Page:Leo Tolstoi - Life Is Worth Living and Other Stories - tr. Adolphus Norraikow (1892).djvu/128

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Two Old Men.
121

prayed and lighted candles before an icona, or holy picture. From outside its walls they viewed the Temple of the Resurrection, which is erected over the spot where the sepulchre of our Lord is supposed to have been. Their view, however, was somewhat obstructed by the many other buildings which surround the sacred edifice.

On the first day they visited also a grotto in which the Virgin Mary is alleged to have taken shelter during her flight from Bethlehem, after which they paid a priest to sing a "Te Deum" and to put lighted candles on the altar. It had been their intention also to hear mass at the Lord's Tomb, but they were too late, and went instead to Abraham's Monastery, where they saw the spot on which the father of Israel prepared to offer up his son as a sacrifice to God. Afterward they visited the Church of St. James, which is erected where Christ is supposed to have appeared to Mary Magdalene.

Euthymus was shown by his companion all