rently, to secure evidence which might be available hereafter, that Jesus of Nazareth was born in the city of David in the time of the taxing, and that He was declared by angels to be the Christ of God. It is very possible that the shepherds, and those who heard their report, supposed that He had perished in Herod's massacre, or that they lost sight of Him altogether, till He appeared with the claim to be the Son of God; and then all this would be keenly remembered, and produced in corroboration of that claim.

Thus the object of the appearance to them was to make them witnesses for Christ; and to show that the birth, so little noted by men, had not passed without heavenly celebrations.

But why were these poor shepherds chosen as such witnesses? The Lord, who made choice of them, knows. It was necessary that the witnesses should reside in or near Bethlehem; and these shepherds alone were abroad and awake in the depth of the silent night. Moreover, the gospel delights to put honour on those of low degree. The general yearning for the appearance of the Messiah, which at this time was felt throughout Judea, must have acquired peculiar intensity at Bethlehem, where it was known from prophecy that Christ should be born; and, no doubt, even among the shepherds who kept nightly watch over their flocks, were some who anxiously awaited the appearance of the Messiah. It is true, the account does not say that the shepherds thus longed for the Messiah. But we are justified, by what followed, in presupposing it as the ground for such a communication being especially made to them; and it is not unlikely that these simple souls, untaught in the traditions of the scribes, and nourished by communion with God, amid the freedom of nature, in a solitude congenial with meditation and prayer, had formed a purer idea of the Messiah from the necessities of their own hearts, than prevailed at that time among the Jews.1

It does not follow that, because these men were shepherds, they were therefore very poor and very illiterate. The patriarchs were 1 NEANDER'S Life of Jesus, i. § 17.

all shepherds; and Jacob, the possessor of large flocks and herds, was able to say to Laban: In the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. Thus have I been twenty years in thy house.' David was also in youth a shepherd; and some of his most beautiful lyrics appear to have been written when following the sheep. In fact, Bethlehem was a town of shepherds; and, judging as well from ancient history as from modern custom, it may be safely concluded that every family in the town had one or more of its members engaged in this ancient and honourable employment. The shepherds to whom the angels announced the advent of the Messiah, may have been members of the first families of Bethlehem.

Twenty-ninth Week-Second Day.

THE CAVE OF THE NATIVITY.-LUKE II. 16.

Two evenings ago, we produced what appeared to us needful for the correct apprehension of the particulars given by the evangelist respecting the birthplace of our Lord-the stable of an inn. We now propose to conduct the reader to that which is at this day shown and visited as the spot where Jesus was born.

We have already explained, that what is called the Convent of the Nativity, said to contain this interesting spot, is situated at the eastern extremity of Bethlehem. It stands on the edge of a steep rock, overlooking a plain of several miles in extent, in which, at little more than a mile from the convent walls, is pointed out the place where the shepherds kept their flocks, when the glad tidings of the Saviour's birth were made known to them. In this field of the shepherds,' as it is called, is a walled enclosure of some thirty yards across, and in the centre of it a small cave, formerly used as a chapel by the priests of the Greek church. This is called 'the grotto of the shepherds,' and is shown as the place where they were abiding in the fields.

6

The convent has the appearance of a rude fortress, and is

well suited for defence against all the means of attack with which it could be threatened in the middle ages, or which are now likely to be brought against it by its only enemies-the wandering Arabs, who might visit it for plunder. It is accessible only at one entrance, secured by a massive iron door; so low, like the entrances of most houses, and of all places of defence in Palestine, that a tall man must stoop nearly double to pass, and even a short man must enter bent and head foremost, in a posture little adapted either for aggression or resistance.

The church contained in this fortress-convent was built by the mother of Constantine, the empress Helena-so many monuments of whose zeal are still extant in the Holy Land. It is a magnificent structure, though now in a neglected and semi-ruinous state. It is thirty-four paces long, and forty broad, ornamented with forty-eight monolith columns of the Corinthian order, arranged in four rows of twelve columns each. The columns are about two and a half feet in diameter, by more than twenty in height. The church was once richly adorned with paintings and mosaics; but of these only a few mutilated fragments remain. The pavement is out of repair. The roof is of timber (said to be cedar of Lebanon, but this is doubted); and the naked, rough pavement which it supports has an effect so bad and so incongruous, as to suggest that it must be a restoration rendered necessary by some casualty, and made in adverse days. In fact, the church is now little other than an outer court or thoroughfare, through which entrance is gained to the smaller churches and the apartments of the convent. Formerly, the sects which claimed interest in the place had the use of the church by turns, and then it was kept in good order; but as this bred interminable quarrels among them, it was arranged to enclose certain parts as chapels for the separate and exclusive use of each: thus, the church being built in the form of a Latin cross, the nave is deserted, but the Greeks have appropriated the choir to their separate use; and the Latins and Armenians have each a wing of the transept. They still, however, have the use of the cave of the

nativity, and other consecrated spots, according to an established order; and although one might suppose the difference between the old and the new style,' by giving to them different terms for the celebration of Christmas, would prevent occasion of collision, the feuds and petty rivalries which are maintained among them are most disgraceful to the Christian name which they bear, and distressful to the European travellers who visit the place. The Latin, or Roman Catholic, portion is the smallest, but is the most richly adorned, and it possesses the only organ to be found in Palestine.

The most holy place-the sanctuary-the final object of all

these arrangements, is a small cavern, in which it is asserted

1 The Latins follow the new style; the Greeks, and other oriental churches, the old. This makes eleven days' difference.

that the Saviour of the world was born. This lies under the Greek chapel; but the entrance to it is through a door on the southern side of that of the Armenians; whence, by a flight of marble steps, one descends into an irregular apartment, which we are taught to regard as the stable in which the Virgin gave birth to 'her first-born son.' Its character as a stable, and even as a grotto, is quite concealed by the ornaments and decorations with which, in awfully bad taste, it has been overlaid, to the entire disguise of its real character. It is a long, narrow, and rather low room, fitted up and much occupied for religious worship. Its original features are quite concealed by the marbles, embroidered hangings, gold lamps, and other adornments, which shock and discourage the belief they were designed to foster. The grotto is about twelve paces in length by four broad, and contains three principal altars. Under the first, upon the marble floor, the precise spot of the nativity is marked by a star composed of silver and precious stones, around which the following inscription forms a circle: HIC DE VIRGINE MARIA JESUS CHRISTUS NATUS EST,'—that is, 'Here was Jesus Christ born of the Virgin Mary.' Golden lamps continually burn over this sacred spot. Above it is a marble table, with the usual decorations of an altar in the Catholic church. Here the pilgrims prostrate themselves, offering up their prayers, and kissing the star and the pavement around it.

A few yards from the star of the nativity is the representative of the manger (the original being shown at Rome), in which the infant Jesus was laid in lack of a proper crib or cradle. One descends by two steps into a room, called the Presence, ten feet square, which has the altar of the manger on one side, and directly opposite to it another altar, marking the place where the magi worshipped. Here, too, the original features of the place, whatever they may have been, are disguised by polished marble and other decorations. The manger is a block of white marble, hollowed out in proper form. It occupies a recess in the grotto, and is less than two feet in height, by perhaps four in length. The altar of the wise men