should be Christians at all, than that being such they should take this mode of expressing their devotion at this great anniversary. The very violence of the paroxysm proves its temporary character. On every other occasion their conduct is sober and decorous, even to dulness, as though-according to the happy expression of one of the most observant of Eastern travellers'-they "were not working out, but transacting the great business of salvation."

It may seem to some a painful, and perhaps an unexpected conclusion, that so great an uncertainty should hang over spots thus intimately connected with the great events of the Christian religion, that in none the chain of tradition should be unbroken, and in most cases hardly reach beyond the age of Constantine. Is it possible, it is frequently asked, that the disciples of the first age should have neglected to mark and commemorate the scenes of such events? And the answer, though often given, cannot be too often repeated, that it not only was possible, but precisely what we should infer from the absence of any allusion to local sanctity in the writings of the Evangelists and Apostles, who were too profoundly absorbed in the events themselves to think of their localities, too wrapt in the spirit to pay regard to the letter or the place. The loss of the Holy Sepulchre, thus regarded, is a testimony to the greatness of the Resurrection. The loss of the Manger of Bethlehem is a witness to the universal significance of the Incarnation. The sites which the earliest followers of Our Lord would not adore, their successors could not. The obliteration of the very marks which identified the Holy Places was effected a little later by what may without presumption be called the Providential events of the time. The Christians of the second generation of believers, even had they been anxious to preserve the collection of sites familiar to their fathers, would have found it in many respects impossible after the ruin of Jerusalem by Titus. The same judgment which tore up by the roots the local religion of the Old dispensation, deprived of secure basis what has since grown up as the local

1 Eothen, pp. 137-143. See Chapter VII. p. 315.

religion of the New'. The total obliteration of the scenes in some instances is at least a proof that no Divine Providence, as is sometimes urged, must have watched over them in others. The desolation of the Lake of Gennesareth has swept out of memory places more sacred than any that are alleged to have been preserved. The Cave of Bethlehem and the House of Nazareth, where our Lord passed an unconscious infancy and an unknown youth, cannot be compared for sanctity with that "House" of Capernaum which was the home of His manhood and the chief scene of His words and works. Yet of that sacred habitation every vestige has perished as though it had never been. It is a certain fact, and one dwelt upon with considerable emphasis by the Sacred historian, that "of the sepulchre of Moses no man knoweth unto this day." It is conjectured with some probability by the only European who has thoroughly investigated the tomb of Mahomet at Medina, that this, too, is a later fiction, and that in the first fervour of the Mussulman faith the burial-place of the Prophet was left unknown. Is it surprising that the causes which thus obscure the local reminiscences of the first beginnings of less momentous movements should have had still greater weight in covering with a like uncertainty the cradle and the sepulchre of Gospel History?

But the doubts which envelop the lesser things do not extend to the greater; they attach to the "Holy Places," but not to "the Holy Land." The clouds which cover the special localities are only specks in the clear light which invests the general geography of Palestine. Not only are the sites of Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Bethlehem absolutely indisputable, but, as we have seen, there is hardly a town or village of note mentioned in the Old and New Testament which cannot still be identified with a certainty which often extends to the very spots which are signalised in the history. If Sixtus V. had succeeded in his project of carrying off the Holy Sepulchre, the essential interest of Jerusalem would have suffered as little

1"Fast as evening sunbeams from the

sea,

Thy footsteps all in Sion's 'deep decay'

Were blotted from the holy ground."

Christian Year. Monday before Easter.

2 See Chapters II. VII. and X.

3 See Burton's Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, ii. pp. 109, 314.

as that of Bethlehem by the alleged transference of the manger to S. Maria Maggiore, or as that of Nazareth, were we to share the belief that its holy house were standing far away on the hill of Loretto. The very wish to believe in the transference is a proof of the slight connection between an attachment to the mere sanctuaries, and the enduring charm which must always attach to the real scenes of great events. It shows the difference (which is often confounded) between the local superstition of touching and handling, of making topography a matter of religion—and that reasonable and religious instinct which leads us to investigate the natural features of historical scenes, sacred or secular, as one of the best helps to conceiving of the events of which they were the stage.

These "Holy Places" have, indeed, a history of their own, which, whatever be their origin, must always give them a position amongst the celebrated spots which have influenced the fortunes of the globe. The convent of Bethlehem can never lose the associations of Jerome, nor can the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ever cease to be bound up with the recollections of the Crusades, or with the tears and prayers of thousands of pilgrims, which, of themselves, amidst whatever fanaticism and ignorance, almost consecrate the walls within which they are offered. But these reminiscences, and the instruction which they convey, bear the same relation to those awakened by the original and still living geography of Palestine as the later course of Ecclesiastical history bears to its divine source. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in this as in other aspects, is a type of the History of the Church itself, and the contrast thus suggested is more consoling than melancholy. Alike in Sacred Topography and in Sacred History, there is a wide and free atmosphere of truth above, a firm ground of reality beneath, which no doubts, controversies, or scandals, concerning this or that particular spot, this or that particular opinion or sect, can affect or disturb. The Churches of the Holy Sepulchre or of the Holy House may be closed against us, but we have still the Mount of Olives and the Sea of Galilee; the sky, the flowers, the trees, the fields, which suggested the Parables; the holy hills, which cannot be removed, but stand fast for ever.

APPENDIX.

VOCABULARY OF TOPOGRAPHICAL WORDS.

IN the foregoing chapters I have often had occasion to refer to the richness and precision of the local vocabulary of the Hebrew language. In the Authorised Version this is unfortunately lost; not so much by the incorrect rendering of any particular word, as by the promiscuous use of the same English word for different Hebrew words, or of different English words for the same Hebrew word. It has been my endeavour to supply this defect, by substituting in all cases one uniform rendering in the passages quoted. But, in order to justify and explain these slight changes, I have thought it best to append a list of topographical words used in the Hebrew Scriptures, with a brief account of their exact meaning, as fixed by the root of the word, or, if possible, by actual examples of the thing described.

Such an inquiry is the more interesting, in a language so primitive, and in a nomenclature so expressive, as that of the Hebrews. The geographical passages of the Bible seem to shine with new light, as these words acquire their proper force. How keenly, for example, are we led to notice the early tendency to personify and treat as living creatures the great objects of nature, when we find that the "springs" are 'the eyes, the bright, glistening, life-giving eyes of the thirsty East; that the mountains have not merely summits and sides, but 'heads,' 'shoulders,' 'ears,' ' ribs,' 'loins.' How strongly the character of Eastern scenery is brought out, when