Since the excavations in Assyria, and through the use of the knowledge obtained there and in other ancient countries, and by comparing this with the descriptions of the Bible and the works of Josephus, some antiquarians have made plans and drawings of what they believe that the temple at Jerusalem must have been at the time of the Crucifixion. The result of this work has little interest, for two reasons: first, because we do not know that it is correct; second, because even at the time to which it is ascribed, it was not the ancient temple of Solomon. That had been destroyed, and after the return of the Jews from the Captivity, was rebuilt; again, it had been changed and restored by the Romans under Herod, so that it had little in reality, or by way of association, to give it the sacred and intense interest for us which would belong to the true, ancient temple at Jerusalem. "Lost Salem of the Jews, great sepulchre. Of all profane and of all holy things, Where Jew and Turk and Gentile yet concur To make thee what thou art, thy history brings Thoughts mixed of joy and woe. The whole earth rings With the sad truth which He has prophesied, Who would have sheltered with his holy wings Thee and thy children. You his power defied; You scourged him while he lived, and mocked him as he died! "There is a star in the untroubled sky, That caught the first light which its Maker made,-- It led the hymn of other orbs on high; 'Twill shine when all the fires of heaven shall fade. Pilgrims at Salem's porch, be that your aid! For it has kept its watch on Palestine! Look to its holy light, nor be dismayed, Though broken is each consecrated shrine, Though crushed and ruined all which men have called divine." GREECE. The earliest history of Greece is lost in what we may call the Age of Legend. From that period have come to us such marvellous stories of gods and goddesses, and all sorts of wonderful happenings and doings, that even the most serious and wise scholars can learn little about it, and it remains to all alike a kind of delightful fairy-land. Back to that remote age one can send his fancy and imagination to feast upon the tales of wondrous bravery, passionate love, dire revenge, and supernatural occurrences of every sort until he is weary of it all. Then he is glad to come back to his actual life, in which cause and effect are so much more clearly seen, and which, if more matter-of-fact, is more comfortable than the hap-hazard existence of those remarkable beings who were liable to be changed into beasts, or trees, or almost anything else at a moment's notice, or to be whisked away from the midst of their families and friends and set down to starve in some desolate place where there was nothing to eat, and no one to listen to complaints of sorrow or hunger.