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HOLY CROSS 
 
 A HISTORY OF THE INVENTION, PRESERVATION, AND DISAPPEARANCE 
 OF THE WOOD KNOWN AS 
 
 THE TRUE CROSS 
 
 / BY 
 
 W. C.^PRIME, LL.D. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY 
 
 38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET. 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1877, BT 
 Anson D. F. Randolph & Company 
 
Cross of shame, yet tree of glory 
 Round thee winds the one great story 
 
 Of this ever changing earth : 
 Center of the true and holy, 
 Grave of human sin and folly. 
 Womb of Nature's second birth ! 
 
 Rev. Horatius Bonar, 1866. 
 
 When I survey the wondrous Cross 
 On which the Prince of Glory died. 
 
 My richest gain I count but loss, 
 And pour contempt on all my pride. 
 Rev. Isaac Watts, 1709. 
 
 The balm of life, the cure of woe, 
 
 The measure and the pledge of love ; 
 
 The sinner's refuge here below. 
 
 The angel's theme in heaven above. 
 Rev. Thomas Kelly, 1820. 
 
 In the cross of Christ I glory, 
 Towering o'er the wrecks of time ; 
 
 All the light of sacred story 
 
 Gathers round its head sublime. 
 
 Sir John Bowring, 1825, 
 
 Blest Cross I Blest Sepulchre ! blest rather be 
 The man that there was put to shame for me. 
 John Bunyan, 1660, 
 
 (3) 
 
P R E FA CE. 
 
 This book is an attempt to sketch the history of the 
 wood which was known for many centuries as the True 
 Cross, and to indicate the various influences, direct and 
 indirect, which proceeded from it, and affected the religious 
 and political destinies of the world. It is but a sketch, 
 for the history fully written out would be a history of 
 Europe and Asia during the period from a.d. 326 to our 
 own times. 
 
 I have tried to compile from extant authorities the story 
 of the finding of the wood by the Empress Helena, the 
 remarkable power it exerted on men and nations, its ad- 
 ventures while in Christian hands, and its final disappear- 
 ance. 
 
 Brief and very partial and prejudiced accounts have 
 been heretofore written, by those who believed in the 
 verity of the wood as the cross on which the Lord died, 
 and equally partial and prejudiced accounts have been 
 written by those who regarded its story as one of impos- 
 ture and deceit from beginning to end. 
 
 Very Cross or False Cross, v/hichever it was, I am con- 
 fident no intelligent person will doubt, after reading what 
 I have gathered, that this wood well deserves to be the 
 subject of an abler historian, and that its history is worthy 
 of being written in many volumes. It was for so many 
 
 (5) 
 
6 PREFACP 
 
 centuries the heart of the Christian world, and it had such 
 mighty influence on Church and on kingdoms, that the 
 omission of it in writing the history of European civiliza- 
 tion, and of European governments, would be like omit- 
 ting the mention of steam in describing the engines which 
 drive great vessels with precious loads of passengers and 
 goods, across oceans. Its direct influence, in various 
 ways, is visible to all who will study the history, but its 
 invisible influence in moulding the minds of kings and 
 people, clergy and laity, can only here and there be 
 guessed at. Enough is known to show that this influence 
 controlled and guided the mind of Europe, and is of vast 
 account in studying the history of literature and art. 
 
 Upon the question of the verity of the wood as the True 
 Cross, I have endeavored to give, with impartiality, the 
 arguments on both sides, confessing my own want of faith. 
 
 On the question of the locality of the place of the cruci- 
 fixion as marked by the Empress Helena, I have given my 
 own opinions, the result of careful examination of the 
 topography of Jerusalem in different visits, and careful 
 study of all known authorities. Throughout, I have tried 
 to relate the facts of history, and where any statement de- 
 pends on tradition, have so given it. Instead of encum- 
 bering the pages with references to authorities in foot- 
 notes, I refer the reader, who desires to pursue the sub- 
 ject, to the following, which, besides many others, have 
 been more or less used in preparing this account. 
 
