The Festival, However, Must Have Seemed To Them Rather
Flat, For Although There May Have Been Some "Casualties" In The Way
Of Eyes Black And Noses Bloody, And Women "Missing," There Was No
Return Of "Killed."
Formerly the Latin Catholics concurred in acknowledging (but not, I
hope, in working) the annual miracle of the heavenly fire, but they
have for many years withdrawn their countenance from this
exhibition, and they now repudiate it as a trick of the Greek
Church.
Thus of course the violence of feeling with which the
rival Churches meet at the Holy Sepulchre on Easter Saturday is
greatly increased, and a disturbance of some kind is certain. In
the year I speak of, though no lives were lost, there was, as it
seems, a tough struggle in the church. I was amused at hearing of
a taunt that was thrown that day upon an English traveller. He had
taken his station in a convenient part of the church, and was no
doubt displaying that peculiar air of serenity and gratification
with which an English gentleman usually looks on at a row, when one
of the Franciscans came by, all reeking from the fight, and was so
disgusted at the coolness and placid contentment of the Englishman
(who was a guest at the convent), that he forgot his monkish
humility as well as the duties of hospitality, and plainly said,
"You sleep under our roof, you eat our bread, you drink our wine,
and then when Easter Saturday comes you don't fight for us!"
Yet these rival Churches go on quietly enough till their blood is
up. The terms on which they live remind one of the peculiar
relation subsisting at Cambridge between "town and gown."
These contests and disturbances certainly do not originate with the
lay-pilgrims, the great body of whom are, as I believe, quiet and
inoffensive people. It is true, however, that their pious
enterprise is believed by them to operate as a counterpoise for a
multitude of sins, whether past or future, and perhaps they exert
themselves in after life to restore the balance of good and evil.
The Turks have a maxim which, like most cynical apophthegms,
carries with it the buzzing trumpet of falsehood as well as the
small, fine "sting of truth." "If your friend has made the
pilgrimage once, distrust him; if he has made the pilgrimage twice,
cut him dead!" The caution is said to be as applicable to the
visitants of Jerusalem as to those of Mecca, but I cannot help
believing that the frailties of all the hadjis, {28} whether
Christian or Mahometan, are greatly exaggerated. I certainly
regarded the pilgrims to Palestine as a well-disposed orderly body
of people, not strongly enthusiastic, but desirous to comply with
the ordinances of their religion, and to attain the great end of
salvation as quietly and economically as possible.
When the solemnities of Easter are concluded the pilgrims move off
in a body to complete their good work by visiting the sacred scenes
in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, including the wilderness of John
the Baptist, Bethlehem, and above all, the Jordan, for to bathe in
those sacred waters is one of the chief objects of the expedition.
All the pilgrims - men, women, and children - are submerged en
chemise, and the saturated linen is carefully wrapped up and
preserved as a burial-dress that shall enure for salvation in the
realms of death.
I saw the burial of a pilgrim. He was a Greek, miserably poor, and
very old; he had just crawled into the Holy City, and had reached
at once the goal of his pious journey and the end of his sufferings
upon earth. There was no coffin nor wrapper, and as I looked full
upon the face of the dead I saw how deeply it was rutted with the
ruts of age and misery. The priest, strong and portly, fresh, fat,
and alive with the life of the animal kingdom, unpaid, or ill paid
for his work, would scarcely deign to mutter out his forms, but
hurried over the words with shocking haste. Presently he called
out impatiently, "Yalla! Goor!" (Come! look sharp!), and then the
dead Greek was seized. His limbs yielded inertly to the rude men
that handled them, and down he went into his grave, so roughly
bundled in that his neck was twisted by the fall, so twisted, that
if the sharp malady of life were still upon him the old man would
have shrieked and groaned, and the lines of his face would have
quivered with pain. The lines of his face were not moved, and the
old man lay still and heedless, so well cured of that tedious life-
ache, that nothing could hurt him now. His clay was ITSELF AGAIN -
cool, firm, and tough. The pilgrim had found great rest. I threw
the accustomed handful of the holy soil upon his patient face, and
then, and in less than a minute, the earth closed coldly round him.
I did not say "alas!" (nobody ever does that I know of, though the
word is so frequently written). I thought the old man had got
rather well out of the scrape of being alive, and poor.
The destruction of the mere buildings in such a place as Jerusalem
would not involve the permanent dispersion of the inhabitants, for
the rocky neighbourhood in which the town is situate abounds in
caves, which would give an easy refuge to the people until they
gained an opportunity of rebuilding their dwellings; therefore I
could not help looking upon the Jews of Jerusalem as being in some
sort the representatives, if not the actual descendants, of the
rascals who crucified our Saviour. Supposing this to be the case,
I felt that there would be some interest in knowing how the events
of the Gospel history were regarded by the Israelites of modern
Jerusalem. The result of my inquiry upon this subject was, so far
as it went, entirely favourable to the truth of Christianity.
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