to Alexandria, there to await the coming of Sir Robert Llwellyn and the other members of the English Commission by the Indian mail steamer from Brindisi. The Velox will then leave at once for Jaffa with the six gentlemen. At Jaffa an escort of mounted Turkish troops will accompany the party on the day's ride to Jerusalem."
"(3) Berlin. — The German Emperor has convened the principal clergy of the empire to meet him in conference at Potsdam. The conference will sit with closed doors."
"(4) Rome. — A decree, or short letter, has just been issued from the Vatican to all the 'Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops and other local ordinaries having peace and communion with the Holy See.' The decree deals with the alleged discoveries in Jerusalem. In it Catholics are forbidden to read newspaper accounts of the proceedings in Palestine, nor may they discuss them with their friends. The decree has had the effect of drawing great attention to the affairs in the East, and has excited much adverse comment among the secularist party, and in the Voce della Populo.'
Quite suddenly, as if a curtain were withdrawn, the world began to realise the fact that something almost beyond imagination was taking place in the far-off Syrian town.
These detached and sinister messages which flashed along the cables, with their stories of princes and potentates alarmed and active, made the general silence, the lack of detail, more oppressive. The unknown, or dimly guessed at, rather, laid hold on men's minds like some mighty convulsion of nature, imminent, and presaged by fearful signs. Thus the Daily Wire:
"The story of the recent gathering of great Church-
