest of Babylon by Sennacherib (though his name does not occur, having been broken away). This conqueror came, the text says, to Babylon, ruined the temples, overturned the images and written ordinances, and even "took the hand of Prince Merodach," the chief deity of the Babylonian pantheon, "and made him enter into Assur"that is, into Assyria, or into the city Assur, where he stayed twenty-one years. These misfortunes, the text implies, happened to Babylonia because the god was angry with the land, and "Prince Merodach did not cease his displeasure." After a time, however, his anger was pacified-he thought of Ê-saggil, the great temple at Babylon, and of the city itself, "the seat of his dominion." Then "the king of Assyria, who, by the anger of Merodach, had destroyed the land (of Babylon), the son, the offspring of his heart, pierced him with (his) weapon." The Babylonian Chronicle,2 which furnishes a more detailed account, describes this last event in the following words :

"On the 20th day of Tebet the son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, killed him in a revolt. Sennacherib had ruled the kingdom of Assyria for . years. The revolt in Assyria lasted from the 20th day of Tebet to the 2nd day of Adar (i.e. about forty-two days). On the 18th day of Adar, Esarhaddon, his son, sat on the throne in Assyria."

Compare 2 Kings xix. 37:

"And it came to pass, as he (Sennacherib) was worshipping in the house of Nisroch, his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, smote him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Armenia. Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead."

And

Of course, it is the statue of Merodach that is here referred to.

2 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xix. part 4.

The Hebrews regarded the death of Sennacherib apparently as a judgment upon him for his attack upon Jerusalem; and the Babylonians, in like manner, regarded it as a judgment upon him for his destruction of Babylon, and for carrying away the idols of the city. The evil, however, that Sennacherib had done, Esarhaddon, his son, did his best to undo, for he treated the Babylonians well, rebuilt the temples of Babylonia, and seems even to have held his court in their capital." If we may believe the Babylonian Chronicle, however, it was not until the first year of Saosduchinos, king of Babylon, younger son of Esarhaddon (668 B.C.), that "Bel (Merodach) and the gods of Akkad (apparently those which Sennacherib had carried away) went forth from the city Assur, and, in the month Iyyar, entered Babylon."

1

From these accounts, compared with 2 Kings xix. 37, we may conclude that the murder of Sennacherib took place on the first day of the revolt, that the king was completely taken by surprise, that two sons took part in the revolt, but that one only was the actual parricide.

The second column of Father Scheil's inscription refers to the "war of revenge" for the evil deeds of Assyria, in which, under the reign of Saracos, her last king, Assyria fell, and Nineveh, her renowned capital, so often mentioned in the Old Testament, was destroyed. This part of the text reads as follows::

"He (apparently he god Merodach) gave him (probably Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar) an ally, and caused him to have a companion; he caused the king of the Umman-manda (Medes), who had no rival, to submit to his command, and to go to his help. Up and down, right and left, he destroyed like a tempest-he revenged (the city of) Babylon. Iriba-tuktê, the fearless king of the Umman-manda, overthrew the temples of all the gods of Assyria; and (as for) the cities of the border of Akkad, which were hostile to the king of Akkad, and had not gone to his help, he overthrew their sanctuaries, leaving none; he caused their cities to be destroyed. The work of Merodach, who made him do atonement (?), caused the king of Babylon to be as great as a hurricane. He did not touch the ordinances of any god-he preserved (them). He rested not upon his bed.

.."

Apparently the devastation and destruction of Assyria were as complete as could be, and recall the words of the prophet Nahum (iii. 18, 19):—

"Thy shepherds slumber, O king of Assyria; thy worthies are at rest; thy people are scattered upon the mountains, and there is none to gather them. There is no assuaging of thy hurt; thy wound is grievous: all that hear the bruit of thee clap the hands over thee: for upon whom hath not thy wickedness passed continually?"

The Babylonian text seems to indicate that the Median king, whose name is given as Iriba-tuktê by Father Scheil, was the chief agent in wreaking vengeance upon Assyria for her many misdeeds, and seems to indicate that Nabopolassar was

1 See 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11, where king Manasseh is said to have been carried captive to Babylon.

associated with him, agreeing with the statements of Abydenus, who says, moreover, that Nabopolassar arranged that his son Nebuchadnezzar should marry the daughter of Astyages, a Median prince. Naturally, further discoveries are needed to enable us to reconcile these two accounts.1

The prophet Nahum implies that the Assyrians had no leader, and it is probably partly due to this fact that they were so soon subjugated. They no doubt took refuge in the mountains north and east of their fatherland until such as had escaped with their lives, and wished to go back, thought it safe to return and live-as their fathers had never lived-under the dominion of a foreign ruler.

2

The third column of Nabonidus's inscription speaks of the restoration to their shrines of the idols that an early king of Babylonia, IribaMarduk, had taken away. The first is Istar of Ninâ, "the supreme princess who inhabits a shrine of gold, and has a yoke of seven lions, whose shrine the Erechites had destroyed in the reign of king Iriba-Marduk, and set free her yoke (of lions). In anger she went forth from Ê-anna (her temple), and dwelt in a place which was not hers." Others are the god Pap-sukal; the Annunuki or "spirits of the great waters;" the goddesses Inninna and Istar of Elam. All these divinities were restored to the shrines to which they belonged.

