CONFLICTS OF THE FAITHS.

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monasteries. I was told that nearly a hundred houses in the city belong to them. It is this peculiarity in real property which contributes also to make Jerusalem a Holy City.

Unfortunately it would be a mistake to suppose that among the Christian churches at Jerusalem fraternal amity prevails; although the idea is so natural that Christian brethren, though separated by forms of belief, would precisely here, over the sepulchre of the Saviour, if anywhere, offer to each other the hand of conciliating affection. The conflicting strife which prevails amongst all, especially between the Greeks, Latins, and Armenians (for the poor Copts, as well as the few Syrians and Abyssinians, cannot be taken into consideration), presents an exceedingly melancholy spectacle. The scandal is increased by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre being usually made the scene of strife. Since the Crusades, for many centuries the Latins have maintained the upper hand, in as far as they possessed its largest portion as their property; by degrees they have been driven back by the Greeks to a very limited occupancy other parts are possessed by the Armenians, whilst only one altar belongs to the Copts, and another to the Syrians. Contested claims make the great bodies hostile and embittered against each other they even do not forbear to disturb and ridicule each other's religious ceremonies a charge especially made against the Greeks by the Catholics. What in comparison with this desecration of the holy places was the traffic in doves and the money-changing formerly practised in the courts of the Temple (Matt. xxi. 12.), which excited the indignation of our Lord? Still I believe it is but rarely, and then only under the influence of considerable excitement, that these sad exhibitions occur. An instance of the selfishness of the Greeks I was a witness to, in their smearing the beautiful marble pillars and their ornamental capitals, even to rendering these undistinguishable, for the purpose of obliterating Latin inscriptions, and superseding them by Greek ones. In addition to this, the procurator dei Forestieri mentioned an anecdote of contemptible servility on the part of the Greek monks. They had very recently served coffee with their own hands to the pasha of Jerusalem, who had established his divan in the church to the right of the Sepulchre, close to the altar of Calvary.

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But I received the most painful shock from what was related to me by eye-witnesses of the so-called holy fire of the Greeks and Armenians during the night of Easter eve; a ceremony which must forcibly destroy all the respect of Mahometans for the Christian religion. The worst of this is not the evident deception practised in the miracle, but the lowness of the debauchery which occupies this nocturnal festival, and approximates it to the orgies of the heathen. It

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is said that Greek priests forget themselves in sympathy with Turkish dervises, who, it is well known, are uncontrolled by the laws of decency and morality.

At one of these fire-miracles, Ibrahim Pasha, as lord of Syria, played the part which was performed by Napoleon in the bloodmiracle of Naples. At Naples the blood of the celebrated relic would not flow; there was in consequence a great disturbance amongst the populace. Napoleon then commanded that it should flow instantly; it did so. Ibrahim did the same with the tardy fire, looking down upon the ceremony from the gallery of the Greeks. The conduct of the Mahometan inhabitants of Jerusalem would be far more overbearing towards the Christians, were it not for fear of the consuls, amongst whom the French strives to exercise most authority. He considers himself, according to his own expression, as the protector of the pasha himself; yet, shortly before my arrival, a servant of his was assassinated, without even his claiming satisfaction; but it was in a dishonourable amour, wherein the Oriental understands no joking.

The customary expression in Jerusalem-" with respect be it said a Christian"-is characteristic of the sentiments of the Mahometans towards the Christians. The same honourable prefix is applied also to the Jews, and (which will be valued by gallants amongst us) also to the fair sex. "A lady, and with respect be it said," says the Mahometan in Jerusalem.

How very easily travellers get into unpleasant fracas with the Arab population was proved to me by a German painter, who, in sketching an ancient wall, was vexatiously annoyed, and beaten with his own stick, the most convenient instrument at hand.

Albanians, whom I saw striding up and down the streets, are considered as the most dangerous persons to meet. They have a very cavalierlike respect for human life, and this was in fullest force at the time of my residence in Jerusalem, for the pasha was, as it were, then denuded of almost all military strength. It was on that account, possibly, that the closing of the gates took place punctually at sunset; the visits of the restless warlike Bedouins of the vicinity might very easily have placed the Holy City in a state of considerable difficulty.

THE ANGLICAN BISHOPRIC AT JERUSALEM.

The notice I have just taken of the wretched condition of the Oriental churches, as representatives of Christianity, compared with those which are in direct opposition to it, leads me incidentally to the

Anglican bishopric; for one of the fundamental ideas which suggested its establishment was, to exhibit Christianity worthily to the eyes of Mahometan and Jewish Orientals, as well as to the so deeply sunken Oriental Christians themselves. That the idea was great and noble requires not a word of recognition; but has the idea been happily carried out since the diocesan's family made their entry into Jerusalem with such peculiar ceremony? This entry was jocosely described to me by one of the Catholic fraternity, and he related that the "Ecco il vescovo was followed by the spectators exclaiming with astonishment, "Ecco la vescova," and this by "Ecco i vescovini." I might assert that this was absolutely an attack upon Protestantism. It is scarcely questionable that Greeks and Catholics both, as well as the collective Oriental churches, received much annoyance by the appointment of a bishop with such a family retinue, and had thus presented to them an opportunity for scandalising in the very centre of the new territory of conversion. At least, the bishop himself

should have been, necessarily, all the more sober and dignified. I hope that my doubts as to the propriety of the selection may be unfulfilled.

