University of Virginia Library

53. CHAPTER LIII.

A FAST walker could go outside the walls of Jerusalem
and walk entirely around the city in an hour. I do not
know how else to make one understand how small it is. The
appearance of the city is peculiar. It is as knobby with countless
little domes as a prison door is with bolt-heads. Every
house has from one to half a dozen of these white plastered
domes of stone, broad and low, sitting in the centre of, or in a
cluster upon, the flat roof. Wherefore, when one looks down
from an eminence, upon the compact mass of houses (so closely
crowded together, in fact, that there is no appearance of
streets at all, and so the city looks solid,) he sees the knobbiest
town in the world, except Constantinople. It looks as if it
might be roofed, from centre to circumference, with inverted
saucers. The monotony of the view is interrupted only by the
great Mosque of Omar, the Tower of Hippicus, and one or two
other buildings that rise into commanding prominence.

The houses are generally two stories high, built strongly of
masonry, whitewashed or plastered outside, and have a cage
of wooden lattice-work projecting in front of every window.
To reproduce a Jerusalem street, it would only be necessary to
up-end a chicken-coop and hang it before each window in an
alley of American houses.

The streets are roughly and badly paved with stone, and
are tolerably crooked—enough so to make each street appear
to close together constantly and come to an end about a hundred
yards ahead of a pilgrim as long as he chooses to walk in
it. Projecting from the top of the lower story of many of the

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 500EAF. Page 559. In-line Illustration. Image of beggars on a street in Jerusalem. The caption reads, "BEGGARS IN JERUSALEM."] houses is a very narrow porch-roof or shed, without supports
from below; and I have several times seen cats jump across
the street from one shed to the other when they were out calling.
The cats could have jumped double the distance without
extraordinary exertion. I mention these things to give an idea
of how narrow the streets are. Since a cat can jump across
them without the least inconvenience, it is hardly necessary to
state that such streets are too narrow for carriages. These
vehicles can not navigate the Holy City.

The population of Jerusalem is compose of Moslems, Jews,
Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek
Catholics, and a handful of Protestants. One hundred of the
latter sect are all that dwell now in this birthplace of Christianity.
The nice shades of nationality comprised in the above
list, and the languages spoken by them, are altogether too
numerous to
mention. It
seems to me
that all the
races and
colors and
tongues of the
earth must be
represented
among the
fourteen thousand
souls
that dwell in
Jerusalem.
Rags, wretchedness,
poverty
and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence
of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself,
abound. Lepers, cripples, the blind, and the idiotic, assail you
on every hand, and they know but one word of but one language
apparently—the eternal “bucksheesh.” To see the
numbers of maimed, malformed and diseased humanity that

throng the holy places and obstruct the gates, one might suppose
that the ancient days had come again, and that the angel
of the Lord was expected to descend at any moment to stir the
waters of Bethesda. Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and
lifeless. I would not desire to live here.

One naturally goes first to the Holy Sepulchre. It is right
in the city, near the western gate; it and the place of the Crucifixion,
and, in fact, every other place intimately connected
with that tremendous event, are ingeniously massed together
and covered by one roof—the dome of the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre.

Entering the building, through the midst of the usual assemblage
of beggars, one sees on his left a few Turkish guards—
for Christians of different sects will not only quarrel, but fight,
also, in this sacred place, if allowed to do it. Before you is a
marble slab, which covers the Stone of Unction, whereon the
Saviour's body was laid to prepare it for burial. It was found
necessary to conceal the real stone in this way in order to save
it from destruction. Pilgrims were too much given to chipping
off pieces of it to carry home. Near by is a circular railing
which marks the spot where the Virgin stood when the
Lord's body was anointed.

Entering the great Rotunda, we stand before the most sacred
locality in Christendom—the grave of Jesus. It is in the
centre of the church, and immediately under the great dome.
It is inclosed in a sort of little temple of yellow and white
stone, of fanciful design. Within the little temple is a portion
of the very stone which was rolled away from the door of the
Sepulchre, and on which the angel was sitting when Mary
came thither “at early dawn.” Stooping low, we enter the
vault—the Sepulchre itself. It is only about six feet by seven,
and the stone couch on which the dead Saviour lay extends
from end to end of the apartment and occupies half its width.
It is covered with a marble slab which has been much worn by
the lips of pilgrims. This slab serves as an altar, now. Over
it hang some fifty gold and silver lamps, which are kept always
burning, and the place is otherwise scandalized by trumpery
gewgaws and tawdry ornamentation.

