_Lydda._――This was a place of far more importance and fame, than would be supposed from the brief mention of its name in the apostolic narrative. It is often mentioned in the writings of the Rabbins, under the name of לוד (_Ludh_,) its original Hebrew name, and was long the seat of a great college of Jewish law and theology, which at this very period of Peter’s visit was in its most flourishing state. This appears from the fact that Rabbi Akiba, who raised the school to its greatest eminence, was contemporary with the great Rabban Gamaliel, who bears an important part in the events of the apostolic history. (The data of this chronological inference I find in Lightfoot.) It is easy to see, then, why so important a seat of Jewish theology should have been thought deserving of the particular notice and protracted stay of Peter, who labored with remarkable earnestness and effect here, inspired by the consciousness of the lasting and extensive good, that would result from an impression made on this fountain of religious knowledge. The members of the college, however, did not all, probably, profess themselves followers of Christ. It is also described as possessing some importance in addition to its literary privileges. Josephus (Antiquities XX. vi. 3.) mentions “Lydda” as “a village not inferior to a city in greatness.” Its importance was, no doubt, in a great measure derived from the remarkably rich agricultural district which surrounded it. This was the plain of Sharon, so celebrated in the Hebrew scriptures for its fruitful fields and rich pastures, ――its roses and its flocks. (Solomon’s Song ii. 1: Isaiah xxxiii. 9: xxxv. 2: lxv. 10: 1 Chronicles xxvii. 29.) “All this country is described by Pococke as very rich soil, throwing up a great quantity of herbage; among which he specifies chardons, rue, fennel, and the striped thistle, ‘probably on this account called the holy thistle.’ A great variety of anemonies, he was told, grow in the neighborhood. ‘I saw likewise,’ he adds, ‘many tulips growing wild in the fields (in March;) and any one who considers how beautiful those flowers are to the eye, would be apt to conjecture that these are the lilies to which Solomon, in all his glory, was not to be compared.’”――[Modern Traveler, p. 57.] Its distance from Jerusalem is ascertained, by Lightfoot, to be one day’s journey, as it is stated with some circumlocution in the Mishna. It was destroyed, as Josephus relates, by Cestius Gallus, the Roman general, who marched his army through that region, in the beginning of the war, which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem. Under the peaceful times of the later Roman sway in Palestine, it was rebuilt, and called Diospolis. But like many other such instances, it has lost its temporary heathen name, and is now called by its old scripture appellation, _Ludd_. Travelers describe it as now a poor village,