It is well known that it has been preferred to select a converted Jew, because the conversion of the Jews in Palestine has been the chief object of the establishment of a bishopric in Jerusalem. If I am correctly informed, both as to the style of preaching of one of the bishop's missionaries and the mode practised in the conversion of Jews in Jerusalem, I do not find that the dignity of Protestantism has been promoted by either. According to that mode of preaching, the Jews are inoculated with a modern Pharisaism; they seem as those most peculiarly—ay, even exclusively—called to be perfect Christians; they are invited, by stepping over, to renew their ancient hereditary privileges over us. Naturally, this dogmatical novelty gratifies the Jewish-Christian missionaries themselves far more than all the other Protestants. One of the latter told me that he had openly expressed his disgust to the preacher, and had prohibited his pastoral visits. Here and there similar views may be entertained. An Englishman of distinction had two suitors for the hand of his daughter: one was a baptized Israelite, and he was unconditionally preferred by the father out of respect to his character as Jewish Christian.

With respect to the baptism of converts in Jerusalem it is, as far as I know, framed to an accommodation with the most modern Judaism. Six thousand piastres (about fifty pounds!) are offered to the convert as a premium ; other advantages are said likewise to be considerable. Do they think that to act thus is in the spirit of Christ? Perhaps rather in the spirit of Christ's temporal viceregent. But what does Protestantism say to this? Moreover, I consider

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Jerusalem as the most unfavourable position for the conversion of Jews. Here Jewish fanaticism is domiciled; here the Jew feels happy in being a Jew; here he is surrounded with reminiscences which from childhood upwards have been dear and sacred to him. Those Jews who, notwithstanding, have been converted in Jerusalem, were described to me as persons who had sustained, and that deservedly, a degradation by their fellow believers. Thus golden nets are wrought, and stinking fish are caught. A true caricature of conversion has been recently given. A Jew was first baptized in Hungary as a Calvinist, in Vienna he became a Catholic, in Walachia, a Walachian Christian, and, lastly, an Anglican Protestant under Bishop Alexander. Who would guarantee that this individual will not close his career of conversion by a return to Judaism? It is

a fact that recently a baptized Jew became a Jew again very soon after his baptism. But the most remarkable phenomenon that the annals of conversion can offer in modern times is that furnished by a Protestant of Dantzic. This individual was converted to Judaism in Jerusalem. This is easily understood. If English gold will make Christians, so can Jewish gold make Jews. The converted Dantzicker was surrounded by the brethren of his new faith with a halo of veneration, and sent to Frankfort on the Main at the general cost to pursue his higher studies.

But I am far from denying that the bishopric, although not answering to its ideal, still fulfils many hopes and many wishes; for through the institution, appended to the bishopric, of the two Christian schools, the one for children, the other specially for new Jewish-Christian emissaries, it has called into existence what may be accompanied with manifold blessings.

But the Anglican bishopric in Jerusalem presents other aspects which require to be viewed. It contains the germ of an attempt towards a union of Protestant ecclesiastical elements, which hitherto in Europe have remained strictly separated. Episcopal Anglicanism has hereby connected itself in sisterly union with German Protestantism. Before I proceed to the illustration of this sisterly connection, I must say a few words in explanation of the distinguishing character of the normal forms of the two Churches; as far, namely, as it comes within the scope of my plan.

When the Reformation of Luther and Calvin founded the Evangelical Church by the rupture with Rome, it rejected, as a fundamental principle of the Roman hierarchy, the dogma of the episcopal succession. According to this dogma, the true church is that only whose bishops, as bearers of the Holy Ghost, descend in an uninterrupted line from the apostles and from Christ himself. The bishops, with the primates at their head, represent conjunctively the true Church, and in matters of faith are infallible.

DISTINCTION OF THE ENGLISH EPISCOPAL

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The bishop, in his peculiar character of bearer and mediator of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church, has the exclusive administration of two sacraments, those of ordination and confirmation, in absolute distinction from the rest of the clergy.

This dogma necessarily was destroyed when the reformers instituted as sole signs of the true Church, the pure promulgation of the Gospel and the just administration of the sacraments, that is to say, of the Lord's Supper and of Baptism, and removed by the idea of the general priesthood of the community the essential distinction between the rank of priests and of ordinary Christians. They could, therefore, far less admit of any distinction among the clergy themselves; thence is it that the ordination which the country pastor receives is valid also for the general superintendent; that ordination remained no exclusive privilege of the bishop, and that confirmation could be made by all the clergy with equal authority.

On the other hand the episcopal church of England is designated as episcopal; because, by the admission of the superior authority of the bishops, it possesses a distinguishing difference from all other protestant churches, which indeed have also bishops, but bishops who do not possess any essential superior authority.

The English High Church alone claims for its bishops both the necessity of an especial ordination and the exclusive administration of ordination and confirmation. And she believes, besides, that she stands in holy connection with the primitive apostolic Church by the link of an uninterrupted episcopal succession, and finds in it an excellent wall of defence against the changeableness of human forms and systems; and also venerates in it the possession of elect mediators and chosen organs of its community; and finally recognises within it a sure guarantee of presenting the idea of the true Church within her own bosom. All this is an undeniable fact, confirmed both by constant practice and by the language of theology.

Nevertheless the question is asked, Whether the episcopal church considers the peculiarity which approximates it as much to the Catholic church as it removes it from those of Luther and Calvin, merely be a matter of government? or whether it attaches thereto the character and conditions of the true Church?

The course pursued by the Catholic church cannot be, for three reasons, by any means a matter of indifference. In the first place, the confession of the Anglican church contains nothing respecting any difference in the episcopal character between the English and Romish hierarchy. Thus the idea of the identity of the former with the latter lies very proximate, even indeed notwithstanding the rejection of the pope for, on the one side, the bishops of England have their primate; and, on the other side, the supreme temporal power

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