BETHLEHEM.
The one spot in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem which one must visit is
Bethlehem, the birthplace of the Christ, the music of whose voice and the
lustre of whose life have brightened and bettered all the ages, dark and
dreary as many of them have been, ever since. It is difficult to visit
such a place alone; it is impossible to visit it in company with a
garrulous and credulous crowd. I had for companions an esteemed
clergyman from Leeds and an Oxford scholar, a man of infinite learning
and wit. There had been rain overnight, and the dust was not so much of
a nuisance as it generally is, and, besides, we had a refreshing breeze.
We did the whole trip between breakfast and lunch. Starting in one of
the shabby-looking carriages—the only available vehicle in these parts,
which one expects to break down every minute—drawn by a couple of
half-starved steeds, it rattled along over the stones at a speed for
which one was scarcely prepared. On my way I learned a fact that I may
not have mentioned before—viz., that at Constantinople the Sultan had
given special orders for the comfort of the excursionists arriving in the
_Midnight Sun_ by placing a guard of soldiers around the ship to keep off
the crowd, and by giving special orders that the party were to be
everywhere received with courtesy and respect. As regards myself, seeing
that not very long since the Sultan had ordered one of my books to be
burnt, I must own that I felt his conduct in this matter to redound very
much to his credit.
We leave our hotel by the road running to the right from outside the
Jaffa Gate, and admire very much the long range of neat almshouses built
for the poor Jews by the late Sir Moses Montefiore, leaving the Hill of
Evil Counsel to the left, and the pretty, red-roofed, clean-looking
village inhabited by the German Templars’ community to the right. Then
the road passes by the Valley of Rephaim on the right, where David fought
twice with the Philistines and conquered them, the signal for the battle
the second time being given by a ‘going in the tops of the
mulberry-trees,’ which betokened the presence of the Lord. A round stone
on the left denotes the well in which, when quenching their thirst, the
Wise Men from the East beheld once more reflected in its waters, to their
‘exceeding great joy,’ the star which led them in search of the new-born
King of the Jews. On our left is the convent of Mar Elias, now occupied
by a brotherhood belonging to the Greek Church. Far off on our right is
Giloh, white and glittering in the sun, where dwelt Ahithophel, the
Gilonite, David’s counsellor. It is now a village inhabited exclusively
by Christians.
Again, on our right, we come to Rachel’s Tomb, at a point where the great
highroad to Hebron is left for the road to Bethlehem. There is no
dispute as to the identity of Rachel’s tomb; at any rate, for ages the
same legend has been connected with the spot. For hundreds of years the
site was marked by a pyramid of twelve stones, placed there for the
twelve tribes of Israel. The present monument, built by the Moslems, is
white—as every building is in this part of the world—an oblong erection,
with a small dome on the top. One of my learned friends points to the
whiteness of [Picture: Bethlehem. (From a Photograph by Fradelle and
Young)] the limestone which lines all the roads, and which is utilized in
all the buildings, whether private or public, as an illustration of the
falsehood of the legend connected with the home of Our Lady of Loretto,
which, according to monkish legend, flew all the way from Palestine to
Italy, where yet it remains. The stone of that building is red, a
significant proof of the falsehood of the tale. The next point of
interest is David’s Well, in commemoration of the incident recorded in
Samuel, when the Philistines being in possession of the town, and David
in a hold in or near Cave Adullam, he said: ‘Oh that one would give me
drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate! And
the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines, and drew
water out of the well of Bethlehem, which was by the gate, and took it
and brought it to David; nevertheless, he would not drink thereof, but
poured it out unto the Lord. And he said . . . Is not this the blood of
the men that went in jeopardy of their lives?’