All sects of Christians (except Protestants,) have chapels
under the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and each
must keep to itself and not venture upon another's ground. It
has been proven conclusively that they can not worship together
around the grave of the Saviour of the World in peace. The
chapel of the Syrians is not handsome; that of the Copts is
the humblest of them all. It is nothing but a dismal cavern,
roughly hewn in the living rock of the Hill of Calvary. In
one side of it two ancient tombs are hewn, which are claimed
to be those in which Nicodemus and Joseph of Aramathea
were buried.

As we moved among the great piers and pillars of another
part of the church, we came upon a party of black-robed,
animal-looking Italian monks, with candles in their hands, who
were chanting something in Latin, and going through some
kind of religious performance around a disk of white marble
let into the floor. It was there that the risen Saviour appeared
to Mary Magdalen in the likeness of a gardener. Near by
was a similar stone, shaped like a star—here the Magdalen
herself stood, at the same time. Monks were performing in
this place also. They perform every where—all over the vast
building, and at all hours. Their candles are always flitting
about in the gloom, and making the dim old church more dismal
than there is any necessity that it should be, even though
it is a tomb.

We were shown the place where our Lord appeared to His
mother after the Resurrection. Here, also, a marble slab marks
the place where St. Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine,
found the crosses about three hundred years after the
Crucifixion. According to the legend, this great discovery
elicited extravagant demonstrations of joy. But they were of
short duration. The question intruded itself: “Which bore
the blessed Saviour, and which the thieves?” To be in doubt,
in so mighty a matter as this—to be uncertain which one to
adore—was a grievous misfortune. It turned the public joy
to sorrow. But when lived there a holy priest who could not
set so simple a trouble as this at rest? One of these soon hit

upon a plan that would be a certain test. A noble lady lay
very ill in Jerusalem. The wise priests ordered that the three
crosses be taken to her bedside one at a time. It was done.
When her eyes fell upon the first one, she uttered a scream
that was heard beyond the Damascus Gate, and even upon the
Mount of Olives, it was said, and then fell back in a deadly
swoon. They recovered her and brought the second cross.
Instantly she went into fearful convulsions, and it was with
the greatest difficulty that six strong men could hold her.
They were afraid, now, to bring in the third cross. They began
to fear that possibly they had fallen upon the wrong
crosses, and that the true cross was not with this number at
all. However, as the woman seemed likely to die with the
convulsions that were tearing her, they concluded that the third
could do no more than put her out of her misery with a happy
dispatch. So they brought it, and behold, a miracle! The
woman sprang from her bed, smiling and joyful, and perfectly
restored to health. When we listen to evidence like this, we
can not but believe. We would be ashamed to doubt, and
properly, too. Even the very part of Jerusalem where this all
occurred is there yet. So there is really no room for doubt.

The priests tried to show us, through a small screen, a fragment
of the genuine Pillar of Flagellation, to which Christ
was bound when they scourged him. But we could not see it,
because it was dark inside the screen. However, a baton is
kept here, which the pilgrim thrusts through a hole in the
screen, and then he no longer doubts that the true Pillar of
Flagellation is in there. He can not have any excuse to doubt
it, for he can feel it with the stick. He can feel it as distinctly
as he could feel any thing.

Not far from here was a niche where they used to preserve
a piece of the True Cross, but it is gone, now. This piece of
the cross was discovered in the sixteenth century. The Latin
priests say it was stolen away, long ago, by priests of another
sect. That seems like a hard statement to make, but we know
very well that it was stolen, because we have seen it ourselves
in several of the cathedrals of Italy and France.