 Eusebius. Vita Constantini. Lips , 1830. 
 
 Willermi Tyrensis Archiep. Hist , and the various chronicles, 
 
 etc., contained in the Gesta Dei per Francos, etc., Hanov. 
 
 x6ii. 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 Geoffrey de Vinsauf ; Itinerary of Richard, etc. ; in Chronicles 
 of the Crusades. London, 1S48. 
 
 Socrates ; Theodoret ; Sozomen ; Ambrose (de ob. Theod. & 
 Patrol.) ; Rufinus ; Sulpicius Severus ; Beda (Ven.) ; Chrysos- 
 tom ; Gregory of Tours ; Cyril of Alexandria ; Paulinus of 
 Nola, and other historians and fathers of the Church, and Latin 
 and Greek authors specially referred to in the text. 
 
 Bollandus ; Acta Sanctorum. Antwerp, et al. loc, 1643, etc. 
 
 Bohadini F. Sjeddadi ; Vita et Res gestae Sultani Almalichi 
 Alnasiri Saladini, etc. Arab, et Lat. Lugd. Bat., 1732. 
 
 Abulfeda ; Excerpta, etc., in same volume. 
 
 Angelo Rocca Camerte ; De particula ex pretioso et viv. ligno 
 sac. crucis, etc. Rome, 1609. 
 
 Lipsius; De Cruce. Antwerp, 1594. 
 
 Bosius ; de cruce triumphale, etc. Antwerp, 1619. 
 
 Mone. Lateinische Hymnen, etc., 3 vols. Freiburg in Breis 
 gau, 1854. (In vol. I, many hymns, etc., relating to the sub- 
 ject). 
 
 Neale, Rev. J. M. Mediaeval Hymns and Sequences, trans- 
 lated. London, 1851. 
 
 Wilkinson. Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 
 5 vols, London, 1847. (See vol. 5, on the Tau). 
 
 Notes and Queries. London, 1849-1876 \passim. (Many interest- 
 ing and valuable notes on the subject have from time to time 
 appeared in N. and Q. And besides these authorities, a large 
 number of modern historians and travelers have contributed to 
 the literature of the subject) 
 
HOLY CROSS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 nPHIS monograph is but an outline sketch of a 
 -'• history which, if written out, would be the his- 
 tory of many nations, many wars, and, what never 
 will be written except in the books to be opened 
 when all our books are gone — the history of the 
 lives, the passions, the sins and sorrows, the peni- 
 tence and pardon of many human souls. It is only 
 the story of two or three pieces of old wood ; pieces 
 of wood which the blind, unquestioning faith of men 
 made the wood of the cross on which their Saviour 
 died. 
 
 The ardor of religious controversy leads many now 
 to look on that faith with contempt. No faith is 
 contemptible. Faith is worthy of more or less 
 respect, even if it seem to be faith in a falsehood. For 
 faith is a power. Faith is what leads to work ard 
 
 (q) 
 
10 FAITH. 
 
 produces results. Faith in a lie will sometimes 
 accomplish more than reason in support of truth. 
 Faith must not be despised. I have thought that 
 the history of those pieces of wood in which men 
 had such faith that they moved empires, might do 
 some good in these days when blind faith is ridiculed, 
 and men are as intolerant of other men's faith as 
 they ever were in any age. 
 
 If it will help the reader to dismiss prejudice from 
 his mind in reading the story, I will, at the outset, 
 say that I have never found reasonable grounds suf- 
 ficient for the faith whose results I describe, and 
 therefore I do not believe that these fragments of 
 wood were the very cross ; but I am bound to add 
 that there is nothing to prove the contrary. They 
 may have been so. Whether they were or were not 
 the wood men believed them to be, is not a question 
 in this story, and has no importance in reference to 
 its object, which is not so much to give the history 
 itself, as to furnish an illustration of the effect of 
 faith in anything on the history of man and of the 
 world. The wood of the cross, which faith made an 
 object of passionate affection and reverence to all the 
 Christian world, was one of the most important 
 objects in history, A ver}^ foolish fashion among 
 
HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE. H 
 
 some writers has led them to speak of it with con- 
 temptuous expressions. Such writers are, of course, 
 ignorant of the facts of history. Travelers in the 
 Holy Land, following the fashion, are given to ridi- 
 culing the great chasm in the rocks known as the 
 Chapel of the finding of the Cross. But this is one 
 of the least questionable of all the sacred localities. 
 No reader of history can doubt that from this chasm 
 the Empress Helena took those pieces of wood which 
 subsequently became to the faith of Europe the true 
 cross. Whether she was a deceiver, or was deceived, 
 or whether, indeed, the v/ood was the veritable wood 
 of the cross, the event of its finding is one of the 
 most profoundly interesting and important in the 
 history of man. Its immediate effect on the Roman 
 Empire, its later effect on Europe, the wars to which 
 it led, the changes it produced in the political his- 
 tory of Asia and Europe, the immeasurable influence 
 exerted by tfiose fragments of wood on the individual 
 hearts and lives of hundreds of millions of the human 
 race, all are of such magnitude as to rebuke, in 
 thoughtful minds, the flippant style in which some 
 modern writers have treated the event, the place of 
 discovery, and the wood itself. As a historical monu- 
 ment, no pyramid of Egypt, no Acropolis, no mound 
 
1 2 CROSSE S A ND CR UCIFIXION. 
 
 over the slain on any battle-field, can be compared 
 with that cavernous chapel. It is my intent to give, 
 with as much impartiality as I can, the history, relat- 
 ing the facts so far as known, and the traditions so 
 far as I have found them, which go to show the 
 authenticity or the falsehood of the wood. The 
 reader will thus be enabled, if he cares to do so, to 
 form his own judgment of the reasons for the faith 
 of Europe, or to leave that portion of the subject, as 
 I have myself left it, without definite conclusion, 
 regarding it as of very small importance compared 
 with the history of the wood and its influence on 
 the destinies of Christian nations. 
 
 II. 
 
 CROSSES AND CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 The cross was an instrument of punishment from 
 an early date. How early we do not know. The 
 Greek word oravpog, stauros^ translated cross in the 
 sacred writings, originally signified a stake. Thucyd- 
 ides uses it, and the verb stauroo, as well as the noun 
 staurojna, and other derivatives, in the sense of stakes 
 
c/aossES. 
 
 13 
 
 driven for a palisade. It is probable that the custom 
 of crucifixion, as we understand it, came from the 
 prior custom of impaling on a stake, and thus the 
 Greek word took the signification given to it in later 
 times. 
 
 The Latin word crux, from which the English word 
 cross is derived, had among the Latins the same gen- 
 eral meaning which we give to the word " cross '* — 
 primarily, the instrument of painful punishment; 
 secondarily, trials and pains in life, or even a miser- 
 able death. Plautus uses the word in describing 
 death by drowning, and also employs the words cru- 
 cior and cruciabilitas, in the sense of torment. 
 
 Terence even uses the word crux as a name of re- 
 proach, meaning " wretch," *' scoundrel." 
 
 Seneca (Epist. loi) speaks at length of the tor- 
 ments of death by crucifixion, using the 
 expressions patibulo peitdere. and acutam 
 crucem. The Patibulum was constructed 
 with two upright beams and a crossbeam 
 connecting them at the top. 
 
 The Furca was in the shape of the letter 
 Y. It is probable that in most cases the 
 furca consisted of a single piece of wood ; 
 the trunk of a tree cut off with two diverging branches. 
 
 n 
 
 Y 
 
1^ CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 These instruments are commonly distinguished by 
 their names; but the Latin writers used crux and 
 the cognate verbs, nouns, and adjectives, as the 
 Greeks used stauros^ when describing death on the 
 stake, the furca, the patibulum, or any form of cross. 
 
