FROM ACRE TO NAZARETH. 139 
selves not aware of having made ; and, it is ^^^^• 
possible, his Commentators may discern similar ^ . ■^— .^ 
instances in the brief record of our journey. 
But if the Travellers who have visited this 
country (and many of them were men of more 
than common talents) had been allowed full 
leisure for the inquiry, or had merely stated 
what they might have derived solely from a 
view of the country, abstracted from the consi- 
deration and detail of the lamentable mummery 
whereby the monks in all the Convents have 
gratified the credulity of every traveller for so 
many centuries, and which in their subsequent 
relations they seem to have copied from each 
other, we should have had the means of eluci- 
dating the Sacred Writings, perhaps in every 
instance, where the meaning has been " not 
determinable by the methods commonly used 
by learned men\" 
The House of St. Anne, at Sephoury, exhibited 
to us the commencement of that superstitious 
trumpery, which, for a long time, has con- 
stituted the chief object of devotion and of 
pilgrimage in the Holy Land, and of which we 
had aftei'wards instances without number*. 
(3) Sec the Title to the Work aI)ove mentioned. 
(4) A house, supposed to have belonged to the same persons, is also 
ahcivn in Jerusalem. 
K 2 