But the relic that touched us most was the plain old sword
of that stout Crusader, Godfrey of Bulloigne—King Godfrey
of Jerusalem. No blade in Christendom wields such enchantment
as this—no blade of all that rust in the ancestral halls
of Europe is able to invoke such visions of romance in the
brain of him who looks upon it—none that can prate of such
chivalric deeds or tell such brave tales of the warrior days of
old. It stirs within a man every memory of the Holy Wars
that has been sleeping in his brain for years, and peoples his
thoughts with mail-clad images, with marching armies, with
battles and with sieges. It speaks to him of Baldwin, and
Tancred, the princely Saladin, and great Richard of the Lion
Heart. It was with just such blades as these that these splendid
heroes of romance used to segregate a man, so to speak,
and leave the half of him to fall one way and the other half
the other. This very sword has cloven hundreds of Saracen
Knights from crown to chin in those old times when Godfrey
wielded it. It was enchanted, then, by a genius that was under
the command of King Solomon. When danger approached
its master's tent it always struck the shield and clanged out a
fierce alarm upon the startled ear of night. In times of doubt,
or in fog or darkness, if it were drawn from its sheath it
would point instantly toward the foe, and thus reveal the way
—and it would also attempt to start after them of its own accord.
A Christian could not be so disguised that it would not
know him and refuse to hurt him—nor a Moslem so disguised
that it would not leap from its scabbard and take his life.
These statements are all well authenticated in many legends
that are among the most trustworthy legends the good old
Catholic monks preserve. I can never forget old Godfrey's
sword, now. I tried it on a Moslem, and clove him in twain
like a doughnut. The spirit of Grimes was upon me, and if
I had had a graveyard I would have destroyed all the infidels
in Jerusalem. I wiped the blood off the old sword and handed
it back to the priest—I did not want the fresh gore to obliterate
those sacred spots that crimsoned its brightness one day
six hundred years ago and thus gave Godfrey warning that
before the sun went down his journey of life would end.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 500EAF. Page 564. In-line Illustration. Image of a stone church with arched windows and a large courtyard. The caption reads, "CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE."]

Still moving through the gloom of the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre we came to a small chapel, hewn out of the rock—
a place which has been known as “The Prison of Our Lord”
for many centuries. Tradition says that here the Saviour was

confined just previously to the crucifixion. Under an altar by
the door was a pair of stone stocks for human legs. These
things are called the “Bonds of Christ,” and the use they were
once put to has given them the name they now bear.

The Greek Chapel is the most roomy, the richest and the
showiest chapel in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Its
altar, like that of all the Greek churches, is a lofty screen that
extends clear across the chapel, and is gorgeous with gilding
and pictures. The numerous lamps that hang before it are of
gold and silver, and cost great sums.

But the feature of the place is a short column that rises from
the middle of the marble pavement of the chapel, and marks
the exact centre of the earth. The most reliable traditions tell
us that this was known to be the earth's centre, ages ago, and
that when Christ was upon earth he set all doubts upon the
subject at rest forever, by stating with his own lips that the
tradition was correct. Remember, He said that that particular
column stood upon the centre of the world. If the centre
of the world changes, the column changes its position accordingly.
This column has moved three different times, of its own
accord. This is because, in great convulsions of nature, at
three different times, masses of the earth—whole ranges of
mountains, probably—have flown off into space, thus lessening
the diameter of the earth, and changing the exact locality of
its centre by a point or two. This is a very curious and interesting
circumstance, and is a withering rebuke to those philosophers
who would make us believe that it is not possible for
any portion of the earth to fly off into space.

To satisfy himself that this spot was really the centre of the
earth, a sceptic once paid well for the privilege of ascending
to the dome of the church to see if the sun gave him a shadow
at noon. He came down perfectly convinced. The day was
very cloudy and the sun threw no shadows at all; but the man
was satisfied that if the sun had come out and made shadows
it could not have made any for him. Proofs like these are not
to be set aside by the idle tongues of cavilers. To such as are
not bigoted, and are willing to be convinced, they carry a conviction
that nothing can ever shake.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 500EAF. Page 566. In-line Illustration. Image of a man standing with his hat in his hand looking at a grave marker set in the floor of a church. The caption reads, "THE GRAVE OF ADAM."]