 Cicero and other Romans speak of the cross as 
 infelix lignum. In one of his orations, Cicero ex- 
 pressed the infamy which always attached to the 
 punishment of the cross (as in our day to the gal- 
 lows), by the indignant exclamation : " Let the very 
 name of the cross be put far away, not alone from 
 the bodies, but from the eyes, the ears, the thoughts 
 of Roman citizens." 
 
 Crucifixion was a punishment accorded by the Ro- 
 mans to slaves and those convicted of the most 
 heinous crimes. It was also a common mode of 
 inflicting vengeance on conquered enemies. It is a 
 remarkable fact that one of the most terrible in- 
 stances of this punishment recorded in history is the 
 crucifixion by Titus of the Hebrews on the conquest 
 of Jerusalem. Josephus says the number was so 
 great that wood was lacking for crosses. It has not 
 escaped the notice of many writers that the genera- 
 tion had not passed away of those who had made 
 the Roman hall of justice ring to the cry, " Crucify 
 
FORMS OF THE CROSS. 1 5 
 
 him ! crucify him ! " and had accepted for themselves 
 and their children the responsibility of blood thus 
 visited on them. 
 
 It does not appear clear that crucifixion was known 
 to the ancient Hebrews as a mode of punishment, 
 though it was practiced by the Egyptians and As- 
 syrians, who were their neighbors. It became well 
 known to them, however, under the Roman power, 
 Varus once crucifying two thousand Jews at one 
 time, for sedition. The Sanhedrim condemned our 
 Lord for blasphemy only ; but when He was brought 
 before Pilate, the charge of sedition was urged, and 
 the punishment of the cross demanded and ordered 
 on that charge. 
 
 The forms of the cross were various, as appears 
 from what has been already said. The Greek words 
 stauros and skolops and the Latin crux were applied 
 to all these forms. 
 
 The Simple Cross was a stake or single piece of 
 wood. A growing tree was a common instrument of 
 crucifixion, to which the condemned was bound by 
 cords, either with the arms extended on branches or 
 drawn backward around the trunk. Tertullian speaks 
 of trees as crosses on which Tiberius punished certain 
 priests. We have already seen that a person impaled 
 on a stake was said to be crucified. 
 
1 6 FORMS OF THE CROSS. 
 
 The Compound Cross was of three forms (excluding 
 the patibulum and the furca). These three are now 
 commonly known as : 
 
 I. The Greek Cross {Decussatd)^ also 
 called St. Andrew's Cross. 
 
 2. The Latin Cross {Immissd), 
 
 3. The Tau Cross {Crux Ansatci), 
 
 X 
 t 
 
 Some writers have given to the crux ansata the 
 name St. Anthony's Cross, because of a sign found 
 figured on the robes of St. Anthony in old Greek art. 
 This sign, however, was only the letter T, and had 
 not the same form as the crux ansata. It is found on 
 the cope or on the left shoulder of figures of St. 
 Anthony and his monks. It has been suggested by 
 Mrs. Jameson and others that T is the initial letter of 
 the Greek word Theos, and was used here in allusion 
 to the hundred and forty and four thousand spoken 
 of in Revelation xiv. i, "having his Father's name 
 
THE TA U CROSS. ff 
 
 written in their foreheads." Mrs. Jameson cites an 
 ancient stained glass in France, in which is represented 
 one man marking T on the forehead of another, and 
 over them the words Signum Tmi. 
 
 It is quite possible that this sign, if borne by St. 
 Anthony, who lived and died*in Egypt in the fourth 
 century, or found on early representations of him or 
 his monks, may have had reference to the hieroglyphic 
 " crux ansata " found on Egyptian monuments, and 
 adopted by early Christians in the Thebaid, who mis- 
 took it for the sign of the cross. We shall refer to 
 this again. So, too, it may have referred to that 
 passage in Ezekiel ix. 4, where the man with the in,k 
 horn was told,, to g'o through the city and " set a 
 mark " on the foreheads of those who mourned for 
 the sins of the people. The expression here trans- 
 lated " set a mark " is literally " mark with a Tau." 
 The same expression occurs in i Samuel xxi. 13, 
 where David, feigning madness, " scrabbled on the 
 doors of the gate," literally " marked the Tau " on 
 the doors, and thus saved himself from the enmity 
 of the Philistine king. 
 
