. "From Dan to Beersheba"; or, The Land of promise as it now appears : including a description of the boundaries, topography, agriculture, antiquities, cities, and present inhabitants of that wonderful land .... rcase, we passed into the mag-nificent Basilica of In length 120 feet by 110 wide,the interior consists of a central nave and four lateral aisles,formed by four rows of twelve Corinthian columns in eachrow, twenty feet high and two and a half in diameter, sup-porting a horizontal architrave. According to tradition, thesepillars were taken from the porches of the Temple at Je
. "From Dan to Beersheba"; or, The Land of promise as it now appears : including a description of the boundaries, topography, agriculture, antiquities, cities, and present inhabitants of that wonderful land .... rcase, we passed into the mag-nificent Basilica of In length 120 feet by 110 wide,the interior consists of a central nave and four lateral aisles,formed by four rows of twelve Corinthian columns in eachrow, twenty feet high and two and a half in diameter, sup-porting a horizontal architrave. According to tradition, thesepillars were taken from the porches of the Temple at Jerusa-lem. Originally the roof and rafters were formed of cedarfrom the forests of Lebanon, but at present they are of oak,the gift of King Edward IV. when the church was last re-paired. The gold, marble, and mosaics which once adornedthe walls of this noble edifice have been removed, and by themutual jealousies of the rival sects this grandest of Easternbasilicas is in a neglected state. The aspect of the interior isgreatly injured by a partition wall separating the choir fromthe body of the church, which in turn is divided into twochapels, one belonging to the Greeks and the other to the Ar- \\^-\\*\\\^. 1>11:IU0K OF Tni: ClTOKCn OV TIIE NATlVlTi-. FKOM DAN TO BEEKSHEBA. 221 menians; on the north side of the choir is the Chapel of , occupied by the Latins. Though we reject the unwarrantable grouping together ina single grotto of so many holy places as unfounded in fact,and especially the particular spot where Christ was born, thereis no reason for the rejection of the cave itself. Its his-tory runs too far back to have its identity affected by the floodof monastic legends which followed the conversion of the em-pire, and the historical chain is unbroken from the death of theApostle John to our own day. A native of Nablous, and bornin the beginning of the second century, Justin Martyr describesthe birthplace of Jesus as a grotto in Bethlehem; one hun-dred years l
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Keywords: ., bookauthornewmanjo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, bookyear1864
