CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 73 without emotion is an insensible being, a being by himself. I should even doubt whether such a one ever existed, if it were not too certain that there have been seen travellers belonging to christendom, at least by baptism, who have made it an impious glory to enter these awful places with a levity full of insolence, casting around them looks of mingled curiosity and derision, measuring with daring eye what the pious crowd in its deep devotion scarcely presumed to contemplate, and having the air of being come, like the Jews, for the purpose of solemnly denying the Redemption, and telling Jesus Christ, as it were, to his face: "We will not have thee to reign over us!" The streets leading to the Holy Sepulchre are muddy, partly unpaved, and rather narrow. From whichever side you come, you are obliged to pass through a low and narrow doorway before you can reach the open space in front of the church. The façade evidently dates from the time of the emperor Constantine; it is irregular and disfigured by the buildings around it, buildings which form part of it, and which the Greeks and the Armenians have seized for themselves. Eusebius, the ecclesiastical historian, has preserved the letter in which Constantine orders Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, to build a magnificent church on the spot where the mystery of our redemption was accomplished. Three hundred years after its erection, this church was sacked by Chosroes II. king of Persia, and, unfortunately, the cross was carried off. Heraclius reconquered that inestimable treasure, and Modestus, bishop of Jerusalem, re-established the VOL. I. E 74 CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. church. Not long afterwards, the Caliph Omar made himself master of Jerusalem; but he showed favour to the Christians, who, during his reign, enjoyed the free exercise of their religion. In 1009, Hakem, sultan of Egypt, destroyed once more the holy places. From that period they suffered more or less till the memorable time when the Crusaders, in 1099, gained possession of Jerusalem, and rescued the tomb of Christ from the hands of infidels. God did not permit the holy city to continue long in the power of the Christians: at the expiration of ninetynine years it was retaken by the Musulmans. The Christians then sacrificed their property withjoy to redeem the church of the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the infidels. In 1257 the Franciscan Fathers came to Palestine, and quietly undertook the care of it, as well as of the other sanctuaries; but they were obliged to withdraw on the approach of Sultan Melek Seraf, who, at the head of a considerable army, took the city on the 4th of May, in the same year, and put twenty-five thousand Christians to the sword. The Latins, horrorstruck at this barbarity, and relentlessly persecuted by that cruel prince, quitted Palestine and Syria. As soon, however, as it was possible, the Franciscan Fathers returned clandestinely to the sanctuaries which they had been forced to abandon to the profanation and the insults of the enemies of the Lord. The ancient chronicles expressly say that the reverend Father Rogerio Guarini, proceeding in 1333 from Aquitaine to Armenia, passed through Egypt; and that, at this solicitation, the sultan granted permission for a small number of monks CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 75 to dwell in safety near the Holy Sepulchre. Other historians state the same fact: "The custody of the sepulchre of Christ at Jerusalem was in the year 1333 committed to eight Franciscans by the sultan of Egypt."* In spite, however, of the assurances given to Father Guarini, and even in spite of the favourable disposition of the sultan then reigning, the Franciscans were incessantly annoyed till the year 1342, when, through the protection of Robert, king of Sicily, and his consort, queen Sancia, they were permitted, on payment of enormous sums, to have at Jerusalem a permanent establishment by the church, to celebrate the holy mysteries and to perform divine service there, with the certainty of not being exposed to further vexations. The church of the Holy Sepulchre was almost totally consumed by fire on the 12th of October, 1808. I am sure that I shall gratify you by here transcribing an extract from an account of that conflagration, addressed at the time by an Italian monk, an eye-witness, to one of his friends. You will find in it things which disdainful incredulity will always refuse to believe, but which, for the friend of truth, are not on that account the less incontestable. I have collected here all the information capable of enlightening and leading to an entire conviction. I have questioned men who saw every thing, men of great virtue, of perfect sincerity, veterans full of the fear of God, and whose age warned them to hold themselves in readiness to appear at any moment before the Supreme Judge; and I declare to you, in his divine Genebrardus in Chronographia, lib. iv. 76 CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. presence, that these witnesses agreed unanimously in their reports. NARRATIVE OF THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE BY FIRE, ON THE "If the prophet Jeremiah could return to this world, would he have, in these days of disaster and mourning, less reason than of old to exhort the people to weep over the woes of distressed Jerusalem? Would he have less plaintive lamentations to utter over the sorrows and the dejection of the unfortunate daughter of Zion? Ah! he would not be the only one whose eyes would be two well-springs of tears!.. Every where he would find companions of his grief! "The morning of the 12th of October was terrible; the recollection of that calamitous day extorts a cry of anguish from the most indifferent, the most obdurate, hearts. Catholics, Schismatics, Heretics, are in affliction; Orientals and Occidentals are weeping; the Jews themselves shed tears; there is not a creature in the holy city, be he of what nation soever he may, but shares the general grief and consternation. The church of the Holy Sepulchre, that monument erected by St. Helena and Constantine with imperial magnificence, and preserved with pious care by the Christians that temple, the most august in the world—that temple, which was the admiration of the most distant nations, has just been consumed by fire! It is not known whether this is the effect of accident or design: but such was the rapidity of the flames that, in the space of a few hours, the galleries, CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. the columns, the altars, were annihilated. some particulars of that deplorable event. 66 77 Here are On the 12th of October, about three in the morning, the fire was first discovered in the chapel of the Armenians, situated on the gallery or terrace of the great church of the Holy Sepulchre. The assistantsacristan of the monks of St. Francis, who was going to attend to the lamps and to visit the chapel of the Calvary, was the first who perceived it; and as there was not a living soul there but a poor Armenian priest, an old man, on whom the sight of the fire had such an effect as seemingly to derange his reason, he instantly ran in quest of assistance. But the rapidity of the flames rendered it useless; when it arrived, they had already enveloped the chapel of the Armenians, and even their habitation, as well as that of the Greeks, part of which was built of wood, covered with oil paint. "The Franciscan Fathers, after the midnight service, had retired to rest; aroused by the strange noise which they heard in the great church, they rose in haste: what was their consternation! . . . . . . In spite of a thousand dangers, they flew to the fire. . . . The door was closed; and to aggravate their despair to the utmost, a few moments afterwards the flames burst forth from the side of the Greeks and the Armenians, and from the side of the Syrians, Messineans, and Copts, threatening the cupola of the great church, built with prodigious beams, covered with lead, and raised perpendicularly over the monument in which the most Holy Sepulchre is situated. The timbers, which I have just mentioned, were brought at a great expence from Mount Lebanon, at the be |