 Tau was the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, 
 and in its ancient form was a cross. Origen says that 
 in his time some Hebrews explained the passage in 
 
1 8 CRUX ANSA TA. 
 
 Ezekiel by supposing this mark of the last letter to 
 indicate completeness, the end of the alphabet of 
 sorrow for sin ; others supposed it to be the indica- 
 tion of obedience to law, because the letter was the 
 first in the word Thorah, the law ; but that the Chris- 
 tians, arguing from the ancient form of the Hebrew 
 letter, regarded it as the sign of the cross, and a pro- 
 phetic use of that sign. 
 
 The sign, in form of the Latin cross, seldom found 
 in use before Constantine, except in Egypt, may have 
 been adopted with reference to these Old Testament 
 passages, and perhaps to the passage in the Revela- 
 tion as well, and it may be that in these two instances 
 of setting a mark on the forehead originated the 
 custom among Christians of marking with the sign 
 of the cross on tombs, on their persons, and in cere- 
 monial observances. 
 
 The Crux Ansata, often held in the hand of Osiris, 
 is common among Egyptian antiquities, in steatite, 
 pottery, and other materials, and as a hieroglyph in 
 legends. It has been variously called the Key of the 
 Nile and the sign of Venus. It is now understood 
 to be the sign of Life, and is of such frequent occur- 
 rence in hieroglyphic sculptures that it is not strange 
 that it attracted the eyes of the early Christians in 
 
CRUX AXSATA. jg 
 
 Egypt, who mistook it for the sign of the cross, and 
 adopted it as such. Wilkinson found it used as a 
 prefix to early Christian inscriptions in the Great 
 Oasis. 
 
 Mr. Layard, finding it among the antiquities of 
 Assyria, supposes it to be a symbol of Divinity. 
 
 A similar sign is found among the ancient remains 
 of Central America. 
 
 The subject has importance here only for the idea 
 adopted by some that this peculiar symbol indicates 
 relations between distant nations, and also a pre- 
 Christian significance to the sign of the cross. 
 
 This Is not a scientific treatise; otherwise, it 
 might be interesting to review the discussion of this 
 subject. It is proper, however, to note that the sign 
 which has been cabled the Crux Ansata, as found in 
 various localities, is so varied in form that it is by no 
 means apparent that it is always the same sign. It 
 is one of those marks which may naturally grow into 
 use when a people begin to write or make pictures. 
 
 A sign made by two lines crossing each 
 other at right angles, with the ends of 
 the lines ag^in deflected at right angles, 
 is one of the oldest and most frequent 
 decorations found on Cypriote pottery, which is 
 
 4n 
 
20- SIGN OF LIFE. 
 
 perhaps, the oldest representation of Phenician and 
 Asiatic art which we now possess. On many vases 
 in the Cesnola Collection (in the Metropolitan Museum 
 of Art in New York) it is made exceedingly prom- 
 inent. On one vase, which we think may be cor- 
 rectly assigned to a period much older than B.C. looo, 
 it appears in a remarkable picture. It is in the 
 wide-opened mouth of a fish, and from without an 
 arrow points toward it. Over the fish stands a stork, 
 piercing the fish with his long bill. If the arrow 
 signifies death, we may conjecture that on this old 
 specimen the peculiar symbol represents life, and thus 
 read the picture as the simple story of life from death ; 
 the fish destroying life that he may live, the stork 
 destroying the fish that he may live. 
 