If even greater proofs than those I have mentioned are
wanted, to satisfy the headstrong and the foolish that this is
the genuine centre of the earth, they are here. The greatest
of them lies in the fact that from under this very column was
taken the dust from which Adam was made. This can surely
be regarded in the light of a settler. It is not likely that the
original first man would have been made from an inferior
quality of earth when it was entirely convenient to get first
quality from the world's centre. This will strike any reflecting
mind forcibly. That Adam was formed of dirt procured
in this very spot is amply proven by the fact that in six thousand
years
no man has
ever been
able to
prove that
the dirt was
not procured
here whereof
he was
made.

It is a
singular circumstance

that right
under the
roof of this
same great
church, and
not far away
from that
illustrious
column,
Adam himself,
the father
of the
human race,
lies buried. There is no question that he is actually burried

in the grave which is pointed out as his—there can be none—
because it has never yet been proven that that grave is not
the grave in which he is buried.

The tomb of Adam! How touching it was, here in a land
of strangers, far away from home, and friends, and all who
cared for me, thus to discover the grave of a blood relation.
True, a distant one, but still a relation. The unerring instinct
of nature thrilled its recognition. The fountain of my filial
affection was stirred to its profoundest depths, and I gave way
to tumultuous emotion. I leaned upon a pillar and burst
into tears. I deem it no shame to have wept over the grave
of my poor dead relative. Let him who would sneer at my
emotion close this volume here, for he will find little to his
taste in my journeyings through Holy Land. Noble old man
—he did not live to see me—he did not live to see his child.
And I—I—alas, I did not live to see him. Weighed down by
sorrow and disappointment, he died before I was born—six
thousand brief summers before I was born. But let us try to
bear it with fortitude. Let us trust that he is better off, where
he is. Let us take comfort in the thought that his loss is our
eternal gain.

The next place the guide took us to in the holy church was
an altar dedicated to the Roman soldier who was of the military
guard that attended at the crucifixion to keep order, and
who—when the vail of the Temple was rent in the awful darkness
that followed; when the rock of Golgotha was split asunder
by an earthquake; when the artillery of heaven thundered,
and in the baleful glare of the lightnings the shrouded dead
flitted about the streets of Jerusalem—shook with fear and
said, “Surely this was the Son of God!” Where this altar
stands now, that Roman soldier stood then, in full view of the
crucified Saviour—in full sight and hearing of all the marvels
that were transpiring far and wide about the circumference of
the Hill of Calvary. And in this self-same spot the priests of
the Temple beheaded him for those blasphemous words he had
spoken.

In this altar they used to keep one of the most curious relics

that human eyes ever looked upon—a thing that had power to
fascinate the beholder in some mysterious way and keep him
gazing for hours together. It was nothing less than the copper
plate Pilate put upon the Saviour's cross, and upon which he
wrote, “This is the King of the Jews.” I think St. Helena,
the mother of Constantine, found this wonderful memento
when she was here in the third century. She traveled all over
Palestine, and was always fortunate. Whenever the good old
enthusiast found a thing mentioned in her Bible, Old or New,
she would go and search for that thing, and never stop until
she found it. If it was Adam, she would find Adam; if it was
the Ark, she would find the Ark; if it was Goliah, or Joshua,
she would find them. She found the inscription here that I
was speaking of, I think. She found it in this very spot, close
to where the martyred Roman soldier stood. That copper
plate is in one of the churches in Rome, now. Any one can
see it there. The inscription is very distinct.

We passed along a few steps and saw the altar built over
the very spot where the good Catholic priests say the soldiers
divided the raiment of the Saviour.

Then we went down into a cavern which cavilers say was
once a cistern. It is a chapel, now, however—the Chapel of
St. Helena. It is fifty-one feet long by forty-three wide. In
it is a marble chair which Helena used to sit in while she superintended
her workmen when they were digging and delving
for the True Cross. In this place is an altar dedicated to St.
Dimas, the penitent thief. A new bronze statue is here—a
statue of St. Helena. It reminded us of poor Maximilian, so
lately shot. He presented it to this chapel when he was about
to leave for his throne in Mexico.

From the cistern we descended twelve steps into a large
roughly-shaped grotto, carved wholly out of the living rock.
Helena blasted it out when she was searching for the true
cross. She had a laborious piece of work, here, but it was
richly rewarded. Out of this place she got the crown of
thorns, the nails of the cross, the true cross itself, and the cross
of the penitent thief. When she thought she had found every

thing and was about to stop, she was told in a dream to continue
a day longer. It was very fortunate. She did so, and
found the cross of the other thief.

