CHURCH OF THE ANNUNCIATION. 
The Church is a lofty nave, with three elevations. The highest is occupied by the Choir 
of the monks; the lower by the people; and communicating with the Choir and the High 
Altar is a handsome staircase. A door from the Choir opens into the Convent. The 
Convent is rich in pictures and ornaments, in which the Church largely shares ; the 
columns and whoie interior of the building being also hung with damasked striped silk, 
which gives it a glowing appearance. Burckhardt speaks of this Church as excelled in 
Syria only by that of the Holy Sepulchre. “ Finding the door of the Church open,” says 
the author of the Biblical Researches, “ we went in : it was the hour of vespers, and the 
chaunting of the monks, sustained by the mellow tones of the organ, which came upon us 
unexpectedly, was solemn and affecting. The interior is small and plain, with massive 
arches ; the hanging of the walls produced a rich effect: the whole impression transported 
me back to Italy. A barrier was laid across the floor, not far from the entrance, as a 
warning not to advance farther.” A precaution, perhaps, adopted through fear of the 
plague, which prevailed at the time. 
It is, of course, not the province of these brief descriptions to discuss the conjectures of 
rival monks on the subject of those localities. From the strong competition of the Greek 
and Latin conventuals, it frequently arises that two spots are pointed out for the same 
event, and the disputants refuse to be reconciled. Thus the Greeks have their established 
scene of the Annunciation, but not on this spot. They allege that the Angel, not finding 
the Virgin in her home, had followed her to the fountain, whither she had gone for water, 
and there declared his divine mission. 
“ And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, 
named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of 
David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said. 
Hail, thou that art highly favoured ; the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou among 
women .” 1 
The most popularly honoured of all the relics of which Nazareth boasts, is the stone 
named “ the Table of our Lord.” This is a large flat slab of the common limestone 
of the country, fixed in the ground, at which our Lord is presumed to have dined before 
and after his resurrection. According to Hasselquist, it was formerly covered with 
sheet-iron, the nail-marks of which are yet to be seen. A Chapel has been built over it, 
and on the wall are copies of a Papal certificate, asserting its claims to reverence, and 
offering an indulgence of seven years “ to all who shall visit this Holy place, reciting there, 
at least, one Pater and one Ave.” “There is not,” says Dr. Clarke, “an object in Nazareth 
so much the resort of pilgrims, Greek, Romish, Arab, and even Turk, as this stone. The 
Greek and Latin pilgrims resorting to it from devotion, and the Arab and Turk to see the 
wonders which it is presumed to work on the devotees .” 2 
Luke, i. 26, 27. 
2 Travels in the Holy Land. 
