GENERAL VIEW OF NAZARETH. 
The man must be insensible to the highest recollections of our being who can look on 
Nazareth without reverence for the might and mercy that once dwelt there. Generations 
pass away, and the noblest monuments of the hand of man follow them; but the hills, the 
valley, and the stream exist, on which the eye of the Lord of all gazed; the soil on which 
His sacred footsteps trod; the magnificent landscape in the midst of which He lived, working 
miracles, subduing the stubborn hearts of the multitude, and pronouncing to the Earth that 
“ The Kingdom was at hand.” 
The view from the hill above Nazareth is one of the most striking in Palestine. Beneath 
it lies the chief part of the noble Plain of Esdraelon. To the left is seen the summit of 
Mount Tabor, over intervening hills; with portions of the Little Hermon, Gilboa, and the 
opposite mountains of Samaria. The long line of Carmel is visible, stretching to the sea, 
with the Convent of Elias on its northern promontory, and the town of Caifa at its foot. In 
the West spreads the Mediterranean, always lovely, and reflecting every colour of the 
morning and evening sky. On the North opens out a verdant and beautiful plain, now 
called El-Buttauf. Beyond this plain, long ridges of hills, extending East and West, are 
overtopped by the mountains of Safed, crowned with that city. Towards the right is “ a 
sea of hills and mountains,” backed by the still higher ridge beyond the Lake of Tiberias, 
and on the N.E. by “ the majestic Hermon, with its icy crown.” 1 
The town of Nazareth (in Arabic En-Nasirah) lies on the western side of a narrow, 
oblong basin, extending from S.S.W. to N.N.E. twenty minutes in length and ten in 
breadth. The houses stand on the lower slope of the western hill, which rises steep and 
high above them: the dwellings are in general well built, and of stone; they have flat, 
terraced roofs, without the domes so common in Southern Palestine. The population is 
about three thousand souls, of which the Mahometans compose 120 families; the rest are 
Greek, Latin, and Maronite. 2 
The Monks have been as active, and as unfortunate, as usual, in assigning Scriptural 
events to localities in Nazareth and the adjoining country. The “ Mount of Precipitation” 
—“ the brow of the hill,” to which the people led Jesus, “ that they might cast him down 
headlong,” as narrated by St. Luke—is fixed by them at a precipice ovei’looking the Plain 
of Esdraelon, and nearly two miles from the town. But the improbability that a violent 
populace would have been content to lead the object of their indignation to so great a 
distance, when they might have cast him down from any of the surrounding cliffs, has 
induced the monks to move their imaginary Nazareth to the same hill. 
As no mention of miracle is made by the Evangelist in the rescue of our Lord, it has 
been doubted whether any divine interposition was wrought. Yet it is difficult to conceive 
Biblical Researches, iii. 183. 
2 Narrative of a Mission to the Jews, ii. 72. 
