Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/308

294 which brought "good tidings of great joy to all people." In such a spirit we take our morning walk to-day to the Church of the Nativity, to linger awhile beside the spot, where, according to tradition, our Saviour came into the world, and by the manger where they laid Him.

In visiting "holy places," one finds not infrequently a jar on his devout meditations, at the mingling of things sacred and profane, of the common and the trivial with that which is of far higher interest. As I walked along the narrow streets and looked into the little shops of Bethlehem, it was not easy to adjust the mingling of the petty cares and drudgery of daily life with the solemn and religious thoughts which filled the mind. And still they are not in such disaccord as they might seem; for Bethlehem is inhabited by Greek and Latin Christians (with but three hundred Moslems in a population of five thousand), whose main industry is that of providing material aids to devotion. As of old there were various kinds of business connected with the Temple, so here the chief occupation of the little town is the making of rosaries and crosses and images of saints from olive wood, from coral and mother of pearl, for the use of pilgrims.

Passing these we direct our steps towards the Church of the Nativity. Even a stranger would have no difficulty in finding it, for the building towers high above all others at the end of the town, the centre around which are clustered three Convents, making altogether an imposing architectural pile. Following the pilgrims, who are moving in one direction, we come to an open square, at the end of which rise the massive walls of the Church, which was begun by Helena in 327, and completed by Constantine in 333. It was formerly entered by three arched doors of imposing height and breadth, two of which are now walled up, and the third partly so, leaving an entrance almost as small as that