Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/510

474 I should weary and not edify if I were to describe all we saw at Jerusalem. I have written of it more fully elsewhere, and I can never hope to convey the remarkably vivid way in which it brought home to me the truth of the Gospel narrative. But I think there are two spots which I ought to describe: one is the Calvary Church, and the other is the Holy Sepulchre.

There are six holy spots on Mount Calvary. In the church itself, about four or five yards on the right hand, at the head of the staircase before you advance up the church, the black-and-white rose in the marble shows where our Saviour was stripped. Three yards farther, before an altar, a slab covers the spot where they nailed Him to the Cross; and a little farther on, at the High Altar, the Sacrifice was consummated. The High Altar is resplendent; but one wishes it were not there, for all one's interest is concentrated upon a large silver star underneath it. On hands and knees I bowed down to kiss it, for it covered the hole in the rock where the Cross, with our dying Lord upon it, was planted. I put my arm into the hole, and touched it for a blessing. On the right hand is the hole of the good thief's cross, and on the left the bad thief's, each marked by a black marble cross. The cleft in the solid rock which opened when "Jesus, crying with a loud voice, gave up the ghost," and "the earth quaked and the rocks were rent," is still visible. You can see it again