I
Understood That THE PERFORMANCE OF THE MIRACLES WAS NOT DOUBTED BY
ANY OF THE JEWS IN THE PLACE.
All of them concurred in attributing
the works of our Lord to the influence of magic, but they were
divided as to the species of enchantment from which the power
proceeded.
The great mass of the Jewish people believe, I fancy,
that the miracles had been wrought by aid of the powers of
darkness, but many, and those the more enlightened, would call
Jesus "the good Magician." To Europeans repudiating the notion of
all magic, good or bad, the opinion of the Jews as to the agency by
which the miracles were worked is a matter of no importance; but
the circumstance of their admitting that those miracles WERE IN
FACT PERFORMED, is certainly curious, and perhaps not quite
immaterial.
If you stay in the Holy City long enough to fall into anything like
regular habits of amusement and occupation, and to become, in
short, for the time "a man about town" at Jerusalem, you will
necessarily lose the enthusiasm which you may have felt when you
trod the sacred soil for the first time, and it will then seem
almost strange to you to find yourself so entirely surrounded in
all your daily pursuits by the designs and sounds of religion.
Your hotel is a monastery, your rooms are cells, the landlord is a
stately abbot, and the waiters are hooded monks. If you walk out
of the town you find yourself on the Mount of Olives, or in the
Valley of Jehoshaphat, or on the Hill of Evil Counsel. If you
mount your horse and extend your rambles you will be guided to the
wilderness of St. John, or the birthplace of our Saviour. Your
club is the great Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where everybody
meets everybody every day. If you lounge through the town, your
Bond Street is the Via Dolorosa, and the object of your hopeless
affections is some maid or matron all forlorn, and sadly shrouded
in her pilgrim's robe. If you would hear music, it must be the
chanting of friars; if you look at pictures, you see virgins with
mis-fore-shortened arms, or devils out of drawing, or angels
tumbling up the skies in impious perspective. If you would make
any purchases, you must go again to the church doors, and when you
inquire for the manufactures of the place, you find that they
consist of double-blessed beads and sanctified shells. These last
are the favourite tokens which the pilgrims carry off with them.
The shell is graven, or rather scratched, on the white side with a
rude drawing of the Blessed Virgin or of the Crucifixion or some
other scriptural subject. Having passed this stage it goes into
the hands of a priest. By him it is subjected to some process for
rendering it efficacious against the schemes of our ghostly enemy.
The manufacture is then complete, and is deemed to be fit for use.
The village of Bethlehem lies prettily couched on the slope of a
hill. The sanctuary is a subterranean grotto, and is committed to
the joint-guardianship of the Romans, Greeks, and Armenians, who
vie with each other in adorning it. Beneath an altar gorgeously
decorated, and lit with everlasting fires, there stands the low
slab of stone which marks the holy site of the Nativity; and near
to this is a hollow scooped out of the living rock. Here the
infant Jesus was laid. Near the spot of the Nativity is the rock
against which the Blessed Virgin was leaning when she presented her
babe to the adoring shepherds.
Many of those Protestants who are accustomed to despise tradition
consider that this sanctuary is altogether unscriptural, that a
grotto is not a stable, and that mangers are made of wood. It is
perfectly true, however, that the many grottos and caves which are
found among the rocks of Judea were formerly used for the reception
of cattle. They are so used at this day. 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. But for a while the sunshine would
last, and when I was at Bethlehem, though long after the flight of
the Mussulmans, the cloud of Moslem propriety had not yet come back
to cast its cold shadow upon life. When you reach that gladsome
village, pray Heaven there still may be heard there the voice of
free, innocent girls.
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