A former Fellow, preaching in Chapel on Sexagesima Sunday, 1883, spoke the word, but it was through the enthusiasm of undergraduates that the seed sown was not unproductive.

About the work of the Mission it must suffice to say now, as may be said on good authority, that it has been effective in itself as well as by way of example. It is such as would have commended itself to the pious Foundress of the College, whom it also expressly commemorates, for the Church of the Mission bears the unique name of the Church of the Lady Margaret.

*The preacher and his message are commemorated by a brass in the Chapel with the inscription:

AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM ET IN PIAM MEMORIAM
GUILLELMI ALLEN WHITWORTH A.M.

HUIUS COLLEGII SOCII NECNON ECCLESIAE
OMNIUM SANCTORUM IN VIA MARGARETAE
PAROCHI QUI OBDORMIVIT IN DOMINO XII
DIE MARTII A.S. MCMV ANNOS NATUS LXV.

HORTANDO QUANTUM ANIMOS VIR STRENUUS EREXERIT
HI SCIUNT PARIETES AEDES VOCIFERATUR WALWORTHIANA.

CONSTANCY.

I HAVE some faults, I'll not deny,
For man was perfect never:
But he who doubts my constancy
To slander doth endeavour.
When Love and I acquainted be,
Then nothing us shall sever;
Joan for a time may cling to me,
But I to her for ever.

Belinda, Dear:-At your behest,-
That I should tell you true
What coloured eyes I love the best-
I haste to answer you.

Now summer skies o'er land and sea
Unceasing mock that hue,

What maiden's eyes can prison me
But my Belinda's blue?

We sate beneath the golden glow
Of autumn's ripening boughs
In silence, clasping hands, and oh,
How sweet our new-made vows!
With rosy blush she whispered low:
"Once more, dear, bending down.
Tell, how you came to love me so
For my eyes of tender brown!"

The Yule-log roars in chimney wide;
Upstairs, they romp and play:
Come, Dolly, sit you down beside,

And hark to what I say.

"Come life, come death-come ebb, come tide,

These words are true to-day :

There's only one for whom I've sighed,

And She has eyes of gray!"

VOL. XXVIII.

G. V. Y.

A DOOMSDAY BOOK OF TWENTY-SIX

II

CENTURIES AGO.

ISTORY has witnessed many tragedies, but few perhaps more portendous or more pathetic than the long continued effacement from her scrolls of those countries which went to make up what may be conveniently termed the Ancient East. Mighty deeds were performed in the days when civilization was young, in the two great river valleys of the Euphrates-Tigris and the Nile Milleniums of almost uninterrupted progress produced a highly developed type of society which manifested itself in the bustling commercial life of great cities, and in the trade routes across the desert and the sea Great monarchies there were, with an art and literature reaching back into an unknown past, into a past so remote that the antiquity of the oldest of European countries is slight in comparison, with a highly developed religious cultus, shaped in centuries of transition out of the crude beliefs of primitive man, with a legal system free from many of the trammels of customary law, and set forth in the codes of Empire builders.

Yet all this was doomed to pass away and leave for centuries scarcely a trace in history. The Persian and the Mede, the Greek and the Roman, the Saracen and the Turk, swept over the area of ancient Eastern civilization, and between them effectively brought it to an end. The palace of the king, the temple of the god, shared the same fate as the hut of the peasant. Great cities became mere dust heaps, lurking places of the wild beasts of the desert, while fair and fertile districts, once

teeming with life and industry, became howling wildernesses Amidst all this desolation, indigenous art and literature vanished, and with them all memory of the civilization amidst which once they thrived. For centuries a thick cloud of obscurity enveloped the story of the ancient East-an obscurity but slightly illuminated by the meteorite flashes of the conquerors who overran it, reflected in the pages of the Old Testament, and in certain Greek and Latin authors. The names of a few warrior kings together with various semi-mythical stories and half understood allusions made up the sum total of the known history of Babylonia and Egypt in the early years of the nineteenth century. To-day matters stand upon quite a different footing. The spade of the excavator has been busy at work, revealing a lost and almost forgotten world to the modern eye. The ruins of great cities have been made to yield up their treasures. Not only royal monuments and temple inscriptions, but the correspondence of governors of provinces, private and commercial letters, deeds, and other records of commercial transactions of varying nature have come to light, together with many of the records kept in the great libraries of the kings. That these have been preserved in such numbers is of course owing to the material of which they are composed. Babylonian and Assyrian characters were impressed on clay, by means of a wedge shaped instrument, while it was still damp. The clay having been inscribed was baked like a brick, and these books of brick have survived where others would have perished. The cuneiform inscriptions of the Euphrates-Tigris valley extend as far back as the fifth millenium before Christ, and thus afford a unique opportunity to the student for observing the gradual development of the art of expressing thoughts and ideas in written characters. An examination of the documents at our disposal soon reveals the fact that the men who built up that civilization were not so very different in character, motive, and idea from those who

flourish to-day, and thus we are able to enter into the spirit of their social life and intercourse.

Much that took place in the twin river valley is of course still extremely obscure, but various periods of the history of Babylonia and Assyria are far less problematical than that of early England. One of the best known periods is the century immediately preceding the fall of Nineveh (B.C. 606), and containing the reigns of Sargon, Sennacherib, Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. The sources existing for the history of this century are very copious, although a vast amount of material has not yet been worked upon, and remains unexplored in the great European Museums. The work of transcription and translation is however being steadily carried forward, and volume after volume bearing on the subject issues from the press yearly. Among these publications perhaps one of the most interesting to the student of social institutions is the edition of an Assyrian census, translated and annotated by the Rev. C. H. W. Johns in 1901. There is no doubt that the Babylonian and Assyrian kings had a very accurate record of their dominions. Surveying was carried on extensively, and present day explorers are constantly coming across boundary stones containing full particulars about the adjacent land. No general survey has however been discovered yet, although it is quite probable that such was attempted. The census edited by the Rev. C. H. W. Johns relates solely to the district of Harran, and the evidence points to the reign of Sennacherib (B.C. 704-680) as its date. Harran was of course outside the bounds of Assyria proper, and formed part of Mesopotamia. It probably extended from the old Hittite kingdom of Carchemish, which became an Assyrian province on its annexation by Sargon in 717 B.C., across the river Chaboras to the borders of Assyria.

The early history of Harran is unknown. Harranu in Assyrian means a road, and the town which gave its