I have myself seen
grottos appropriated to this purpose.
You know what a sad and sombre decorum it is that outwardly reigns
through the lands oppressed by Moslem sway. The Mahometans make
beauty their prisoner, and enforce such a stern and gloomy
morality, or at all events, such a frightfully close semblance of
it, that far and long the wearied traveller may go without catching
one glimpse of outward happiness. By a strange chance in these
latter days it happened that, alone of all the places in the land,
this Bethlehem, the native village of our Lord, escaped the moral
yoke of the Mussulmans, and heard again, after ages of dull
oppression, the cheering clatter of social freedom, and the voices
of laughing girls. It was after an insurrection, which had been
raised against the authority of Mehemet Ali, that Bethlehem was
freed from the hateful laws of Asiatic decorum. The Mussulmans of
the village had taken an active part in the movement, and when
Ibrahim had quelled it, his wrath was still so hot, that he put to
death every one of the few Mahometans of Bethlehem who had not
already fled. The effect produced upon the Christian inhabitants
by the sudden removal of this restraint was immense. The village
smiled once more. It is true that such sweet freedom could not
long endure. Even if the population of the place should continue
to be entirely Christian, the sad decorum of the Mussulmans, or
rather of the Asiatics, would sooner or later be restored by the
force of opinion and custom.
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