At what was the entrance of the temple the remains of a noble flight of steps, the whole width of the edifice and twelve feet high, exist, and it requires no effort of the imagination, turning one’s back to the cathedral, to repeople the space before us with figures of the long past. Up the steps to the lovely temple under the blue sky mount the white-clad citizens of imperial Rome. Slaves there are in many, and half-civilised Iberian tribesmen, still, perhaps, recalcitrant to the yoke. Trembling, perchance, for the savage vengeance of Diocletian, they sullenly look upon the sacrifice to the pagan gods, whilst they in their hearts hold with the strange new creed of the Nazarene; for this temple must have been raised in the second century after the advent of Christ, when already the trumpet sound of Christianity had pierced the hearts of the Celtiberian peoples, and had awakened vague longings for emancipation from the oppressive unconsoling gods of old. And I turn back and contemplate the grave old mediæval cathedral close by, with its modern addition covered with flourishing cardinals hats and saintly frippery; and I see there, too, the temple of a creed that is losing its hold upon the hearts and minds of men. For the great cathedral I have just left is as empty and silent now as the temple to the unknown God before me. In successive ages surely the same old yearning is re-born for direct appeal and nearer personal access to God, free from the trammels and man-made mediations with which all creeds in time burden the simplicity of their faith. Here in this temple—called of Diana with no historical warrant—devout souls offered their sacrifice without misgiving; and in the old Sé hearts have pierced the church-raised clouds and reached the Throne any day this nine hundred years. But as the thirst for equal direct appeal for all souls overthrew the gods of the temple, so the same longing empties the great fane that has departed from the severe sincerity of the age that founded it; and thus the gods do come and go, whilst God lives on for ever. [Illustration: THE “TEMPLE OF DIANA,” EVORA] It is difficult to shake oneself free from retrospective visions when standing between this stately ruin and the cathedral that has supplanted it; but regarded simply as a Roman material relic, the ruin is remarkable. It is of a similar period and much resembles the Maison Carrée at Nimes, although as I recollect it appeared much larger. The temple at Evora is about eighty feet long and nearly fifty feet broad, the height of the columns being twenty-five feet. Behind the temple there is a pretty shady public garden, ending in a balustrade where the hill drops suddenly away to the plain spread out at the foot for miles to the mountains far away. It was a spot which will linger in my memory to the last; and I left it sorrowfully.