fumbling their perpetual beads. A party of Arab Christians have
come up from their tents or villages: the men half-naked, looking
as if they were beggars, or banditti, upon occasion; the women have
flung their head-cloths back, and are looking at the strangers
under their tattooed eyebrows. As for the strangers, there is no
need to describe THEM: that figure of the Englishman, with his
hands in his pockets, has been seen all the world over: staring
down the crater of Vesuvius, or into a Hottentot kraal--or at a
pyramid, or a Parisian coffee-house, or an Esquimaux hut--with the
same insolent calmness of demeanour. When the gates of the church
are open, he elbows in among the first, and flings a few scornful
piastres to the Turkish door-keeper; and gazes round easily at the
place, in which people of every other nation in the world are in
tears, or in rapture, or wonder. He has never seen the place until
now, and looks as indifferent as the Turkish guardian who sits in
the doorway, and swears at the people as they pour in.
Indeed, I believe it is impossible for us to comprehend the source
and nature of the Roman Catholic devotion. I once went into a
church at Rome at the request of a Catholic friend, who described
the interior to be so beautiful and glorious, that he thought (he
said) it must be like heaven itself. I found walls hung with cheap
stripes of pink and white calico, altars covered with artificial
flowers, a number of wax candles, and plenty of gilt-paper
ornaments. The place seemed to me like a shabby theatre; and here
was my friend on his knees at my side, plunged in a rapture of
wonder and devotion.
I could get no better impression out of this the most famous church
in the world. The deceits are too open and flagrant; the
inconsistencies and contrivances too monstrous. It is hard even to
sympathise with persons who receive them as genuine; and though (as
I know and saw in the case of my friend at Rome) the believer's
life may be passed in the purest exercise of faith and charity, it
is difficult even to give him credit for honesty, so barefaced seem
the impostures which he professes to believe and reverence. It
costs one no small effort even to admit the possibility of a
Catholic's credulity: to share in his rapture and devotion is
still further out of your power; and I could get from this church
no other emotions but those of shame and pain.
The legends with which the Greeks and Latins have garnished the
spot have no more sacredness for you than the hideous, unreal,
barbaric pictures and ornaments which they have lavished on it.
Look at the fervour with which pilgrims kiss and weep over a tawdry
Gothic painting, scarcely better fashioned than an idol in a South
Sea Morai. The histories which they are called upon to reverence
are of the same period and order,--savage Gothic caricatures. In
either a saint appears in the costume of the middle ages, and is
made to accommodate himself to the fashion of the tenth century.
The different churches battle for the possession of the various
relics. The Greeks show you the Tomb of Melchisedec, while the
Armenians possess the Chapel of the Penitent Thief; the poor Copts
(with their little cabin of a chapel) can yet boast of possessing
the thicket in which Abraham caught the Ram, which was to serve as
the vicar of Isaac; the Latins point out the Pillar to which the
Lord was bound. The place of the Invention of the Sacred Cross,
the Fissure in the Rock of Golgotha, the Tomb of Adam himself--are
all here within a few yards' space. You mount a few steps, and are
told it is Calvary upon which you stand. All this in the midst of
blaring candles, reeking incense, savage pictures of Scripture
story, or portraits of kings who have been benefactors to the
various chapels; a din and clatter of strange people,--these
weeping, bowing, kissing,--those utterly indifferent; and the
priests clad in outlandish robes, snuffling and chanting
incomprehensible litanies, robing, disrobing, lighting up candles
or extinguishing them, advancing, retreating, bowing with all sorts
of unfamiliar genuflexions. Had it pleased the inventors of the
Sepulchre topography to have fixed on fifty more spots of ground as
the places of the events of the sacred story, the pilgrim would
have believed just as now. The priest's authority has so mastered
his faith, that it accommodates itself to any demand upon it; and
the English stranger looks on the scene, for the first time, with a
feeling of scorn, bewilderment, and shame at that grovelling
credulity, those strange rites and ceremonies, that almost
confessed imposture.
Jarred and distracted by these, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
for some time, seems to an Englishman the least sacred spot about
Jerusalem. It is the lies, and the legends, and the priests, and
their quarrels, and their ceremonies, which keep the Holy Place out
of sight. A man has not leisure to view it, for the brawling of
the guardians of the spot. The Roman conquerors, they say, raised
up a statue of Venus in this sacred place, intending to destroy all
memory of it. I don't think the heathen was as criminal as the
Christian is now. To deny and disbelieve, is not so bad as to make
belief a ground to cheat upon. The liar Ananias perished for that;
and yet out of these gates, where angels may have kept watch--out
of the tomb of Christ--Christian priests issue with a lie in their
hands. What a place to choose for imposture, good God! to sully
with brutal struggles for self-aggrandisement or shameful schemes
of gain!
