FROM ACRE TO NAZARETH. 263 
place of the Virgin Mary. As all these sanctified places in 
the Holy Land, have some supposed miracle to exhibit, the 
monks of Nazareth have taken care not to be without their 
share in supernatural rarities; accordingly, the first things they 
show to strangers descending into this cave, are two stone pillars 
intrant of it; one whereof, separated from its base, is said to 
sustain its capital and part of its shaft miraculously in the air.- 
The fact is, that the capital and a piece of the shaft of a pillar 
of gray granite has been fastened on to the roof of the cave; 
and so clumsily is the rest of the hocus pocus contrived, that 
what is shown for the lower fragment of the same pillar resting 
upon the earth, is not of the same substance, but of Cipolino 
marble. About this pillar a different story has been related to 
almost every traveller since the trick was first devised. Man?]-' 
drell,* and Egmont and HeymaD,f were told, that it was 
broken by a pacha in search of hidden treasure, who was 
struck with blindness for his impiety. We were assured that 
it separated in this manner when the angel announced to the 
Virgin the tidings of her conception.^; The monks had placed 
a rail, to prevent persons infected with the plague from coming 
to rub against these pillars : this had been, for a great number 
of years, their constant practice, whenever afflicted with any 
sickness. The reputation of the broken pjllar, for healing every 
kind of disease, prevails all over Galilee.? 
It is from extravagances of this kind, constituting a com¬ 
plete system of low mercenary speculation and priestcraft 
throughout this country, that devout, but weak men, unable to 
discriminate between monkish mummery and simple truth, have 
considered the whole series of topographical evidence as one 
tissue of imposture, and have left the Holy Land worse Chris¬ 
tians than they were when they arrived. Credulity and scep^ 
ticism are neighbouring extremes: whosoever abandons either 
of these, generally admits the oilier. It is hardly possible to 
view the mind of man in a more forlorn and degraded state, 
than when completely subdued by superstition; yet this view 
of it is presented over a very considerable portion of the 
earth; over all Asia, Africa, almost all America, and more 
than two-thirds of Europe: indeed, it is difficult to say where 
society exists without betraying some or other of its modifica¬ 
tions; nor can there be suggested a more striking proof of the 
* Journ. from Aleppo.to Jerusalem, p. 113 Oxf. 1721. 
t Travels through Europe, Asia, fee. vol. ii. p. 17. Lond. 1759. 
I Lube. i. 28. . 
^Travels through Europe, Asia, fee. vol.di, p. ; 17, Lend. 1759? ; 