 Whatever be the meaning of the symbol, we dis- 
 miss it here with the single remark that crossed lines 
 are among the first forms of drawing in decoration by 
 all barbarous races, and that the Crux Ansata is the 
 simplest form, which a child or a savage might pro- 
 duce in drawing a picture of a man. Simple forms 
 of decoration in lines and circles, and some apparent- 
 ly complex forms resulting from them in checks, 
 meander patterns, beads, and drops, are common to 
 many nations, and remain popular because of theii 
 
GREEK AND LA TIN CROSSES. 2 1 
 
 actual simplicity. The Chinese have for some cen- 
 turies down to the present day, used as an ornament- 
 al decoration on porcelain, the figure which we have 
 given above as common to the ancient Phenicians, 
 and it is also found in early Christian work in Italy. 
 We have it, on Chinese porcelain, with a second ex- 
 tension of the ends of the arms, parallel to the chief 
 arms. 
 
 The Greek cross, being in the form of the letter X, 
 the Greek initial letter of the name of the Lord, was 
 early adopted by Christians as a sign of 
 the Yaith. Th,ey engraA^ed it on gems 
 and placed it on the tombs of the dead. 
 In time they added to it the next letter 
 in the name, the Greek Rho, which - is- the Latin P' 
 and this f6rm, Xp. in monogram went upon the 
 imperial standard of Rome in the place of the 
 eagle. ' _ , , .. . '" ", 
 
 The Latin cross wag the form used in the crucifix- 
 ion of our Lord. On this all the authorities are 
 agreed, and the fact that the inscription of Pilate was 
 placed above his head is alone sufficient evidence of 
 it. This cross consisted of either two or three pieces 
 of wood, the upright, the crossbeam, and a third 
 piece projecting higher or lower from the ground, to 
 
 1 
 
f 
 
 22 PETERS CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 give support in one case to the body, and in the 
 other to the feet, lest the weight should tear the 
 hands from the nails. This form of the cross did not 
 often appear on sculptures until the time of Constan- 
 tine, and, as has been remarked, v/hen found, is more 
 frequently a copy of the Egyptian sign of life, or of 
 the old Hebrew Tau. In the days of Constantine 
 its use became more common ; it ap- 
 pears on coins, and the monogram of 
 Xp. was often after this constructed with 
 the Latin cross. 
 
 Crucifixion, the fastening to the cross, was either 
 by cords binding the limbs to the cross, or by nails 
 driven through the hands and feet. In either case 
 death ensued from exhaustion and suffering. The 
 agony was often long and lingering. Victims some- 
 times lived for several days on crosses. Bearing in 
 mind the custom of binding the condemned to the 
 cross by cords, we see peculiar significance in the 
 words of Christ to Peter, " When thou shalt be old, 
 thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall 
 gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." 
 Doubtless when bound to the wood and carried to 
 the place of his suffering, Peter remembered these 
 words, and perhaps the expression which succeeded 
 
CONS TA N TINE A ND HELENA. 2 3 
 
 them, " Follow me ; " and he may have murmured, 
 " Yea, Lord, I follow Thee — but I am not worthy to 
 die as Thou didst die." For we know that he begged 
 the executioners to plant his cross with his head 
 downwards, and thus died. 
 
 III. 
 
 CONSTANTINE AND HELENA. 
 
 A WRITER who has contributed to one of the most 
 valuable dictionaries of our time a learned article on 
 the word Cross, dismisses a brief notice of the wood, 
 whose history we now propose to sketch, with a 
 reference to a few authorities for such readers as are 
 interested in pursuing a history of " ridiculous im- 
 posture." Surely the history of Mohammed is not 
 ridiculous, though he were an impostor. And it is 
 equally sure that there is nothing ridiculous about 
 that wood which so inflamed the heart of all Chris- 
 tendom, century after century, as to hurl the forces 
 of Europe again and again against the forces of 
 Mohammedanism until the latter triumphed. The 
 cross was the chief object of European affection ; 
 the cross was the exciting object of Christian war 
 
24 THE TRUE CROSS. 
 
 the cross was the sign, taking which, the crusaders 
 went to rescue cross and sepulchre from the hands 
 of the infidels. The faith of men in the verity of 
 that wood, as the wood of Christ's suffering, shaped 
 the history of Europe, changed the whole course of 
 events in Christendom. 
 