The walls and roof of this grotto still weep bitter tears in
memory of the event that transpired on Calvary, and devout
pilgrims groan and sob when these sad tears fall upon them
from the dripping rock. The monks call this apartment the
“Chapel of the Invention of the Cross”—a name which is
unfortunate, because it leads the ignorant to imagine that a
tacit acknowledgment is thus made that the tradition that
Helena found the true cross here is a fiction—an invention.
It is a happiness to know, however, that intelligent people do
not doubt the story in any of its particulars.

Priests of any of the chapels and denominations in the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre can visit this sacred grotto to
weep and pray and worship the gentle Redeemer. Two different
congregations are not allowed to enter at the same time,
however, because they always fight.

Still marching through the venerable Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, among chanting priests in coarse long robes and
sandals; pilgrims of all colors and many nationalities, in all
sorts of strange costumes; under dusky arches and by dingy
piers and columns; through a sombre cathedral gloom freighted
with smoke and incense, and faintly starred with scores of
candles that appeared suddenly and as suddenly disappeared,
or drifted mysteriously hither and thither about the distant
aisles like ghostly jack-o'-lanterns—we came at last to a small
chapel which is called the “Chapel of the Mocking.” Under
the altar was a fragment of a marble column; this was the
seat Christ sat on when he was reviled, and mockingly made
King, crowned with a crown of thorns and sceptred with a
reed. It was here that they blindfolded him and struck him,
and said in derision, “Prophesy who it is that smote thee.”
The tradition that this is the identical spot of the mocking is
a very ancient one. The guide said that Saewulf was the first
to mention it. I do not know Saewulf, but still, I can not
well refuse to receive his evidence—none of us can.

They showed us where the great Godfrey and his brother
Baldwin, the first Christian Kings of Jerusalem, once lay buried
by that sacred sepulchre they had fought so long and so
valiantly to wrest from the hands of the infidel. But the
niches that had contained the ashes of these renowned crusaders
were empty. Even the coverings of their tombs were
gone—destroyed by devout members of the Greek Church,
because Godfrey and Baldwin were Latin princes, and had
been reared in a Christian faith whose creed differed in some
unimportant respects from theirs.

We passed on, and halted before the tomb of Melchisedek!
You will remember Melchisedek, no doubt; he was the King
who came out and levied a tribute on Abraham the time that
he pursued Lot's captors to Dan, and took all their property
from them. That was about four thousand years ago, and
Melchisedek died shortly afterward. However, his tomb is in
a good state of preservation.

When one enters the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the
Sepulchre itself is the first thing he desires to see, and really
is almost the first thing he does see. The next thing he has a
strong yearning to see is the spot where the Saviour was crucified.
But this they exhibit last. It is the crowning glory of
the place. One is grave and thoughtful when he stands in the
little Tomb of the Saviour—he could not well be otherwise in
such a place—but he has not the slightest possible belief that
ever the Lord lay there, and so the interest he feels in the spot
is very, very greatly marred by that reflection. He looks at
the place where Mary stood, in another part of the church,
and where John stood, and Mary Magdalen; where the mob
derided the Lord; where the angel sat; where the crown of
thorns was found, and the true cross; where the risen Saviour
appeared—he looks at all these places with interest, but with
the same conviction he felt in the case of the Sepulchre, that
there is nothing genuine about them, and that they are imaginary
holy places created by the monks. But the place of the
Crucifixion affects him differently. He fully believes that he
is looking upon the very spot where the Saviour gave up his

