closed with a stone. When this stone was rolled away the disciples, Peter and John, by stooping down could have looked into the sepulchre and seen the linen clothes lie, perhaps upon the floor of the little ante-chamber. This tomb, too, was a family tomb, such as Joseph of Arimathea might well have made, with room in it for three bodies, one at the end as it were, and recessed, and two at right angles. Very well might these have served as seats, such as those on which Mary must have seen "two angels in white sitting, the one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain."

Who can tell whether or no it is the very spot? But, if the true Calvary was just without the wall on the borders of the Mahommedan cemetery, as think Otto Thenius, General Gordon, Colonel Conder, Doctor Merrill, and many more, that spot cannot have been very far away. At least, the sight of it is a great support to the imagination. Such a garden there must have been, and such a tomb, even as we see them to-day. we see them to-day. In such a place, through the darkness before the daylight, must have shone the countenance that was "like lightning" and the raiment that was 'white as snow," for fear of which "the keepers did shake and become as dead men." Through just such a garden, dim and dewy, must the two Marys have crept in terror of the Jews, or perhaps of the Roman guard, coming to the mouth of the sepulchre as the first golden rays of morning pierced it with their level shafts. On such a little terrace as that above, after, in answer to the query of the Messengers, she had uttered the immortal words echoed since her day by so many millions of doubting hearts, that she wept, "because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him," the Magdalene might have turned to behold Him whom in the shadow she supposed to be the gardener. Up such steps she may have hurried at His summons, to be met by the solemn and mysterious rebuke, "Touch Me not; for I am not yet ascended to My Father."

Who can say; but standing in that quiet garden with the rock-hewn sepulchre before me, it was easy to imagine that here and not elsewhere these dread mysteries were enacted. Also others have believed it in a past already distant. Over the centre niche, where would have lain the body of the Lord, some dead hand who lived in the crusading time, so said the custodian, has drawn a cross in red pigment, and on either side of it painted the Greek letters Alpha and Omega. This he would only have done, believing that here was the veritable tomb of Jesus. Of course, however, this circumstance proves nothing, and, although that cross is old, it may be later than the Crusaders.

I noted another curious and suggestive thing about this tomb. In the rock without, hollowed from its side, the Saracens or others cut mangers for the feeding of animals, some of which remain to this day. How strange if the manger which was connected with the place of the earthly birth of our Lord, should also thus have become connected with the place of His earthly burial. How strange, also, if here, neglected in this old garden, unvisited by the mass of pilgrims, undecked by any pompous shrine or monument, should be the true scene of the Resurrection, and not yonder beneath the dome on the gorgeous battleground of the warring sects.

From this garden, perhaps so holy, though probably the truth of that matter will never be known, we went outside the walls to the traditional Place of Stoning, which is on a knoll in a Mahommedan cemetery north of the Damascus gate, and almost above the old cave that is called the Grotto of Jeremiah. Here it is that St. Stephen is said to have been stoned, although of late the site of his martyrdom has been shifted. On the edge of the knoll rises a sheer cliff forty or fifty feet in depth. I am told, although I have been unable to trace the genesis of the statement, that it was the habit of the Jews to throw condemned persons off the brink of this cliff, and then if any life was left in them to batter it out with stones. Here as it

chanced I myself was stoned, for in my hurry to look over the edge of the cliff, to me interesting for other reasons, inadvertently I stepped upon the pillar of an old Mahommedan tomb. Thereon a Moslem lady, one of a group who were seated in the sun basking and gossiping among the graves, hurled a lump of rock at me with considerable accuracy and force, helping it upon its flight with a volley of abuse. Instantly children appeared who also began to throw stones at the Christian "dogs"; but as we showed no concern, in time they ceased from their

amusement.

Things in this respect seem to have changed little during five centuries. Felix Fabri cautions pilgrims to "beware of stepping over the sepulchres of the Saracens, because they are greatly vexed when they see this done, and pelt with stones any one who steps over them, because they believe that our passing over them torments and disturbs the dead."

The reason why I was so anxious to examine this place is that I believe it to be the actual site of the Crucifixion, and that here above the Damascus road, whence the passers-by looked up and mocked at the dying figure strained upon His cross, once the body of the Saviour hung through those hours of sun and darkness. What is more likely than that the Place of Stoning should also be the Place of Crucifixion, and what spot could be more suitable than this summit of a cliff, where all might see the sufferers of the death of shame ?

It was outside of the city walls, yet near to the city. A man might bear his own cross there, since it seems no further from the Place of Judgment than is the Church of the Sepulchre. There is another point, to my mind one most suggestive. The Crucifixion ground, called Golgotha in the Hebrew and Calvaria in the Latin, whence comes our own Calvary, means in either language the Place of the Skull. All the evangelists give it this name. St. Matthew says, "a place called Golgotha, that is to say,