must often have stopped to rest, and which he made the scene of his noblest parable. This was the usual rule in Syria. Khan Tumân was about eight miles distance from Aleppo; Khan el Mudeirej the same distance from Damascus. Khan Minyeh lay seven miles from Tiberias, on the Damascus road; Khan et Tujjar stood some furlongs farther on the Acre road. No case occurs, either in Hebrew or Moslem days, of two caravan-serais being open in the same village. Nor is it likely that where a Syrian inn had once existed it would ever have ceased to stand, until it became a ruin, a recollection, and a name. For not only was the khan a public edifice, with a strong frame, and much beauty of detail, but the very ground on which it stood, from being set apart for hospitable uses, would become in a certain sense holy a site which was not to be disturbed for any common purpose. A church, a mosque, might be built on such ground without offending the public eye, as we see in the basilica at Bethlehem, and in the white mosque at Ramleh; but the ruins of a khan, long consecrated to hospitality in the East a re

ligious duty, almost a religious rite would hardly ever be removed to make room for a meaner pile.

Thus, it appears safe to conclude that the inn of Joseph and Mary was the inn of Jeremiah, and if it were the inn of Jeremiah, it was also beyond doubt the house of Chimham; and consequently it was presumably the house which had once been that of David and of Ruth.

Every hint afforded by the Bible narrative as to local fact and local colour, helps to prove that the

birthplace of David was the birthplace of JESUS, and that the khan, or residence of Jesse, in which the two men were born, stood here in Bethlehem, on the very ridge now crowned by the basilica of St. Helena, the church of the Holy Nativity.

Jeru

Boaz, we are told, was the sheikh of this town; the chief man, who had the right and duty of receiving strangers into his house. As such he would dwell, like the Arab lords on the Nile in our own day, beyond the town, at its entrance, on what may be called the guest-coming side. This side is seen in the old khan near Ramleh, where the pile stands out on the road towards Cairo; and in the still older khan near Bethany, where it is pushed out beyond the village towards Jericho and the Jordan. salem being taken as the bourne of all travel, the guest-house, in other words the sheikh's house, would be so arranged as to open on the country; thus, the first gate to which a wayfarer came, near a village, would be that of his host and protector for the night. Now at Bethlehem, as the shape of the ridge and its relation to Jerusalem imply, the spot on which the house of hospitality would stand must have been a little below the town, at the junction of roads coming up the great valleys from Tekoa, Jericho, Herodion, and Engedi; on a spot lying below the gates and above the fields; in fact, the very ground upon which the inn of JESUS stood, and on which the church and convent of the Grotto stand.

Here, then, where by all analogies we should seek it, the Bible tells us that the house of Boaz stood on the green slope, some paces below the town,

between the gates and the corn-fields. Ruth, living in the town with Naomi, had to go down into these fields, as the gleaners go down even now: "Wash thyself, therefore, and anoint thee, and put thy raiment upon thee, and get thee down to the floor;" the descent from the hill on which the city is built to the fields being sharp. Boaz, after his night adventure with Ruth among the sheaves of corn, is said to have gone up from his house to the city gate: "Then Boaz went up to the gate, and sat him down there: and, behold, the kinsman of whom Boaz spake came by." The sheikh's house was, therefore, below the town, and above the fields, on the slope of the hill. If the prior went up from his convent into the town to-day, his walk would be described in the very same words.

The house of Chimham, after Chimham had been made sheikh of Bethlehem and owner of the guesthouse, answers like truth to the accounts which we read in the Book of Ruth.

It is described as not in the town, but near to it. Jeremiah and the fugitives from Gibeon "dwelt in the habitation of Chimham, which is by Bethlehem." By it, near it; not in it.

་

Is it not reasonably clear, then, that the inn in which JESUS was born was the patrimony of Boaz, the home of David?

That the spot once occupied by this khan is that now clothed with the basilica of the Holy Nativity is not less clear.

Justin Martyr and the Church traditions tell us that the Lord was born in a cave, which Justin says

was not in the village, but close to it. Caves abound in the wadies round about Bethlehem. It was in such a cave as the sacred grotto that David hid himself from the ire of Saul, and in another such cave that he cut away the skirt of the royal robe. These openings into the limestone rock are put to all kinds of service: at Siloam they are used for tombs; at Urtâs for houses; at Mar Saba for cells; more frequently they are used as shelter for the sheep and goats. In an hour's ride from the Church of the Nativity you may count a dozen such caves, in some of which people live, as in those of Urtâs, and in many of which it will be strange if you do not find an Arab and his flock.

Justin was born in Syria, and having travelled into Egypt, was familiar with the scenery and usages of Oriental life, both in the high country and in the flat. That a cave should be found at a khan; that this cave should be used as a stable; that when the khan was full of people the wayfarer might have to lodge for the night among the litter; would be to Justin Martyr facts as familiar as the sound of his own voice. Such a necessity as that of having to lie down in the same shed with the asses and camels must have occurred to him often, as it may occur even now to any man who roams about the East.

Evidence to the same effect is found in the church itself; the pile erected by St. Helena on the spot which Syrian tradition had then pointed out to her as the sacred spot. On such a point as the position of an ancient khan on a great public road, public knowledge could hardly have gone astray. A Syrian

The Holy Land. I.

S

9

a

khan, with the permanency of a mekhemeh or mosque, has a fame much wider than a mekhemeh or a mosque. Justin knew the place, and no man acquainted with Palestine will easily believe that between the days of Justin and Helena the knowledge of a site so famous as the Khan of Bethlehem I could have been lost. The death of Justin was separated from the birth of Helena by less than a hundred years. Is it likely that in so short a period the scene of Jeremiah's struggle with Johanan could be forgotten by the Jews the scene of Christ's nativity by the Christians? Names last long in Palestine. We know from Holy Writ that the house of Chimham was called by his name five centuries after he had passed away.

Again, apart from its strange and memorable story, the Khan of Bethlehem was the most notable of all the caravan-serais in Judah; being the first stage on the journey into Egypt, the first night's rest after leaving Zion; the place where the camp had to be formed for the march, where the strag glers had to be called in, where the last kisses and adieus were given. It was the rallying point and starting point for all pilgrims and merchants going South. Such inns are not forgotten in a hundred years. Why, even in busy England, in changeful France, the memory of such a site would be kept alive for a longer time than divided Justin from Helena. Have we yet lost sight of the Three Pigeons at Brentford, of the inn at Ware, of the Tabard in the Old Kent Road?

The basilica being built, the spot would be fixed