At the conclusion of my narrative of Eastern travel, let me remark. What one sees in travelling through Palestine gives vividness to the narrative—makes what before were pale outlines, pictures of glowing colour and dazzling light. I do not forget the danger there is of being too much engaged with what is outward in Biblical studies—tarrying in the porch instead of worshipping in the temple—lingering by the hedge to gather flowers instead of pressing into the field to cut down corn—playing the geologist, instead of working as spiritual miners—finding out what is curious as to literature, instead of appropriating “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” But still, what I gathered in the East is precious, and may minister to spiritual edification, as well as to mental enjoyment. How marvellous it is that whilst the Bible is so Eastern—while Oriental manners, customs, and scenery are photographed there, it is nevertheless an universal book! The Koran is not so Eastern as the Bible; at least, so it struck me, as I read it in the East; yet the Bible is the Englishman’s book as the Koran could not be, even if we were all Mussulmans. Specially forcible and beautiful were the impressions we derived touching the life of Christ; we felt how toilsome were his journeys as He _walked_ along the rough and rugged pathways from Jericho to Jerusalem, over which we _rode_. How humiliating must have been his intercourse with the poor, who, no doubt, then lived in wretched mud hovels, such as we saw, not only in Palestine, but in Egypt; types of domestic habitation for the lower classes in ages past! We thought: Through such collections of “houses of clay” did He pass! Here did He tarry, and within such abodes! Not one of them was His own; He had not where to lay His head. CHAPTER IX 1865–1872 IN the year 1867 I published the first volumes of my “Ecclesiastical History of England”; this calls for explanation of what preceded and prepared for it.