CALVARY.

has been covered with a red marble: a ball of copper gilt adorns each of the four corners; ten lamps are continually burning above it; on either side are enormous candelabra, with wax-candles from fifteen to twenty feet high; they belong to the catholics, the Greeks, and the Armenians, who have this sanctuary in common, and who come daily in turn to burn incense there.

On the right of the entrance to the church, and twelve paces from the stone of the Unction, is Calvary. It is about eighteen or twenty feet above the level of the ground; two flights of twenty-one steps lead up to it on either side. The top is now converted into two chapels, cased with marble, separated by an arcade, and the floors of which are likewise of marble. One of them especially bears the name of the chapel of Calvary. It belongs to the Greeks, and is constantly lighted by a great number of lamps. Here was erected the holy cross, that on which Jesus, condemned to the most cruel and ignominious of punishments, deigned to suffer and to die for us, so much did he love us! The place is covered with an altar, under which you must stoop down to see it. I have seen it, my friend; I have seen that awful and sacred spot; I have pressed my lips to it; and human language cannot furnish words to express to you what then passed in my heart. Stop, Charles! give up reading for a moment, or rather let us both pause, and in solemn devotion sigh and adore sigh over that consummation of iniquity on the part of men ; adore that consummation of love on the part of God.

According to tradition, Christ had his face turned to

wards the west, and Jerusalem behind him. Two round black stones mark the spots where the crosses of the thieves were planted. These two crosses were not placed in a line with that of the Saviour: they formed with it a sort of triangle, so that Christ could see the two criminals crucified near him.

Not far from the place where the cross stood, is to be seen one of the rocks that were cleft when Christ expired. "Rocks were cleft," says the Gospel, and the prodigy is still visible and striking; it speaks to every eye. The cleft in the rock is exposed to view, and is seen through a trelliswork of silver.

The other chapel, which forms part of Calvary, belongs to the Latins. This is the place where the sacrilegious hands of the executioners fastened our Saviour to the cross. Here the holy mysteries are daily celebrated. Before the altar are inlaid, in the pavement, ornaments in mosaic of different colours, among which red predominates, as if to indicate that this was the spot which was dyed by the precious blood of our Lord. Here, too, a great quantity of lamps are kept incessantly burning.

To the right of the altar is a barred window, looking into an exterior chapel, dedicated to Notre Dame des Douleurs, to which every day before dawn a monk of St. Saviour's repairs to perform mass. It was to this place that the blessed Virgin retired during the bloody preparations for the last torments reserved for her son. What other place ever witnessed a grief equal to that of such a mother! What other mother ever heard so close at hand the redoubled blows of hammers driving

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sharp nails into the hands of her son, piercing the feet of him to whom she had given birth!

Descending from Calvary and turning to the right, you come to a chapel four paces in length and two and a half wide, which belongs to the Greeks. There, beneath the altar, you see the pillar of reviling (degli Improperi). It is of grey marble, spotted with black. It is only a fragment of a larger pillar, the other part of which is at Rome, in the church of St. Praxeda, exposed to the devotion of the faithful. It was on this fragment of the pillar that the Jews made our Saviour sit while they crowned him with thorns, smote him on the face after blindfolding him, and said to him in barbarous derision: "Prophesy who is it that smote thee."

Twenty-five paces further you descend by a flight of thirty steps to the chapel of St. Helena, which belongs to the Armenians. It is spacious, and surmounted by a cupola, which is supported by four columns of unequal thickness. You see on the left the spot where St. Helena remained in prayer during the search that was made by her order for the discovery of the true cross. On the right, and in the same chapel, but twelve steps lower, is a small sanctuary belonging to the Latins; this is the place where was at length found the august sign of the redemption.

The history of the discovery of the holy cross is too generally known, my dear friend, for me to suppose that you are not acquainted with it. There are, nevertheless, certain particulars which have been omitted by more than one historian; and which, I dare say, you will not be displeased to find here. If I should merely call to

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your mind something that you already know, I am certain that you would read what I write with that warm interest which piety takes in the things of God, and especially in the ineffable wonders of his love for us.

I observed to you in one of my last letters, that in the Holy Land every thing tells of St. Helena and the monuments which she there founded: for fifteen centuries Palestine has rung with her name. Mother of the prince, who, after three hundred years of persecution, first raised Christianity to the throne with himself, and with whom modern incredulity has contested the title of Great, only out of hatred to Jesus Christ; the illustrious empress could not see her son triumph by the cross, without feeling like him a profound gratitude and an ardent zeal for the glory of Him whose miraculous protection that sign had announced to him; hence the tender devotion of mother and son for the holy places.

Having become peaceable master of the empire by the defeat of Maxentius, Constantine resolved to erect a magnificent temple to Jesus Christ on the very spot which the Jews had chosen for the scene of his ignominious execution. In 326 he committed the fulfilment of this intention to St. Macarius, bishop of Jerusalem, directing Dracilianus, deputy of the prefect of the Prætorium and governor of the province, to procure for the bishop all the requisite workmen and materials, promising himself to send pillars, costly marbles, precious stones, gold, and all the ornaments necessary for making it the richest temple in the world.

Helena determined to take part in so glorious an undertaking. Not deterred by the fatigues of a long voy

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age, she set out at the age of seventy-nine for Palestine, with the intention of concurring to the utmost of her power, by her largesses not less than by her advice, in the great work of her son. On seeing the deplorable state in which Calvary was, she all at once felt animated with an ardent desire to find the cross of the Saviour; and, full of this idea, she forthwith set about accomplishing it. The difficulties were such as would have daunted a less generous zeal: none knew what had become of the cross; no mention is found of it in history, either before or after the destruction of Jerusalem. Some asserted that it had been hidden and secured from profanation by the care of the apostles and the first Christians. Others, and these were most numerous, had no doubt that it had been buried in a hole dug near the tomb, according to the custom of the Jews. But where was the site of the tomb? on this point there was no certain indication. To disfigure the place, the pagans had thrown upon the hill heaps of mould, stones, and rubbish. Subsequently, under Adrian, they had there erected a statue to Jupiter, and built a temple to Venus, persuaded that the Christians, who abhorred the impure worship of that goddess, would thereby be for ever prevented from repairing thither to adore their crucified God.

By order of Helena, whose researches are said to have been directed by an inhabitant of Jerusalem, the statues and the infamous temple were demolished, and the materials carried outside the city. On digging deeper at several points, they came at length to the Holy Sepulchre, and close to it were discovered three crosses