PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 61 
Beth-Shemesh. Now here the men of Beth-Shemesh rejoic- 
ed to see the Ark, and they ‘‘clave the wood of the cart and 
offered the kine a burnt offering unto the Lord. And the 
Lord smote the men of Beth-Shemesh because they had 
looked into the Ark of the Lord, even He smote of the 
people fifty thousand and three score and ten men.’’ In 
this account we see references to the buboes in the groins 
of those afflicted, to the mice (or rats) that marred the land, 
to the disease breaking out wherever the Ark journeyed with 
its freight of plague-infected mice-—the vengeance of the 
God of Israel, to the special attack of the men of Beth- 
Shemesh who came into such intimate contact with the Ark 
in breaking up the wood-work of the cart, and doubtless 
disturbing the mice in the Ark, and to the image of Dagon 
falling down, perhaps from the gnawing through of its sup- 
ports. The picture seems complete in all its details. 
Gibbon,’ in masterly language, described in full the great 
plague of Justinian that started in 542 A.D. and lasted for 
52 years. After describing the typical signs and symptoms, 
the effects on the population, and the question of contagion, 
he adds that ‘‘No facts have been preserved to sustain an 
account, or even a conjecture, of the numbers that perished 
in this extraordinary mortality. I only find that during 
three months, five, and at length ten, thousand persons died 
each day at Constantinople; that many cities of the Hast 
were left vacant; and that in several districts of Italy the 
harvest and the vintage withered on the ground.’’ 
Gibbon, at the end of this chapter, has an interesting 
footnote. He quotes Procobius (Anecdot. C. 18) as saying 
that ‘pupiddas prpiddwv prpids’ “Shad been exterminated 
under the reign of the Imperial demon. The expression is 
obscure in grammar and arithmetic, and a literal interpre- 
tation would produce several millions of millions. . 
2“Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,’ Ch. XLIII. 