The fourth column is of a similar nature, but is more important, as it mentions also the death of Nergal-sar-utsur (Neriglissar), and the accession of Labasi-Marduk (Laborosoarchod of the Greeks), "his young son, who did not possess understanding," and who "sat upon the throne, as was not the wish of the gods."

After this, Nabonidus speaks of his own coronation, which took place in one of the great temples, when (the people) sang "(this is) the father of the land, who has no equal!" Nabonidus calls himself the powerful messenger of Nebuchadnezzar and Neriglissar, and speaks of the way in which he had led their armies, in conformity with the will of the gods, whose hearts he had satisfied by his faithfulness. This is followed in the sixth column, by a reference to a dream which the king

1 With regard to Iriba-taktê, it is to be noted that Dr. H. Winckler denies that this is a proper name at all. Dr. Lehmann, however, with a greater show of reason, contends that it is the Babylonian form, unshortened, of the well-known name Arbaces (Arbakes), who, with Belesys (according to Ctesias), overthrew Nineveh.

2 There was a Ninâ in Babylonia, as well as a Ninâ or Ninua (Nineveh) in Assyria.

had, in which Nebuchadnezzar and the sakkannakū1 appeared to him. In this graphic narrative the sakkannaku is represented as having said to Nebuchadnezzar :—

"Speak with Nabonidus, and let him repeat to thee, even thee, the dream which he has seen."

Nebuchadnezzar obeyed, and asked Nabonidus, who, in his dream, answered him :

"In my dream a great star, the moon, and Marduk, were rising in the midst of the heavens. I regarded them as of good omen. They called me by my name and . . ."

[Here this column comes to an end, and the remaining five columns refer to the construction or restoration of temples.]

Father Scheil's description of this text is most valuable, and he directs attention, with great acuteness, to all the more important statements. Among other things, he points out that the text, in the tenth column, says that the Medes destroyed Assyria fifty-four years before the rebuilding of the temple of Sin (the moon-god) at Haran, which took place in the third year of Nabonidus 2 (see above). This gives the year 606 or 607 (552 or 553 × 54) B.C., as the date when the powerful Assyrian empire came to an end.

A very noteworthy point is the way that Nabonidus refers to Nebuchadnezzar, for the text leaves no doubt that he looked back to him with great respect. Father Scheil's published description of the text, however, does not indicate that Nabonidus regarded his illustrious predecessor in any other light than that of a great and renowned king of Babylon. That there was some relation ship (possibly that of son-in-law), between Nebu chadnezzar and Nabonidus, has always been regarded as possible, for in Daniel (v. 11, 18), Belshazzar, son of Nabonidus, is called

son

(= descendant) of Nebuchadnezzar, and this new text may, perhaps, be regarded as rather sup porting this. That Nabonidus traces his descent from Nabû-balatsu-ik bi, however, seems to pronounce against any direct descent of Belshazzar from Nebuchadnezzar, on the male side. Upon the female side, nothing can as yet be said.

The stones of Babylon have spoken-they are still speaking with no uncertain voice, and no one can tell what they may ultimately reveal. We may rest assured, however, that what these records may have to say will not be wanting in importance.

1 Probably a kind of high priest.

2 He came to the throne in 555 or 556 B.C.

The Gate of the West.

THE

HE story of Liverpool is written in colossal characters in her magnificent series of docks. Liverpool, it may be truly said, lives by its docks. The stupendous and far-reaching array of shipping on the riverside is too vast for the eye to take in from the city's highest tower or spire, or the topmast of the stateliest ship that lies midway in the Mersey. Neither can we see it as a single picture from the opposite Birkenhead shore.

From Herculaneum Dock on the extreme south, with its wonderful casemates excavated in the river cliff, to the last of the timber docks on the north, the series extend on the river-front for six long miles. Only as we are carried swiftly above them in mid-air, in the carriages of the electric railway, and see them pass in almost interminable procession below us, with their thick-set plantations of masts, can we realise the magnitude of the shipping interest and shipping accommodation of the famous seaport. Nor must we forget that tributary to Liverpool are the great docks at Birkenhead, on the opposite side of the broadbosomed Mersey, which are an integral portion of the port.

Behind this wonderful and almost bewildering scene of material grandeur, and even more heartstirring than the sight of the fleet of argosies from all climes which stretch before us, is another spectacle. We get glimpses, here and there, of the great industrial hosts, afloat and ashore, on ships and barges, on tug-boats and flats, on quays and in dock warehouses, who live day by day by the world-wide traffic of this great gate of the west.

Liverpool, it is calculated, is visited by at least two hundred thousand seamen in the course of a single year. Dusky-skinned sons of the Orient, as well as fair-skinned but weather-beaten Europeans -Moslems from the Levant and distant India, Lascars, Japanese, Chinese coolies and negroes; British, Scandinavians, and Americans, help to make up the cosmopolitan throng in which we find ourselves at the Pierhead, the Landing-stage, or on the quays. These and their fellow deep-water sailors bring to Liverpool cotton from New Orleans, grain from San Francisco and New York, tobacco from Mexico and the West Indies, frozen meat from the River Plata and Australia, timber from Canada, rice, spices, and tea from India and China, and fruit from the Levant.

Add to this imperfect list the sailors and firemen of the great ocean-going steamers, and the crews of the home and coasting-trade, and we see somewhat of the multifarious population and the peculiar social, moral, and religious problems of this great seaport.