Page:Eothen, or, Traces of travel brought home from the East by Kinglake, Alexander William.djvu/100

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84

EOTHEN.

[CHAP. IX.

CHAPTER IX.

The Sanctuary.

I crossed the plain of Esdraelon, and entered amongst the hills of beautiful Galilee. It was at sunset that my path brought me sharply round into the gorge of a little valley, and close upon a grey mass of dwellings that lay happily nestled in the lap of the mountain. There was one only shining point still touched with the light of the sun, who had set for all besides; a brave sign this to "holy" Shereef, and the rest of my Moslem men, for the one glittering summit was the head of a minaret, and the rest of the seeming village that had veiled itself so meekly under the shades of evening was Christian Nazareth!

Within the precincts of the Latin convent in which I was quartered, there stands the great Catholic church which encloses the Sanctuary—the dwelling of the Blessed Virgin.^[1] This is a

↑ The Greek Church does not recognize this as the true Sanctuary, and many Protestants look upon all the traditions, by which it is attempted to ascertain the holy places of Palestine, as utterly fabulous. For myself, I do not mean either to affirm or deny the correctness of the opinion which has fixed upon this as the true site, but merely to mention it as a belief entertained, without question, by my brethren of the Latin church, whose guest I was at the time. It would be a great aggravation of the trouble of writing about these matters, if I were to stop in the midst of every sentence for the purpose of saying "so-called" or "so it is said," and would, besides, sound very ungraciously; yet I am anxious to be literally true in all I write. Now, thus it is that I mean to get over my difficulty. Whenever, in this great bundle of papers, or book (if book it is to be), you see any words about matters of religion which would seem to involve the assertion of my own opinion, you are to understand me, just as if one or other of the qualifying phrases above mentioned, had been actually inserted in every sentence. My general direction for you to construe me thus, will render all that I write as strictly and accurately true, as if I had every time lugged in a formal declaration of the fact, that I was merely expressing the notions of other people.

[1] The Greek Church does not recognize this as the true Sanctuary, and many Protestants look upon all the traditions, by which it is attempted to ascertain the holy places of Palestine, as utterly fabulous. For myself, I do not mean either to affirm or deny the correctness of the opinion which has fixed upon this as the true site, but merely to mention it as a belief entertained, without question, by my brethren of the Latin church, whose guest I was at the time. It would be a great aggravation of the trouble of writing about these matters, if I were to stop in the midst of every sentence for the purpose of saying "so-called" or "so it is said," and would, besides, sound very ungraciously; yet I am anxious to be literally true in all I write. Now, thus it is that I mean to get over my difficulty. Whenever, in this great bundle of papers, or book (if book it is to be), you see any words about matters of religion which would seem to involve the assertion of my own opinion, you are to understand me, just as if one or other of the qualifying phrases above mentioned, had been actually inserted in every sentence. My general direction for you to construe me thus, will render all that I write as strictly and accurately true, as if I had every time lugged in a formal declaration of the fact, that I was merely expressing the notions of other people.

[1]