The situation of the Tomb (into which, be it authentic or not, no
man can enter without a shock of breathless fear, and deep and
awful self-humiliation) must have struck all travellers. It stands
in the centre of the arched rotunda, which is common to all
denominations, and from which branch off the various chapels
belonging to each particular sect. In the Coptic chapel I saw one
coal-black Copt, in blue robes, cowering in the little cabin,
surrounded by dingy lamps, barbarous pictures, and cheap faded
trumpery. In the Latin Church there was no service going on, only
two fathers dusting the mouldy gewgaws along the brown walls, and
laughing to one another. The gorgeous church of the Fire
impostors, hard by, was always more fully attended; as was that of
their wealthy neighbours, the Armenians. These three main sects
hate each other; their quarrels are interminable; each bribes and
intrigues with the heathen lords of the soil, to the prejudice of
his neighbour. Now it is the Latins who interfere, and allow the
common church to go to ruin, because the Greeks purpose to roof it;
now the Greeks demolish a monastery on Mount Olivet, and leave the
ground to the Turks, rather than allow the Armenians to possess it.
On another occasion, the Greeks having mended the Armenian steps
which lead to the (so-called) Cave of the Nativity at Bethlehem,
the latter asked for permission to destroy the work of the Greeks,
and did so. And so round this sacred spot, the centre of
Christendom, the representatives of the three great sects worship
under one roof, and hate each other!
Above the Tomb of the Saviour, the cupola is OPEN, and you see the
blue sky overhead. Which of the builders was it that had the grace
to leave that under the high protection of Heaven, and not confine
it under the mouldering old domes and roofs, which cover so much
selfishness, and uncharitableness, and imposture?
We went to Bethlehem, too; and saw the apocryphal wonders there.
Five miles' ride brings you from Jerusalem to it, over naked wavy
hills; the aspect of which, however, grows more cheerful as you
approach the famous village. We passed the Convent of Mar Elyas on
the road, walled and barred like a fort. In spite of its strength,
however, it has more than once been stormed by the Arabs, and the
luckless fathers within put to death. Hard by was Rebecca's Well:
a dead body was lying there, and crowds of male and female mourners
dancing and howling round it. Now and then a little troop of
savage scowling horsemen--a shepherd driving his black sheep, his
gun over his shoulder--a troop of camels--or of women, with long
blue robes and white veils, bearing pitchers, and staring at the
strangers with their great solemn eyes--or a company of labourers,
with their donkeys, bearing grain or grapes to the city,--met us
and enlivened the little ride. It was a busy and cheerful scene.
The Church of the Nativity, with the adjoining convents, forms a
vast and noble Christian structure. A party of travellers were
going to the Jordan that day, and scores of their followers--of the
robbing Arabs, who profess to protect them (magnificent figures
some of them, with flowing haicks and turbans, with long guns and
scimitars, and wretched horses, covered with gaudy trappings), were
standing on the broad pavement before the little convent gate. It
was such a scene as Cattermole might paint. Knights and Crusaders
may have witnessed a similar one. You could fancy them issuing out
swarthy clamorous women and merchants and children.
The scene within the building was of the same Gothic character. We
were entertained by the Superior of the Greek Convent, in a fine
refectory, with ceremonies and hospitalities that pilgrims of the
middle ages might have witnessed. We were shown over the
magnificent Barbaric Church, visited of course the Grotto where the
Blessed Nativity is said to have taken place, and the rest of the
idols set up for worship by the clumsy legend. When the visit was
concluded, the party going to the Dead Sea filed off with their
armed attendants; each individual traveller making as brave a show
as he could, and personally accoutred with warlike swords and
pistols. The picturesque crowds, and the Arabs and the horsemen,
in the sunshine; the noble old convent, and the grey-bearded
priests, with their feast; and the church, and its pictures and
columns, and incense; the wide brown hills spreading round the
village; with the accidents of the road,--flocks and shepherds,
wells and funerals, and camel-trains,--have left on my mind a
brilliant, romantic, and cheerful picture. But you, dear M-,
without visiting the place, have imagined one far finer; and
Bethlehem, where the Holy Child was born, and the angels sang,
"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill
towards men," is the most sacred and beautiful spot in the earth to
you.
By far the most comfortable quarters in Jerusalem are those of the
Armenians, in their convent of St. James. Wherever we have been,
these Eastern quakers look grave, and jolly, and sleek. Their
convent at Mount Zion is big enough to contain two or three
thousand of their faithful; and their church is ornamented by the
most rich and hideous gifts ever devised by uncouth piety. Instead
of a bell, the fat monks of the convent beat huge noises on a
board, and drub the faithful in to prayers. I never saw men more
lazy and rosy than these reverend fathers, kneeling in their
comfortable matted church, or sitting in easy devotion. Pictures,
images, gilding, tinsel, wax candles, twinkle all over the place;
and ten thousand ostrichs' eggs (or any lesser number you may
allot) dangle from the vaulted ceiling. There were great numbers
of people at worship in this gorgeous church: they went on their
knees, kissing the walls with much fervour, and paying reverence to
the most precious relic of the convent,--the chair of St. James,
their patron, the first Bishop of Jerusalem.
