Since This Guardianship Carries With It The
Receipt Of The Coins Which The Pilgrims Leave Upon The Shrines, It
Is
Strenuously fought for by all the rival Churches, and the
artifices of intrigue are busily exerted at Stamboul in order
To
procure the issue or revocation of the firmans by which the coveted
privilege is granted. In this strife the Greek Church has of late
years signally triumphed, and the most famous of the shrines are
committed to the care of their priesthood. They possess the golden
socket in which stood the cross of our Lord whilst the Latins are
obliged to content themselves with the apertures in which were
inserted the crosses of the two thieves. They are naturally
discontented with that poor privilege, and sorrowfully look back to
the days of their former glory - the days when Napoleon was Emperor,
and Sebastiani ambassador at the Porte. It seems that the
"citizen" sultan, old Louis Philippe, has done very little indeed
for Holy Church in Palestine.
Although the pilgrims perform their devotions at the several
shrines with so little apparent enthusiasm, they are driven to the
verge of madness by the miracle displayed before them on Easter
Saturday. Then it is that the Heaven-sent fire issues from the
Holy Sepulchre. The pilgrims all assemble in the great church, and
already, long before the wonder is worked, they are wrought by
anticipation of God's sign, as well as by their struggles for room
and breathing space, to a most frightful state of excitement. At
length the chief priest of the Greeks, accompanied (of all people
in the world) by the Turkish Governor, enters the tomb. After
this, there is a long pause, and then suddenly from out of the
small apertures on either side of the sepulchre there issue long,
shining flames. The pilgrims now rush forward, madly struggling to
light their tapers at the holy fire. This is the dangerous moment,
and many lives are often lost.
The year before that of my going to Jerusalem, Ibrahim Pasha, from
some whim, or motive of policy, chose to witness the miracle. The
vast church was of course thronged, as it always is on that awful
day. It seems that the appearance of the fire was delayed for a
very long time, and that the growing frenzy of the people was
heightened by suspense. Many, too, had already sunk under the
effect of the heat and the stifling atmosphere, when at last the
fire flashed from the sepulchre. Then a terrible struggle ensued;
many sunk and were crushed. Ibrahim had taken his station in one
of the galleries, but now, feeling perhaps his brave blood warmed
by the sight and sound of such strife, he took upon himself to
quiet the people by his personal presence, and descended into the
body of the church with only a few guards. He had forced his way
into the midst of the dense crowd, when unhappily he fainted away;
his guards shrieked out, and the event instantly became known. A
body of soldiers recklessly forced their way through the crowd,
trampling over every obstacle that they might save the life of
their general. Nearly two hundred people were killed in the
struggle.
The following year, however, the Government took better measures
for the prevention of these calamities. I was not present at the
ceremony, having gone away from Jerusalem some time before, but I
afterwards returned into Palestine, and I then learned that the day
had passed off without any disturbance of a fatal kind. It is,
however, almost too much to expect that so many ministers of peace
can assemble without finding some occasion for strife, and in that
year a tribe of wild Bedouins became the subject of discord. These
men, it seems, led an Arab life in some of the desert tracts
bordering on the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, but were not connected
with any of the great ruling tribes. Some whim or notion of policy
had induced them to embrace Christianity; but they were grossly
ignorant of the rudiments of their adopted faith, and having no
priest with them in their desert, they had as little knowledge of
religious ceremonies as of religion itself. They were not even
capable of conducting themselves in a place of worship with
ordinary decorum, but would interrupt the service with scandalous
cries and warlike shouts. Such is the account the Latins give of
them, but I have never heard the other side of the question. These
wild fellows, notwithstanding their entire ignorance of all
religion, are yet claimed by the Greeks, not only as proselytes who
have embraced Christianity generally, but as converts to the
particular doctrines and practice of their Church. The people thus
alleged to have concurred in the great schism of the Eastern Empire
are never, I believe, within the walls of a church, or even of any
building at all, except upon this occasion of Easter; and as they
then never fail to find a row of some kind going on by the side of
the sepulchre, they fancy, it seems, that the ceremonies there
enacted are funeral games of a martial character, held in honour of
a deceased chieftain, and that a Christian festival is a peculiar
kind of battle, fought between walls, and without cavalry. It does
not appear, however, that these men are guilty of any ferocious
acts, or that they attempt to commit depredations. The charge
against them is merely that by their way of applauding the
performance, by their horrible cries and frightful gestures, they
destroy the solemnity of divine service, and upon this ground the
Franciscans obtained a firman for the exclusion of such tumultuous
worshippers. The Greeks, however, did not choose to lose the aid
of their wild converts merely because they were a little backward
in their religious education, and they therefore persuaded them to
defy the firman by entering the city en masse and overawing their
enemies. The Franciscans, as well as the Government authorities,
were obliged to give way, and the Arabs triumphantly marched into
the church.
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