AT BETHLEHEM by T. L. Cuyler

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 25, 1881

AT BETHLEHEM.

By T. L. Cuyler

A VISIT TO THE SCENE OF THE SAVIOUR'S BIRTH.

WE set our faces for the pools of Solomon, halting for a few moments at the tomb of Rachel by the roadside.

The small structure was crowded with Jews, some of whom wore phylacteries, and all were wailing as they wail beside the remnant of the temple walls.

One old woman was weeping and pressing her withered cheek against the tomb with as much distress as if the fair young wife who breathed out her life there forty centuries ago had been her own daughter.

We found the enormous pools of Solomon (the longest of which measures 580 feet in length) were about half filled with pure water.

We rode beside the aqueduct that leads from them all the way to Bethlehem.

Down among the black and barren hills we saw the deep, fertile vale of Urtas, filled with gardens and fruit-trees.

It is cultivated by the European colony planted by Mr. Meshullman.

For a half hour we feasted our eyes with a view of beautiful Bethlehem perched on its lofty hill, and surrounded by olive orchards.

So many new edifices have been erected for convents and other religious purposes that Bethlehem has almost a modern look.

As we rode through its narrow streets we saw no Ruths, but an ancient Jew in turban, long robe, and flowing beard, quite answered to my idea of Boaz.

We rode on to the convent adjoining the church of the Nativity, where a rather jolly looking monk furnished us an excellent lunch.

He then took us into the venerable church that covers the subterranean chamber in which tradition has always held that our blessed Lord was born.

The chamber is probably the remnant of an ancient khan once belonging to the family of Jesse and of king David.

I expected to be shocked by a sham mockery when I entered the church, but a feeling of genuine faith in the locality came over me as I descended into the rocky chamber and read, around the silver star, “Here Jesus Christ was born of the virgin Mary.”

The threefold argument for the authenticity of this site is drawn from unbroken tradition, from the fact that Bethlehem has never been overthrown in sieges, and from the other fact that the learned St. Jerome, in the fourth century, was so sure of the site that he came and spent his long, laborious life in the cavern close by the birth-spot of our Lord.

I entered with deep interest the cave in which this devout scholar meditated and prayed and wrought the Vulgate translation of God's word.

My visit to the church of the Nativity was tenfold more satisfactory than to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in this city.—T. L. Cuyler, in N. Y. Evangelist.