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Excerpt from Handbook of Bible Geography Sacred Geography and Sacred History are inseparably connected. Geographical allusions abound in every part of the Holy Scriptures. The "Lands of the Bible" are the living monuments of the Divine authenticity of the Book which speaks of their mountains and plains, of their rivers and pools, their cities, their peoples, and their tombs. Within the past few years Christian scholars of various lands have given a new impulse to the exploration of sacred localities, and thus has been illustrated more forcibly than ever before the connection between the two great branches of Bible study above indicated. The places mentioned in Scripture were once by many considered as beyond the sphere of the merely scientific explorer. Their soil must be pressed by the feet only of priest-ruled devotees, and their holy relics touched only by believers who accept every thing and question nothing. Thus "sacred places" multiplied, and sites both true and false became mingled in indistinguishable confusion. The same theory had already obtained in reference to the books of the Bible. Concerning the books, however, it was long ago determined that the records of those who claimed to write as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost might be and should be judged, as were the works of all other authors, by every method known to criticism. Thus far the books have stood the test, and now it is still further desired by the enlightened believer in the Bible that the sacred volume shall continue to be tested by modern exploration and discovery amid the sites of Scripture lands. Profane history speaks to us to-day with an emphasis made doubly strong by the unearthing of some of the identical sites concerning which its records were made. Nearly two thousand years ago the volcano of Italy buried several splendid cities beneath its rain of death. History made the record, and for centuries their site was lost. Yesterday strong arms went out with spad