sight of the ruins of the ancient city of Sidon and opposite the westernmost spurs of Lebanon, the Mont Blanc of Palestine.

“There is only one picture grander than a view of Mount Lebanon from the sea, and that is a view of the sea from Mount Lebanon. I enjoyed the former so keenly that I determined to obtain the latter also. We got up a party of [pg 12]genial and stout fellows to ascend one of the highest peaks, armed with pick-axes, to obtain geological specimens on our way.

“We had advanced but a short distance up one of the cliffs, when we started from the scanty undergrowth some little animal—a wolf or jackal or wild dog, all of which abound on Mount Lebanon. We all joined noisily in the chase, and soon ran the frightened creature into one of the deep crevices or fissures made in the earth by the tempestuous rains of that region. Our picks were immediately brought into play, and in a short time, to our very great astonishment, instead of digging the fugitive out of a little hole in the ground, we opened our way into what was evidently the rear or back part of a cave of considerable dimensions.

“Our party crawled in one after another, myself leading the way. The contents of the place arrested our attention so strongly that we forgot the object of our chase, which had buried itself in some holes or burrows at the side of the cavern. The floor was of a yellowish-white limestone, and all eyes were immediately directed, in the rather dim light, to the figure of a man outstretched upon it.

“Yes, it was a man whose entire body, clothing and all, had dissolved into one blended mass, and so long ago that it looked rather like a great bas-relief of the human form projecting from the lighter-colored floor.

“The shape of the head and of the long hair and beard was complete. One outstretched arm lay along the floor, and the fingers could be traced by little ridges separate from each other. The protuberances of all the bony parts showed that the skeleton still resisted the disintegrating process of decay.

“What an awful death he must have experienced! For there was not a single other object in the small space which remained of the cavern; not a stone which might have served [pg 13]for a seat or a table; not an earthen vessel which might have contained a draught of water.

“The fate of this unhappy being was evident. Whether he had lived in the cavern or whether he had taken refuge in it from some great storm, he had clearly rushed to the back part of it to escape some enormous landslide and caving in at the front, which had opened toward the sea. He had been buried alive! Having exhausted the little air that remained to him, stricken down by terror, despair and suffocation, he had rendered up his soul to the great Giver in silence, darkness and solitude.

“These facts were so obvious that we all lifted our hats before speaking a word; thus paying the tribute of human sympathy to a fellow-creature eighteen hundred years after he had ceased to need it.”

“How did you fix upon the date of his death?” asked the chaplain.

“You will see. A large cylindrical case of bronze was lying upon the breast of the dead man. He must have valued it highly, for he had clasped it to his bosom in the agonies of death. It was hermetically sealed with such ingenuity that we found considerable difficulty in breaking it open. It contained a parchment of great length, and rolled tightly around a little brass rod. The parchment was closely written in beautiful Greek characters. It was perfectly preserved. Two small gold coins fell out of the white dry sand with which the case had been filled. One of them bore the inscription of Tiberius Cæsar, and the other was stamped in the ninth year of the reign of the emperor Nero. Thus in the accidental grave of its author had his book been safely preserved amid all the mutations of the world.”

The old doctor stroked his gray beard in silence, and I exclaimed:

[pg 14]

“Who do you suppose this unfortunate man to have been?”

“That was revealed in the manuscript, but unfortunately not one of our party could read Greek. I sent the case with its contents to an old uncle of my mother, who had a little curacy near Binghamton. He was a great Greek scholar, and devoted to his classical studies the little time he could spare from the game of whist. I had a good deal of curiosity on the subject, and wrote several times to my uncle from different parts of the world before he condescended to reply. His answer was in substance this: that the manuscript purported to be the autobiography of Eleazor or Lazarus, whom Christ raised from the dead; that it was probably the work of some heretic monk or crazy philosopher of the second or third century; that, interwoven with romantic incidents in this world and the other, it gave expression to many absurd and false doctrines; in fine, that it was not worth my reading, and that I had better devote myself dutifully to killing his Majesty’s enemies on the high seas, than to searching old caverns for apocryphal documents which impugned the sacred verities of the Apostolic Church.

“And so,” concluded the old surgeon, “I have never thought any more about it.”

“Your uncle was no doubt right in his conjectures and wise in his advice,” said the young chaplain. “The number and extent of the apocryphal impositions upon the early Christian Church are almost incredible.”

“Were you satisfied,” said I, “with your good uncle’s opinion?”

“I have always believed,” replied the doctor, evasively and with a roguish twinkle of his eye, “that if the manuscript had contained the Thirty-nine Articles by anticipation, my uncle would have pronounced it divinely inspired.”

“What became of it?” I inquired.

[pg 15]

“Oh, it was sealed up again and sent to the nursery as a plaything for the children. It is probably still in the possession of one of my cousins.”

The strange story of the old surgeon made a profound impression upon me; for in spite of the incredulity of