s thee, and the priests who sow their
iniquity in thee, thou shouldst have been an ideal town. I look back,
as I descend into the wadi, and behold, thou art as beautiful in the
day as thou art in the night. Thy pink gables under a December sky
seem not as garish as they do in summer. And the sylvan slopes,
clustered with thy white-stone homes, peeping here through the
mulberries, standing there under the walnuts and poplars, rising
yonder in a group like a mottled pyramid, this most picturesque slope,
whereon thou art ever beating the anvil, turning the wheel, throwing
the shuttle, moulding the clay, and weltering withal in the mud of
strife and dissension, this beautiful slope seems, nevertheless, from
this distance, like an altar raised to Nature. I look not upon thee
more; farewell.

"I descend in the wadi to the River Lykos of the ancients; and
crossing the stone-bridge, an hour's ascent brings me to one of the
villages of Kisrawan. On the grey horizon yonder, is the limed bronze
Statue of Mary the Virgin, rising on its sable pedestal, and looking,
from this distance, like a candle in a bronze candle-stick. That
Statue, fifty years hence, the people of the Lebanons will rebaptise
as the Statue of Liberty. Masonry, even to-day, raises around it her
mace. But whether these sacred mountains will be happier and more
prosperous under its regime, I can not say. The Masons and the
Patriarch of the Maronites are certainly more certain. Only this I
know, that between the devil and the deep sea, Mary the Virgin shall
hold her own. For though the name be changed, and the alm-box thrown
into the sea, she shall ever be worshipped by the people. The Statue
of the Holy Virgin of Liberty it will be called, and the Jesuits and
priests can go a-begging. Meanwhile, the Patriarch will issue his
allocutions, and the Jesuits, their pamphlets, against rationalism,
atheism, masonry, and other supposed enemies of their Blessed Virgin,
and point them out as enemies of Abd'ul-Hamid. 'Tis curious how the
Sultan of the Ottomans can serve the cause of the Virgin!

"I visit the Statue for the love of my mother, and mounting to the
top of the pedestal, I look up and behold my mother before me. The
spectre of her, standing before the monument, looks down upon me,
reproachfully, piteously, affectionately. I sit down at the feet
of the Virgin Mary and bury my face in my hands and weep. I love
what thou lovest, O my mother, but I can see no more wha