Approach to Nazareth.

325

there a fragment of a column or a fractured sarcophagus speaks of a past splendor.

From Jezreel, we came in an hour's ride to Shunem, where the Philistines encamped before the battle of Gilboa (1 Sam. xxviii. 4); but every body remembers it better, so much do individual sympathies prevail over and outlive public events, as the place where the Shunammite woman, recognizing Elisha to be a holy man of God, prevailed with her husband to build him a little chamber in the wall. All the tender story that follows, of Elisha's promising the childless woman a son; of his birth and growing up; his sudden sickness and death; the woman's journey to Mount Carmel in search of the prophet, of his gentle reception of her, and final journey to her house, where he stretched himself upon the child and brought him to life—is it not recorded in undying beauty and vividness in the fourth chapter of 11 Kings? It was pleasant to see the place where Elisha so often came, and to consider all that long, hot plain, twenty miles at least between Shunem and Carmel, over which grief and faith bore the Shunammite mother with such haste and sympathy, and the consciousness of power to restore the lost treasure carried Elisha's willing feet.

An hour more brought us to Nain, the place where Jesus raised the widow's son (Luke vii. 11-15). It is a poor hamlet, with no other interest than that the associations with this event must always give it. Endor lay in view a half-hour to the east of Nain, but we have not enough sympathy with Saul's witchwork-albeit he was Macbeth's prototype-to go out of our way to see the scene of his folly. Making up the very steep hill that lies before and hides Nazareth, a climb of two hours (partly a descent on the other side) brought us to Nazareth. It is a town of a couple of thousand people, chiefly Christians, possessing little interest in its modern

structures-although its fine old Latin monastery is well. worth a visit but of unspeakable attraction, considered as the place where Jesus's childhood was passed, and as still exhibiting the natural features on which his thoughtful eyes so constantly looked. Nazareth is very much shut in, possessing just such a limited horizon as the towns on the east side of the Green Mountains on White River, Vermont. It looks in every direction toward hills. It is about three hundred feet above the plain of Esdraelon, which, however, is not visible from it. Its surface is very irregular, its streets deep gullies, almost impassable, and its houses, though all of stone, are mostly mean and unattractive. Like most Syrian towns, it looks best at a distance. And yet Nazareth has somehow a more civilized aspect than any town we have seen in Palestine. The people are a fine, handsome race, both men and women. I met a man as I rode into the town who might have sat as a model to Titian for his "Christ with the Money ;" and I am persuaded that the traditional face of Jesus is a genuine type of the Nazarene countenance, so many men and women reminding me of the peculiar features which the early Italian artists, especially the Venetians, give to Christ. Venice, deeply interested in the Crusades, must have had some artists in its military trains who visited Palestine and took studies of the Syrian face, and perhaps of the special types of the holy places. Nobody not on the ground can form any idea of the extent to which the Crusaders pushed their zeal, in church-building and church-decoration, on every spot hallowed by Christian traditions. In these churches art must have had some of its very earliest works dedicated to the sacred scenes which they marked, and of course it must have had portraits of Christ in historical pictures which would be taken from hints received on the spot—that is, from studies of the Nazarene face. I saw women at the well and

Women of Nazareth.

327 in the streets truly beautiful, and worthy of being the originals of Titian's or Raphael's Madonnas. They had, besides fair complexions, most regular features, soft eyes, and brilliant teeth. I can not say that they were specially modest, or in any way refined. There is a peculiar style of dress prevailing here, in which more colors than usual are blended, and where, over the loose trowsers, a petticoat, open at both sides to the waist, hangs in two straight breadths behind and before to the ankles. Silver rings are worn on the ankles of the women at the fountain. They carry their heavy, empty waterjars on their heads, balanced on one side in a coquettish way ; but when full they straighten them, and with a very prim and ugly walk bear them home. The whole village comes to one fountain for water and to wash clothes, and it is half a mile from the centre of the town.

The Church of the Annunciation was built in 1620 upon the old foundation of the Basilica, which claims to have been erected by Helena. It was much embellished by the Crusaders, but was destroyed by the Moslems in 1263, in their determined zeal to wipe out the hated footsteps of the Christians who had given them so much trouble in their two hundred years of crusading against the Crescent. The present Church is moderate in size, and is built over some crypts, which contain memorials of the Virgin Mary. Behind a granite pillar the angel Gabriel stood at the moment of the Annunciation. One column, held up by its capital, the lower half being gone, is believed by the peasants to be kept in its place by a miracle. The altar, with a poor picture of the Annunciation not redeemed by the Virgin's crown of gold and jewels (they may be as unreal as the stories connected with them), seems, judging by the crowd of pilgrims here, to be a special object of reverence. Under it, in the marble floor, are the words Verbum caro hic factum est. A recess or small chamber in the

rear of this grotto has been fabled to be the Virgin's kitchen, the house of Mary at the back of this grotto having been transported in 1291 by angels, first to Rannitz, in Dalmatia, and then to Loretto.

A little chapel to the north-east of this church claims to be built on the ground of Joseph's carpenter's shop, and contains an engraved copy of Hannibal Caracci's picture of Jesus working at his trade.

Another chapel is built over the flat rock, which tradition holds to be the place where Jesus usually ate with his disciples. The rock has many holes in the surface.

At the fountain, unquestionably in use in Jesus's daybeing the only spring of water in the neighborhood—one feels surer than in any other part of this place of being at a familiar resort of Mary and of Jesus himself. The women, from time immemorial, have in all this Eastern land been the drawers of water; and the fountain is the real centre of interest, the exchange and place of meeting for all the people. Here, if anywhere, would the Annunciation have been most likely to have occurred.

"The Mount of Precipitation," or place where the people of Nazareth would have thrown Jesus down, in their anger at his pretensions and teachings, is pointed out on a steep rock about forty feet high near the Maronite convent.

The deep seclusion of Nazareth is the most interesting thing connected with the history of a life which, for thirty years, was so obscure as our Lord's. Here, every thing must have invited concentration and meditation. The world was wholly shut out, and the place itself despised. Nothing is to

be seen from it, nor is it visible from any distance.

It is only from the hills far above it that the glorious views of Esdraelon and Carmel, Tabor and Hermon, may be had.. We felt, in leaving those heights and descending into Nazareth (its hill

Seclusion of our Lord's Early Life.

329 side position does not help its relative lowness), that we were experiencing the humility of that wonderful childhood and youth, from which bloomed so marvellously a brief life of public duty and teaching which has changed the fortunes of the human race in this and in all states of being.