Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/607

Rh The other myths fared no better. As to the appearance of the sea, he found its waters not "black and sticky," but blue and transparent; he found no smoke rising from the abyss, but tells us that sunlight and cloud and shore were pleasantly reflected from the surface. As to Lot's wife, he found no salt pillar which had been a careless woman, but the Arabs showed him many bowlders which had once been wicked men.

His work was worthily continued by a long succession of true and reverent men, among them such travelers or geographers as Burckhardt, Irby, Mangles, Fallmerayer, and Carl von Raumer: by men like these the atmosphere of myth and legend was steadily cleared away; as a rule, they simply forgot Lot's wife altogether.

Greatest of all in this noble succession was an American theologian, Dr. Edward Robinson, professor at New York, a man of whom his country and humanity may well be proud.

Beginning about 1826, he devoted himself for thirty years to the thorough study of the geography of Palestine, and he found a worthy coadjutor in another American divine, Dr. Eli Smith. Neither of these men departed openly from the old traditions; that would have cost a heart-breaking price, the loss of all further opportunity to carry on their researches. Robinson did not even think it best to call attention to the mythical character of much on which his predecessors had insisted; he simply brought in, more and more, the dry, clear atmosphere of the love of truth for truth's sake, and, in this, myths and legends steadily disappeared.

By doing this he rendered a far greater service to real Christianity than any other theologian had ever done in this field.

Very characteristic is his dealing with the myth of Lot's wife. Though more than once at Usdum, though giving valuable information regarding the sea, shore, and mountains there, he carefully avoids all mention of the salt pillar and of the legend which arose from it. In this he set an example followed by most of the more thoughtful religious travelers since his time. Very significant is it to see the New Testament injunction, "Remember Lot's wife," so utterly forgotten. These later investigators seem never to have heard of it, and this constant forgetfulness shows the change which had taken place in the enlightened thinking of the world.

But in the year 1848 came an episode very striking in its character and effect.

At that time, the war between the United States and Mexico having closed, Lieutenant Lynch, of the United States Navy, found himself in the port of Vera Cruz, commanding an old hulk, the Supply. Looking about for something to do, it occurred to him to write to the Secretary of the Navy asking permission to