The chair pointed out with greatest pride in the church of the
Latin Convent, is that shabby red damask one appropriated to the
French Consul,--the representative of the King of that nation,--and
the protection which it has from time immemorial accorded to the
Christians of the Latin rite in Syria. All French writers and
travellers speak of this protection with delightful complacency.
Consult the French books of travel on the subject, and any
Frenchman whom you may meet: he says, "La France, Monsieur, de
tous les temps protege les Chretiens d'Orient;" and the little
fellow looks round the church with a sweep of the arm, and protects
it accordingly. It is bon ton for them to go in processions; and
you see them on such errands, marching with long candles, as
gravely as may be. But I have never been able to edify myself with
their devotion; and the religious outpourings of Lamartine and
Chateaubriand, which we have all been reading a propos of the
journey we are to make, have inspired me with an emotion anything
but respectful. "Voyez comme M. de Chateaubriand prie Dieu," the
Viscount's eloquence seems always to say. There is a sanctified
grimace about the little French pilgrim which it is very difficult
to contemplate gravely.
The pictures, images, and ornaments of the principal Latin convent
are quite mean and poor, compared to the wealth of the Armenians.
The convent is spacious, but squalid. Many hopping and crawling
plagues are said to attack the skins of pilgrims who sleep there.
It is laid out in courts and galleries, the mouldy doors of which
are decorated with twopenny pictures of favourite saints and
martyrs; and so great is the shabbiness and laziness, that you
might fancy yourself in a convent in Italy. Brown-clad fathers,
dirty, bearded, and sallow, go gliding about the corridors. The
relic manufactory before mentioned carries on a considerable
believers in Europe. These constitute the chief revenue of the
convent now. La France is no longer the most Christian kingdom,
and her protection of the Latins is not good for much since Charles
X. was expelled; and Spain, which used likewise to be generous on
occasions (the gi
fts, arms, candlesticks, baldaquins of the Spanish
sovereigns figure pretty frequently in the various Latin chapels),
has been stingy since the late disturbances, the spoliation of the
clergy, &c. After we had been taken to see the humble curiosities
of the place, the Prior treated us in his wooden parlour with
little glasses of pink Rosolio, brought with many bows and
genuflexions by his reverence the convent butler.
After this community of holy men, the most important perhaps is the
American Convent, a Protestant congregation of Independents
chiefly, who deliver tracts, propose to make converts, have
meetings of their own, and also swell the little congregation that
attends the Anglican service. I have mentioned our fellow-
traveller, the Consul-General for Syria of the United States. He
was a tradesman, who had made a considerable fortune, and lived at
a country-house in comfortable retirement. But his opinion is,
that the prophecies of Scripture are about to be accomplished; that
the day of the return of the Jews is at hand, and the glorification
of the restored Jerusalem. He is to witness this--he and a
favourite dove with which he travels; and he forsook home and
comfortable country-house, in order to make this journey. He has
no other knowledge of Syria but what he derives from the prophecy;
and this (as he takes the office gratis) has been considered a
sufficient reason for his appointment by the United States
Government. As soon as he arrived, he sent and demanded an
interview with the Pasha; explained to him his interpretation of
the Apocalypse, in which he has discovered that the Five Powers and
America are about to intervene in Syrian affairs, and the
infallible return of the Jews to Palestine. The news must have
astonished the Lieutenant of the Sublime Porte; and since the days
of the Kingdom of Munster, under his Anabaptist Majesty, John of
Leyden, I doubt whether any Government has received or appointed so
queer an ambassador. The kind, worthy, simple man took me to his
temporary consulate-house at the American Missionary Establishment;
and, under pretence of treating me to white wine, expounded his
ideas; talked of futurity as he would about an article in The
Times; and had no more doubt of seeing a divine kingdom established
in Jerusalem than you that there would be a levee next spring at
St. James's. The little room in which we sat was padded with
missionary tracts, but I heard of scarce any converts--not more
than are made by our own Episcopal establishment.
But if the latter's religious victories are small, and very few
people are induced by the American tracts, and the English
preaching and catechising, to forsake their own manner of
worshipping the Divine Being in order to follow ours; yet surely
our religious colony of men and women can't fail to do good, by the
sheer force of good example, pure life, and kind offices. The
ladies of the mission have numbers of clients, of all persuasions,
in the town, to whom they extend their charities. Each of their
houses is a model of neatness, and a dispensary of gentle
kindnesses; and the ecclesiastics have formed a modest centre of
civilisation in the place. A dreary joke was made in the House of
Commons about Bishop Alexander and the Bishopess his lady, and the
Bishoplings his numerous children, who were said to have
scandalised the people of Jerusalem. That sneer evidently came
from the Latins and Greeks; for what could the Jews and Turks care
because an English clergyman had a wife and children as their own
priests have? There was no sort of ill will exhibited towards
them, as far as I could learn; and I saw the Bishop's children
riding about the town as safely as they could about Hyde Park. All
Europeans, indeed, seemed to me to be received with forbearance,
and almost courtesy, within the walls. As I was going about making
sketches, the people would look on very good-humouredly, without
offering the least interruption; nay, two or three were quite ready