A single example will perhaps best illustrate my meaning under this head:—Standing in “Pilate’s Judgment Hall” at Jerusalem, the mind readily pictures to itself that most remarkable private interview between Jesus and Pilate eighteen hundred years ago—between the representative of earthly government and Him “by whom kings rule and princes decree justice.” Begun by the regal Epicurean in a half kindly patronizing way, how completely does their respective positions change—the culprit calmly assuming the place of the judge, and questioning the questioner! Evasion is tried in vain. Then comes forth with mysterious solemnity the gracious but incisive sentence—“For this cause came I into the world”—and “Every one that is of the Truth heareth My voice.” Brief as the narrative is, the mind dwells upon the scene, and sees this awed Roman—the representative of this world’s greatness—thoroughly discomfited and conscience-stricken, turning away with an affected sneer. Something here quite beyond all precedent, yet imagination may fill up the blanks in their most minute details. His wife—his own half-superstitious dread—that washing of his hands—his secret struggle with his own sense of justice—his vain resolution to be neutral—his declaration of the prisoner’s innocence; and then, and then—marvellous inconsistency—his loss of moral courage to do the right! finally handing over this King to his murderers, with an “Ecce Homo.” Alas! poor Pilate was evidently not “of the Truth.”
And now in bidding adieu to the East and its marvellous ruins, this thought impressed me, as it had done before when gazing at the Egyptian Sphinx, perhaps the most ancient of them all—How can we, standing before her ancient works of art, entertain the idea that the improvement and civilization of our race have been progressive, and that to trace mankind backward leads us down to barbarism? Taking the most ancient writers, Moses and Homer, the same feeling prevails. Is it possible to think of Joseph the Governor of Egypt, or of the patriarch Job as half-educated savages? or of Sarah or Rebekah as less noble and refined than the most educated Sultana of our own day? Improvement is evidently not continuous nor in a straight line, or, at least, has not been so in the past, judging from the glimpses we have got of the prehistoric ages. It may have been in cycles, but neither evident nor continuous.
THE END.
ADDENDA AND ERRATA.
[Page 2], line 14, after “stand point,” add “This statement is made neither with a view to disarm nor to provoke criticism. Some of the learned may not disdain to look into the ‘Personal Impressions’ which the East—its scenes, its associations, and present condition, made upon even a common-place English tourist of ordinary intelligence and observation, if original and honestly expressed. My aim is, so far as I may, to interest in the East ordinary readers like myself, those especially to whom time is important, and thus induce them to read the larger works of the great writers—some, perhaps, in view of undertaking a similar tour, to see for themselves. I believe that these countries will now more and more command public attention, and hence my anxiety to make my little book at least readable. If very condensed, and so sententious as at first sight to seem presumptuous in style, the reader will kindly keep in view that it neither is nor pretends to be the work of a Historian, a Traveller, a Philosopher, or a Literateur, but only the personal impressions of a casual Tourist—not an imitator, but an admirer of all the four.”
[Page 3], line 15, read “Rome is not disappointing, even at first sight, as most of the Wonders of the World are,”—&c.
[Page 5], line 14, read, “Of the paintings I came to appreciate in such measure, I suppose, as an eye uneducated to art may, ‘The Transfiguration,’ ‘The St Cecilia,’ one of the ‘Madonnas,’ a ‘St Agnes,’ and the ‘Ecce Homo,’—Guido’s, I think.”
[Page 12], line 20, for “The most remarkable feature of the city,” read “To a stranger just landed from England, the most novel feature of the streets is, I think,” &c.