RUINS OF JERUSALEM. 531 



a fissure or cleft in the natural rock ; and this, they say, happened 

 at the crucifixion. Who shall presume to contradict the tu!<-? 

 But, to complete the naivete of the tradition, it is al--o added, that 

 the head of Adam was found within the fissure. Then, if the 

 traveller has not already heard and seen enough to make him re. 

 gret his wasted time, he may ascend by a few steps into a room 

 above. There they will shew him the same crack again ; and imme- 

 diately in front of it, a modern altar. This they venerate as Mount 

 Calvary, the place of crucifixion ; exhibiting upon this contracted 

 piece of masonry the marks, or holes, of the three crosses, without 

 the smallest regard to the space necessary for their erection. After t 

 this he may be conducted through such a farrago of absurdities, that 

 it is wonderful the learned mon, who have described Jerusalem, 

 should have filled their pages with any serious detail of them. 

 Nothing, however, can surpass the fidelity with which Sandys 

 has particularized every circumstance of all this trumpery ; and 

 his rude cuts are characterized by equal exactness. Among 

 others, should be mentioned the place where the cross was found ; 

 because the identity of the timber, which has since supplied all 

 Christendom with its reliques, was confirmed by a miracle, proof 

 equally infallible with that afforded by the eagle at the tomb of 

 Theseus, in the isle of Scyra, when Cimon the Athenian sought the 

 bones of the son of ^Egeus 



It is time to quit these degrading fallacies : let us break from our 

 monkish instructors ; and, instead of viewing Jerusalem as pil- 

 grims, examine it by the light of history, with the Bible in our 

 hands. We shall thus find many interesting objects of contempla- 

 tion. If Mount Calvary has sunk beneath the overwhelming in. 

 fiuence of superstition, studiously endeavouring to modify and to 

 disfigure it, through so many ages; if the situation of Mount Sion 

 yet remains to be ascertained ; the Mount of Olives, undisguised by 

 fanatical labours, exhibits the appearance it presented in all the 

 periods of its history. From its elevated summit almost all the 

 principal features of the city may be discerned, and the changes 

 that eighteen centuries have wrought in its topography may perhaps 

 be ascertained. The features of nature continue the same, though 

 works of art have been done away : the beautiful gate of the teinple 

 is no more.; but Siloa's fountain haply flows, and Kedron some, 

 times murmurs in the valley of Jehosaphat. 



It was this resolve, and the determination of using our owu 



2 M2 



