ie tells us that Herod had erected a
great wall, enclosing the summit of the hill, with towers two hundred
feet high at the corners, and in the space thus gained had built a
grand palace, with rows of columns of a single stone apiece, halls
lined with many-coloured marbles, magnificent baths, and all the
details of Roman luxury, not omitting huge cisterns, barracks, and
store-houses, with everything needed in case of a siege. From the
windows there was a magnificent view of the Dead Sea, the whole course
of the Jordan, Jerusalem, Hebron, the frowning fortress of Marsaba, and
away to the north, the wild heights of Pisgah and Abarim. Detached
from the palace was a stern and gloomy keep, with underground dungeons
still visible, hewn down into the solid rock. This was the scene of
John's imprisonment.

The Evangelist says expressly that they _bound_ the child of the
desert-wastes, with his love for dear liberty--sensitive to the touch
of the sunshine and the breeze, to the beauty that lay over the hills,
accustomed to go and come at his will--as though it were the last
indignity and affront to fetter those lithe and supple limbs, and place
them under constraint. Ah, it is little short of a sin to encage a
wild bird, beating its heart against the bars of its narrow cage, when
the sun calls it to mount up with quivering ecstasy to the gates of
day; but what a sin to bind the preacher of righteousness, and imprison
him in sunless vaults--what an agony! What a contrast between the gay
revelry that reigned yonder within the palace, and the slow torture
which the noble spirit of the Baptist was doomed to suffer through
those weary months!

Is there anything like that in your life, my reader? In many an old
castle the attention of the visitor is directed to a haunted room,
where ghosts are said to walk at night; but in how many hearts there
are dark subterranean apartments, where conscience, gagged and bound,
lies imprisoned! Outwardly there is the gaiety and mirth as of a
palace; but inwardly there is remorse, misery, unrest. In lonely hours
there is a voice which pierces the thickest walls of your assumed
indifference, and rings up into the house of your life, where the soul
seeks to close its ear in vain. It is a sad, monotonous,
heart-piercing cry which that voice repeats: "It is not lawful, not
lawful, not lawful." Whenever there is a moment of silence and
respite, you hear it--"Not lawful, not lawful." And nothi