Identifier: homeofgodspeople00gage (find matches)
Title: The home of God's people
Year: 1874 (1870s)
Authors: Gage, William Leonard, 1832-1889
Subjects: Bible Palestine -- Description and travel
Publisher: Hartford, Conn. : Dustin, Gilman & Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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e village, which hangs as it were on itswestern skirts. In the church itself the only portion of pe-culiar interest is the nave—common to all the sects, and forthat very reason deserted, bare, discrowned, but in all -prob-ability the most ancient monument of Christian architecturein the world. It is all that now remains of the Basilica, builtby Helena herself, the prototype of those built by her Impe-rial son at Jerusalem, beside the Holy Sepulchre and at Rome,over the graves of St. Paul and St. Peter. The long doublelines of Corinthian pillars, the faded mosaics, dimly visible onthe walls above, as in the two Churches of St. Apollinarisat Ravenna, the rough ceiling of beams of cedar from Leb-anon, still preserve the outlines of the Church, once blaz-ing with gold and marble—in which Baldwin was crowned,and which received its latest repairs from our own Edward IV. From this, the only interesting portion of the upper church,we descend to that subterranean vault, over which, and for
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THE saviours BIRTHPLACE. 437 which, the whole -structure was erected. There, at the en-trance of a long winding passage, excavated out of the lime-stone rock, of which the hill of Bethlehem is composed, thepilgrim finds himself in an irregular chapel, dimly lighted withsilver lamps, and containing two small recesses, nearly oppo-site each other. In the northernmost of these is a marbleslab, which marks the supposed spot of the Nativity, with therays of the silver star, sent from Vienna in 1852, to supplythe place of that which the Greeks—truly or falsely—werecharged with having stolen. In the southern recess, threesteps deeper in the chapel, is the alleged stall, in which, ac-cording to the Latin tradition, was discovered the woodenmanger or prsesepe, now deposited in the magnificent Ba-silica of S. Maria Maggiore at Rome, and there displayed un-der the auspices of the Pope, every Christmas day. Let us pause for a moment in the dim vault, between thetwo recesses; let us dismiss th

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