Miss Eddy has been working in Syria for years and has been fighting the spread of consumption as best she could without any hospital facilities for her patients. The people have come and camped near her house waiting treatment, and the tents of the Bedouins may be seen dotting the plains near where the hospital now is. Some of the best known men and women of our national capital have been interested in the building of this hospital and the support of its work. CHAPTER XXXI AT THE SHRINE OF DIANA OF THE EPHESIANS This morning we shall walk through the remains of the famed city of the Ephesians. We shall wander over the site of the great Temple of Diana, tramp the ground where St. John was living when he wrote his gospel, and stand in the marble marketplace where St. Paul preached. There is a tradition that the mother of our Lord was buried here, and that here lies also the dust of St. Timothy. The Ephesus of the past has been brought to the light of the present by the excavations of the Austrians. I have told you something of their work in the Holy Land, and especially on the site of old Jericho. They have also dug up the ruins of other cities in Asia, and here at Ephesus have uncovered what remains of the Temple of Diana and found a theatre which had seats for thirty thousand persons. They have excavated the marble docks which led up to the city, and have done much to show us what this great commercial centre of two thousand years ago must have been in the height of its glory. But first let me tell you something of the Ephesus of the days of St. Paul. It lay here on the coast of Asia Minor, just opposite Greece, in what was almost the centre of the then known world. It was the chief Roman city of Asia. It had a population of a million or more and was famous for its learning, art, and beautiful buildings. It was far more magnificent than Smyrna, which was founded before it, and in which it is said the poet Homer was born. Ephesus dated back to a thousand years before Christ. Some say it was founded by the Amazons, but we know that it was largely built up by Greeks from the Ionian Islands over the way. It was a great city in the days of Crœsus, who besieged the town in the year 510, B.C.; and later it grew so famous that Alexander the Great wanted to change its name for his own.