THE labours, long continued, and the great successes in antiquarian research achieved by the late Mr. J. T. Wood, F.S.A. on the site of ancient Ephesus, are well known to all students interested in the excavation of Biblical sites. Mr. Wood published the record and results of his eleven years of arduous toil in a handsome quarto volume which appeared with the imprint of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. in 1877. This volume, necessarily costly from the style in which it was got up, was accessible to comparatively few readers, and has long been out of print.

But it has been felt that a wide circle of readers would derive benefit from a condensed and easily accessible account of the surprising discoveries Mr. Wood was enabled to make upon the site of one of the most famous of Biblical cities. Hence his widow has placed at the disposal of the Committee of the Religious Tract Society, not only the volume already referred to, but a mass of MSS. left by her late husband, for the purpose of preparing this volume.

The aim of the editor has been to present as clearly as possible the facts Mr. Wood gathered respecting the history of Ephesus, its classical and Christian antiquities, giving with considerable fulness of detail the story of the long search, at last appropriately rewarded by the discovery of the veritable site of the temple in which once stood ‘the image which fell down from Jupiter, of the great goddess Diana, against whose worship St. Paul’s preaching dealt such deadly blows.

The object sought in this volume has been to put all these facts into such a form as to be useful to the Bible student. If at first sight it should seem hardly suitable for the series in which it is found, reflection will probably lead to the conviction that a record which throws so much light upon the city where Apollos and St. Paul and St. John were all well known as faithful preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, well deserves a place in any series of books intended to illustrate the Scripture record. The careful student of this little book, and the plans and illustrations which it contains, will be able to form some tolerably clear mental pictures of the great temple, and of the busy port of the Ephesus of the first Christian century. And the power to do this can hardly fail to deepen the reverent interest with which he will peruse afresh the wonderful description contained in the nineteenth chapter of the Acts; and recall the fact that here St. John manifested the power and charm of his well-nigh perfect character, and that here he penned those blessed words, ‘If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ It was here that the profound fourth Gospel was written by the disciple who at the Last Supper leaned on the bosom of his Lord, and it was to this church that the same apostle addressed, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, through the person of its chief minister, the warning and the promise, needed alike by all churches and all ages, ‘Repent, and do the first works;’ ‘To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.’

While possibly not strictly belonging to the plan of the book, it has been thought well to include the incidents related in Chapter vii. They give very interesting pictures of the conditions of modern life in Asia Minor, and they also enable the reader to understand the expenses and risks incurred in recovering these ancient sites.

For all the illustrations but one, the frontispiece, the editor is indebted to Messrs. Longmans and Co.