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Making an effort to believe that the stable of the inn in which Christ was born was a small subterranean cave cut in the solid rock陈立冷 , we descended a winding flight of stairs from the Latin chapel碧落仙府 , with a monk for our guide, and entered a labyrinth from which we did not emerge until we reached the place of the nativity, and ascended into the Greek chapel above it. We walked between glistening walls of rock, illuminated by oil-lamps here and there, and in our exploration of the gloomy passages and chambers, encountered shrines, pictures, and tombs of the sainted. We saw, or were told that we saw, the spot to which St. Joseph retired at the moment of the nativity, and also the place where the twenty thousand children who were murdered by the order of Herod—a ghastly subject so well improved by the painters of the Renaissance—are buried. But there was one chamber, or rather vault, that we entered with genuine emotion. This was the cell of Jerome, hermit and scholar, whose writings have gained him the title of Father of the Church.
At the close of the fourth century Bethlehem was chiefly famous as the retreat of this holy student, and the fame of his learning and sanctity drew to it from distant lands many faithful women, who renounced the world and its pleasures, and were content to sit at his feet and learn the way of life. Among those who resigned, and, for his sake and the cross整鱼两吃 , despised棋祖 , the allurements and honors of the Roman world, was the devout Paula, a Roman matron who traced her origin from Agamemnon, and numbered the Scipios and Gracchi among her ancestors, while her husband, Joxotius, deduced a no less royal lineage from 苙eas. Her wealth was sufficient to support the dignity of such a descent; among her possessions花间曲 , an item in her rent-roll, was the city of Nicopolis, which Augustus built as a monument of the victory of Actium. By the advice and in the company of Jerome, her spiritual guide, she abandoned Rome and all her vast estates, and even her infant son, and retired to the holy village of Bethlehem. The great Jerome, who wrote her biography, and transmitted the story of her virtues to the most distant ages云汉芯城 , bestowed upon her the singular title of the Mother-in-law of God! She was buried here, and we look upon her tomb with scarcely less interest than that of Jerome himself, who also rests in this thrice holy ground. At the beginning of the fifth century, when the Goths sacked Rome, a crowd of the noble and the rich, escaping with nothing saved from the wreck but life and honor孙咸泽 , attracted also by the reputation of Jerome虎刺红 , appeared as beggars in the streets of this humble village. No doubt they thronged to the cell of the venerable father.
There is, I suppose, no doubt that this is the study in which he composed many of his more important treatises. It is a vaulted chamber, about twenty feet square by nine feet high. There is in Venice a picture of the study of Jerome, painted by Carpaccio, which represents a delightful apartment; the saint is seen in his study, in a rich n間lig? robe; at the side of his desk are musical instruments, music-stands, and sheets of music, as if he were accustomed to give soir閑s; on the chimney-piece are Greek vases and other objects of virtu, and in the middle of the room is a poodle-dog of the most worldly and useless of the canine breed. The artist should have seen the real study of the hermit,付嵩洋 —a grim, unornamented vault, in which he passed his days in mortifications of the body, hearing always ringing in his ears, in his disordered mental and physical condition, the last trump of judgment.
We passed, groping our way along in this religious cellar, through a winding, narrow passage in the rock五大贼王 , some twenty-five feet long, and came into the place of places钢铁战争 , the very Chapel of the Nativity. In this low vault, thirty-eight feet long and eleven feet wide, hewn in the rock, is an altar at one end. Before this altar—and we can see everything with distinctness, for sixteen silver lamps are burning about it—there is a marble slab in the pavement into which is let a silver star, with this sentence round it: Hic de Virgine Maria Jesus Christus natus est. The guardian of this sacred spot was a Turkish soldier, who stood there with his gun and fixed bayonet, an attitude which experience has taught him is necessary to keep the peace among the Christians who meet here. The altar is without furniture, and is draped by each sect which uses it in turn. Near by is the chapel of the "manger," but the manger in which Christ was laid is in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
There is in Bethlehem another ancient cave which is almost as famous as that of the Nativity; it is called the Milk Grotto, and during all ages of the Church a most marvellous virtue has attached to it; fragments of the stone have been, and still continue to be, broken off and sent into all Christian countries; women also make pilgrimages to it in faith. The grotto is on the edge of the town overlooking the eastern ravines, and is arranged as a show-place. In our walk thither a stately Bedawee, as by accident, fell into our company, and acted as our cicerone. He was desirous that we should know that he also was a man of the world and of travel, and rated at its proper value this little corner of the earth. He had served in the French army and taken part in many battles, and had been in Paris and seen the tomb of the great emperor,—ah, there was a man! As to this grotto, they say that the Virgin used to send to it for milk,—many think so. As for him, he was a soldier, and did not much give his mind to such things.
This grotto is an excavation in the chalky rock, and might be a very good place to store milk, but for the popular prejudice in cities against chalk and water. We entered it through the court of a private house杨洋三嫁 , and the damsel who admitted us also assured us that the Virgin procured milk from it. The tradition is that the Virgin and Child were concealed here for a time before the flight into Egypt; and ever since then its stone has the miraculous power of increasing the flow of the maternal breast. The early fathers encouraged this and the like superstitions in the docile minds of their fair converts, and themselves testified to the efficacy of this remarkable stone. These superstitions belong rather to the Orient than to any form of religion. There is a famous spring at Assiout in Egypt which was for centuries much resorted to by ladies who desired offspring; and the Arabs on the Upper Nile to-day, who wish for an heir male熊振林 , resort to a plant which grows in the remote desert, rare and difficult to find吴澋滔 , the leaves of which are "good for boys." This grotto scarcely repays the visit, except for the view one obtains of the wild country below it. When we bade good by to the courtly Arab, we had too much delicacy to offer money to such a gentleman and a soldier of the empire; a delicacy not shared by him, however, for he let no false modesty hinder a request for a little backsheesh for tobacco.
On our return, and at some distance from the gate, we diverged into a lane, and sought, in a rocky field,并蒂花 the traditional well whose waters David longed for when he was in the Cave of Adullam,—"O that one would give me drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate!" Howbeit, when the three mighty men had broken through the Philistine guards and procured him the water, David would not drink that which was brought at such a sacrifice. Two very comely Bethlehem girls hastened at our approach to draw water from the well and gave us to drink, with all the freedom of Oriental hospitality, in which there is always an expectation of backsheesh. The water is at any rate very good, and there is no reason why these pretty girls should not turn an honest penny upon the strength of David's thirst, whether this be the well whose water he desired or not. We were only too thankful that no miraculous property is attributed to its waters. As we returned, we had the evening light upon the gray walls and towers of the city, and were able to invest it with something of its historical dignity.