life. He remembers that Christ was very celebrated, long before
he came to Jerusalem; he knows that his fame was so
great that crowds followed him all the time; he is aware that
his entry into the city produced a stirring sensation, and that
his reception was a kind of ovation; he can not overlook the
fact that when he was crucified there were very many in Jerusalem
who believed that he was the true Son of God. To publicly
execute such a personage was sufficient in itself to make
the locality of the execution a memorable place for ages; added
to this, the storm, the darkness, the earthquake, the rending
of the vail of the Temple, and the untimely waking of the
dead, were events calculated to fix the execution and the scene
of it in the memory of even the most thoughtless witness.
Fathers would tell their sons about the strange affair, and
point out the spot; the sons would transmit the story to their
children, and thus a period of three hundred years would easily
be spanned[1]—at which time Helena came and built a
church upon Calvary to commemorate the death and burial of
the Lord and preserve the sacred place in the memories of
men; since that time there has always been a church there.
It is not possible that there can be any mistake about the locality
of the Crucifixion. Not half a dozen persons knew where
they buried the Saviour, perhaps, and a burial is not a startling
event, any how; therefore, we can be pardoned for unbelief
in the Sepulchre, but not in the place of the Crucifixion.
Five hundred years hence there will be no vestige of Bunker
Hill Monument left, but America will still know where the
battle was fought and where Warren fell. The crucifixion of
Christ was too notable an event in Jerusalem, and the Hill of
Calvary made too celebrated by it, to be forgotten in the short
space of three hundred years. I climbed the stairway in the
church which brings one to the top of the small inclosed pinnacle
of rock, and looked upon the place where the true cross
once stood, with a far more absorbing interest than I had ever
felt in any thing earthly before. I could not believe that the
three holes in the top of the rock were the actual ones the
crosses stood in, but I felt satisfied that those crosses had stood
so near the place now occupied by them, that the few feet of
possible difference were a matter of no consequence.

When one stands where the Saviour was crucified, he finds
it all he can do to keep it strictly before his mind that Christ
was not crucified in a Catholic Church. He must remind himself
every now and then that the great event transpired in the
open air, and not in a gloomy, candle-lighted cell in a little
corner of a vast church, up-stairs—a small cell all bejeweled
and bespangled with flashy ornamentation, in execrable taste.

Under a marble altar like a table, is a circular hole in the
marble floor, corresponding with the one just under it in which
the true corss stood. The first thing every one does is to kneel
down and take a candle and examine this hole. He does this
strange prospecting with an amount of gravity that can never
be estimated or appreciated by a man who has not seen the operation.
Then he holds his candle before a richly engraved picture
of the Saviour, done on a massy slab of gold, and wonderfully
rayed and starred with diamonds, which hangs above the
hole within the altar, and his solemnity changes to lively admiration.
He rises and faces the finely wrought figures of the Saviour
and the malefactors uplifted upon their crosses behind the
altar, and bright with a metallic lustre of many colors. He turns
next to the figures close to them of the Virgin and Mary Magdalen;
next to the rift in the living rock made by the earthquake
at the time of the Crucifixion, and an extension of which
he had seen before in the wall of one of the grottoes below;
he looks next at the show-case with a figure of the Virgin in it,
and is amazed at the princely fortune in precious gems and
jewelry that hangs so thickly about the form as to hide it like
a garment almost. All about the apartment the gaudy trappings
of the Greek Church offend the eye and keep the mind
on the rack to remember that this is the Place of the Crucifixion—Golgotha—the
Mount of Calvary. And the last thing
he looks at is that which was also the first—the place where
the true cross stood. That will chain him to the spot and

compel him to look once more, and once again, after he has
satisfied all curiosity and lost all interest concerning the other
matters pertaining to the locality.

And so I close my chapter on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—the
most sacred locality on earth to millions and millions
of men, and women, and children, the noble and the
humble, bond and free. In its history from the first, and in its
tremendous associations, it is the most illustrious edifice in
Christendom. With all its clap-trap side-shows and unseemly
impostures of every kind, it is still grand, reverend, venerable
—for a god died there; for fifteen hundred years its shrines
have been wet with the tears of pilgrims from the earth's remotest
confines; for more than two hundred, the most gallant
knights that ever wielded sword wasted their lives away in a
struggle to seize it and hold it sacred from infidel pollution.
Even in our own day a war, that cost millions of treasure and
rivers of blood, was fought because two rival nations claimed
the sole right to put a new dome upon it. History is full of
this old Church of the Holy Sepulchre—full of blood that was
shed because of the respect and the veneration in which men
held the last resting-place of the meek and lowly, the mild and
gentle, Prince of Peace!