And now I am in Bethlehem—not a simple country village, as many imagine,
but a densely-populated town, with winding, narrow ways, where men and
women and children, camels, donkeys, and carriages, seem mixed up in wild
disorder. On every side we are shut in with habitations—stony, bare of
windows, built high up, with here and there a shop, but chiefly with a
simple door on the ground-floor; and then we dash into the market-place,
and apparently it is market-day, and half of the open space is filled
with buyers and sellers in many-coloured garments of the East; and down
on us come the guides and small pedlars, shrieking, ejaculating,
spluttering in broken English, just as Byron tells us the Assyrian came
down like the wolf on the fold.
We enter the Church of the Nativity, regarded as the very oldest specimen
of Christian architecture; and a very ugly building it is. In one of the
remote quarters I came to an old stone font, bearing the inscription:
‘For the memory, repose and forgiveness of sinners, of whom the Lord
knows the name.’ Here, in 1161, Baldwin was crowned King of Jerusalem.
Look up at the roof as you pass along, of pure wood and lead, furnished
in 1482 by Edward IV. of England and Philip of Burgundy. The
guardianship of the church is divided among Greeks, Armenians, and
Latins. We are supplied with tapers, and go down in the cave where the
Christ was born. A little further on is the place of the manger in which
He was laid. In another section of the cave, all hewn out of the solid
rock, Joseph is said to have slept when he was warned by God in a dream
to take Mary and her child and fly into Egypt. Again, we are shown the
spot where the children massacred by King Herod were interred. Fifteen
lamps perpetually illuminate the subterranean Church of the Nativity,
near which is the Altar of the Adoration, which commemorates the visit of
the Magi. Amidst darkness visible we make our way to the cave in which
St. Jerome wrote his great work, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into
the Vulgate or Latin tongue. It is a dark and dreary spot, and near by
we are shown his tomb. One can scarce credit the story of his having
done such work in such a corner, or believe that there he lived to reach
the ripe age of ninety-two. A year in such a spot would be enough to
kill an ordinary orthodox Christian in these degenerate days. I make my
exit speedily into the upper air. I have seen enough for one day; no
lying legend can tempt me further. The enormous pile of churches built
up over the sacred sites, and inhabited by priests of rival Churches, who
hate each other like poison, are too much for me.
Bethlehem is the market-place of the Dead Sea Bedouins, and also of the
numerous small towns and villages in the vicinity, and has besides some
nourishing manufactures of its own. Its inhabitants are almost
exclusively Christian. The people are chiefly employed in the production
of embroidered dresses, and in carving in a beautiful way
mother-of-pearl. I hear that they are an intelligent and industrious
people, and that there are plenty of schools for the children. The women
are said to be fair, but I see none such. On our way back we are shown
the Field of the Shepherds, sloping up a neighbouring hill. It was there
the angel of the Lord appeared to them as they watched their sheep by
night. We pass by also the Pools of Solomon—three reservoirs made by the
great King for supplying the inhabitants of Jerusalem with water. All
the country round is a scene of great activity, as is evident from the
enormous amount of terraces to be seen everywhere planted with the
universal olive-tree. But at this time we see nothing but stones, with
here and there a few black goats climbing the mountain-sides; all life
seems to have withered up under the scorching sun. The Wells of Solomon
contain no water, the hills no sign of vegetation. They are dry, and so
are we.
On the whole, after my visit to Bethlehem, I quite agree with an American
writer—the Rev. Mr. Tompkins—in his remarks on the church built by the
Empress Helena. While vast, imposing, and suggestive of past glory, it
is a fitting monument of that kind of Christianity which, let us hope, is
relegated to the past. No instance of an enormous expensive building
could show more clearly the folly of erecting to God that which has no
earthly use. Unless men can see in future ages that Christianity is for
man, and not for God, I fancy that religion will perish from the earth.
To-day one stands in this edifice, which in point of size is justly
comparable with any church in the world, and wonders what rash folly ever
possessed the Empress to waste so much money. It is so dreary, so cold,
so deserted, so utterly the shell of Christianity, that Christianity
seems a very farce right here where it began.