File:Syria from the saddle (1896) (14775072024).jpg

Identifier: syriafromsaddle00terh (find matches)
Title: Syria from the saddle
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Terhune, Albert Payson, 1872-1942
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Silver, Burdett and Co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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exercised by theruling nation in making its power felt even in the wor-shiping-place of another faith. This tyranny is mostnecessary. But for the guard of law and order, manyfights would occur in the church. The Greek, Latin, andProtestant Christians are always at swords points witheach other, and more than once before the Holy Sepulchreitself has blood been shed between these rival sects. Onreligious fete days, Christians of every denomination inJerusalem rise to a pitch of religious madness, and march,shrieking themselves hoarse, to this church. Whenmembers of two different sects chance to meet, whileunder the influence of this ecstasy, the followers of thetrue Christ must often be forcibly separated by theMoslem soldiery. Small wonder, then, that our Moham-medan brethren laugh at our religion, calling us idola-ters and pagans. Near the entrance to the church is a slab said to bethat on which our Lords body lay before burial. Hardby is the place where the women stood. Passing on we
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Entrance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. ! SYRIA FROM THE SADDLE. 227 enter a great, circular space, the dome of which is upheldby eighteen alabaster pillars. In the center of this,ablaze with lights, stands the little chapel of the HolySepulchre. The exterior is disfigured by poor picturesand artificial flowers. Inside are two rooms; one iswhere the angels stood when Christ arose ; the otheris the sepulchre itself. In the wall of the former of the two is a hole in which,on the Greek Easter, holy fire is seen by throngs ofbelievers. It is pitiable that so cheap and old a trickas this appearance of holy fire can still impose on nine-teenth century mortals. True, the believers are mainlyRussian peasants,—a type probably more bovine and lesshuman than any other in existence —but even with themthe deception seems too palpable not to be detected. The ceremony in which the fire is seen is somethinglike this: — A crowd that would fill double the spaceis jammed into the rotunda out

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