332 
clar'&eY travels. 
two parts. Haying entered the first part, which is a kind of 
antechapel, they shew you, before the mouth of what is called 
the Sepulchre, the stone whereon the angel sat: this is a block 
of white marble, neither corresponding with the mouth of the 
sepulchre, nor with the substance from which it must have 
been hewn ; for the rocks of Jerusalem are all of common cora» 
pact limestone.* Shaw, speaking of the Holy Sepulchre, says,f 
that all the surrounding rocks were cut away, to form the level 
of the church ; so that now it is “ a grotto above ground : n 
but even this is not true : there are no remains whatsoever of 
any ancient known sepulchre, that, with the most attentive and 
scrupulous examination, we could possibly discover. The 
sides consist of thick slabs of that beautiful breccia, vulgarly 
called verd antique marble : and over the entrance, which is 
rugged and broken, owing to the pieces carried off as reliques, 
the substance is of the same nature, j All that can therefore 
now be affirmed with any shadow of reason, is this; that, if 
Helena had reason to believe she could identify the spot 
where the sepulchre was, she took especial care to remove 
every existing trace of it, in order to introduce the fanciful 
and modern work which notv remains. The place may be the 
same pointed out to her; but not a remnant of the original 
sepulchre can now be ascertained. Yet, with all our scepti¬ 
cal feelings thus awakened, it may prove how powerful the ef¬ 
fect of sympathy is, if we confess that, when we entered into 
the Sanctum Sanctorum^ and beheld, by the light of lamps, 
there continualty burning, the venerable figure of an aged 
monk, with streaming eyes, and a long white beard, pointing 
to the place “ where the body of our Lord was and calling 
upon us to Ci kneel and experience pardon for our sins’ 5 -- 
we knelt, and participated in the feelings of more credulous 
* Accordingto some, however, the stone belonging to the mouth ofthe Sepulchre is 
t reserved elsewhere; and this is, said to be a part of the tomb, placed to receive the 
isses of the pilgrims, 
f Shaw’s Travel’s, p,264. Loud. 1757. 
t These objections are not new ; they were urged long ago; and Quaresmius tm ; 
dertook to_ answer them. The reader may be amused by the style in which he opens 
his refutation. “ Audivi normullos nebulones Occidentales kaereticos detrakentes iis 
quae diiuntvr dejdm memorato sacratissimo Domini nostri Jesu C/iristi Sepulchro , cerntl- 
hus momentlyatiuncuKs negantes iilud vere esse in quo position- fuit corpus Jesu &e. 
(Vid. cap. 14. lib. v. Eiucid, T. S.) This chapter is entitled 4i Objectiones non - - 
BULLAE Q; 171 B U S IMPUGNATUR VERITAS SANCT1SSIMI SePULCHRI.” In the next 
(chap, xv.) he undertakes to refute the objections made by Gulielmus de Baldensel; 
and these are precisely the same now urged by the author/ “ Momemtritum Cfiristi 
says G. de Baldensel, “ erat excisum in petra viva, &c. iilud verb ex-petris'pluri- 
bus est comnositum, de novo conglutinato etemento.” Quaresmius says, this 
e/pjeclion applied only to the extendi covering of the Senulthre ; but this is not 
