. The home of fadeless splendour: or, Palestine of today . o the Armenians. It wasthis Star that caused so much trouble in the fifties, the quarrelover it leading, it is said, to the Crimean War. The Star disap-peared in 1847, and only after five years negotiations between theFrench Embassy and the Subhme Porte was it restored and refixedin its place in 1852. The Greeks reserve to themselves the right to use both stair-cases for their processions on several ceremonial occasions duringthe year, and this custom, so the Padre told me, had been thecause of riots and even bloodshed in days gone by,
. The home of fadeless splendour: or, Palestine of today . o the Armenians. It wasthis Star that caused so much trouble in the fifties, the quarrelover it leading, it is said, to the Crimean War. The Star disap-peared in 1847, and only after five years negotiations between theFrench Embassy and the Subhme Porte was it restored and refixedin its place in 1852. The Greeks reserve to themselves the right to use both stair-cases for their processions on several ceremonial occasions duringthe year, and this custom, so the Padre told me, had been thecause of riots and even bloodshed in days gone by, especiallyduring the Christmas festival. The Franciscans would never forget,he added, how one year in the seventies a band of armed Greeksattacked them while at their devotions, wounding five of theirnumber. It was on account of this attack that ^larshal MacMahoninsisted that the Sultans government should place a Turkish soldierwithin the grotto day and night. The last serious conflict tookplace in 1S9J, when some Russians refused to evacuate the grotto. «5 •an o Pi IkO O Ida< lETHLEHEM, THE FOCAL POINT OF RE-UNION 319 uring a Latin procession, and on one of the Franciscans protest-ig, a Croatian fired his revolver and wounded mortally two ofheir order. When I was alone in this holy cave I did not think of thesehings, nor of the tapestries nor countless lamps and picturesanging from its walls. I remembered that here the holy Child/as born; here He lay in His Mothers arms, watched over byoseph ; here the shepherds on that cold December night camend knelt as the angels had bidden them. This is the Creche or^resepio that is reproduced in thousands of churches the worldver at Christmastide, bringing to all mankind a wonderfullessage full of mystic significance. On one occasion when I was[1 this cave a little band of children came in by themselves. They/alked up to the Star, knelt and kissed it, and then stood quiteilently gazing intently at it. I then realised more clearly t
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