TRAVEL NARRATIVE

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 113, 6 February 1937, Page 23

TRAVEL NARRATIVE

Mr. H. V. Morton Conjures Up the Past “In the Steps of St. Paul,” by 11. V. Morton (London: Rich and Cowan). The reason for the immense popularity of Mr. 11. V. Morton's book is not i’ar to seek. Always there is the record of actual travel by the writer himself, for it is understood that Mr. Morton, except where specifically quoting from another’s works, describes no place that be lias not himself visited. The fact that no two. men see a tiling with the same eyes imbues his writing with a stimulated interest due to freshness of general view and detail. The present book shares with its predecessor, “In the Steps of the Master,” the added value, to students, of accurate Biblical information and careful commentary. One need not necessarily be- interested in St. Paul to get enjoyment from this travel narrative. It would be useless to deny that he is but a shadowy or almost unknown figure in the minds of many people to-day. But as we accompany Mr. Morton in his task of tracing the route by which Christianity came to the West, there gradually emerges the figure of a man, a real, insistent character built out of known incidents and the self-revela-tion of the Epistles. In his effort to make visible the figure of St. Paul, the author uses Dr. Moffatt’s modern translation of the New Testament when making extracts from the Epistles. He says:-—

The reason is that letters written eighteen centuries ago in the fire of the moment couched in easy, vigorous colloquial Greek, have come to us heavily draped in the austere embroideries of Jacobean English. The Authorised Version is very lovely, very decorative, but it conveys to the mind of twentieth-century Englishmen nothing of the sparkling vigour of the common speech in which St. Paul wrote to his various converts. Therefore, in order not only to understand the issues involved, but also to appreciate the idiom in which Paul wrote, we should read his letters in modern speech. And when we read St. Paul’s Epistles we must remember that he wrote them before the Gospels were written. Every time he mentioned Jesus he was drawing on his own know-ledge of Him or on something which he had been told by those who had followed our Lord. . . .

The idea of St. Paul runs through the narrative, giving unity to the whole, but often he merges with the background, and the reader merely sits dreaming with the author while the present becomes the past, dissolves and crystallises again into the actual scene before our eyes. The stagnant pond at Ephesus- is again the great Temple of Artemis, once one of the Seven Wonders. The dark goddess, the Queen Bee of the strange hivelike organisation, appears as her veil is drawn upward and, leaning on her golden rods, proceeds in festival through the streets of Ephesus. “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!” The scene fades and, behold, only some frogs croaking in a stagnant pool. Passing the ill-omened cape whereon stands the ruined temple of Poseidon, one almost expects the sailors as in ancient times to look for the sunlight flashing on the spear of the gigantic vanished statue of Athene.

All is vivid, leisurely and real. In spite of modern transport, one seems to travel not merely in the footsteps of St. Paul, but at his pace. There is time to muse on the things that might still lie buried in Herculaneum, time to wonder where stood the “hired house” in the Via Lata and under which church was the dwelling of Aquila and Priscilla. The beautiful photographic illustrations deserve special comment. With one exception, they are the work of the author and his wife, and illustrate delightfully some of the most interesting portions of the text.