 It was nothing but two or three pieces of wood. 
 But whether cross of Christ, or cross of thief, or 
 timber of some old house in Jerusalem, around no 
 other object, sensible or senseless, have the hearts of 
 men throbbed as around it. For nearly a thousand 
 years that wood was the center of the world. Ro- 
 man Emperors, Gothic invaders, the descendants of 
 Goth and Roman, Kings of France and Germany 
 and England, and subjects of every race and nation 
 in the civilized world, regarded that block of wood 
 as the very door-post of Heaven. The young made 
 vows of faith, swearing by its sanctity. The old 
 turned their old eyes toward Jerusalem before they 
 died, and sometimes thought — whether it was the 
 light glimmering through tears, or the bursting on 
 their sight of the glories that are sometimes revealed 
 to the dying — that they beheld the radiant light of 
 the thorn-crowned Head. Pilgrims of many gener- 
 ations knelt before it and laid their sins down on the 
 
SPREAD OF THE FAITH. 2$ 
 
 Stones of the Holy City. Thousands died for it to res- 
 cue it from the hands of the infidel ; and when they 
 had once rescued it, knights and kings fought to 
 preserve it, and dying, were buried in stately rank 
 around its foot. Monarchs resigned their thrones 
 for the sake of defending or rescuing it, and when at 
 last it vanished from the eyes of the world, another 
 era began, as if a sun had disappeared, and a profound 
 darkness had taken its place. Let no one think this 
 any exaggeration of the importance of this wood in 
 the history of the world. It can not be exaggerated. 
 The conquests of Christianity over Paganism with- 
 in the three centuries immediately following the 
 crucifixion were rapid. In three hundred years the 
 religion of the Cross conquered the Roman world. 
 History shows no such instance of propagandism as 
 this. From a despised and hated sect the Christians 
 grew to be the rulers of the earth. From that small 
 company which assembled around the table of the 
 last supper, they within three centuries numbered 
 among themselves the hosts of Rome ; and at length 
 the followers of the despised man of Nazareth, who 
 kept faithful vigil at Jerusalem, where a Roman gover- 
 nor had done Him to death at the cry of a Jewish 
 mob, beheld the Emperor of Rome, not indeed \\\ 
 
26 CONSTANTINE. 
 
 person, but in proxy by his aged and pious mother, 
 on foot and in sackcloth, entering the gate of the city 
 and seeking with pilgrim footsteps " the place where 
 they laid Him.'* 
 
 The question of the v'erity of the wood of the cross 
 will be seen to depend very much on an estimate of 
 the character of the Emperor Constantine. The 
 account is familiar, which Constantine himself gave to 
 Eusebius, of his vision of the cross in the heavens, 
 and his subsequent dream of the presence of Christ 
 bearing the sacred symbol. Was this or was it not 
 a pure invention of the wily Emperor to secure the 
 Christian influence? The Christians were a small 
 minority of the people of the Roman world. The 
 pagan religion had not wholly lost its hold on the 
 nations of Western Europe, and the East, under 
 Licinius, had not seriously felt the new faith as a 
 power among men. But the pagan faith was dying. 
 Men were in general infidels. Christianity was the 
 only religion in the Roman Empiie which had life, 
 vigor, and the grand element of faith in its professors. 
 
 The Empress Helena, widow of Constantius Chlorus 
 and mother of Constantine, was an Englishwoman 
 and a Christian. How far his mother's faith influ- 
 enced him we have no means of knowing. The cross 
 
CONST Ay TINE. 27 
 
 had not been, up to this date, used as the public 
 symbol of Christian faith. The Greek cross X had 
 been in use on secret tombs, and probably on per- 
 sonal ornaments. The Latin cross had also been 
 used occasionally, but not so frequently as the 
 Greek. 
 
 Constantine, either on account of his vision or for 
 some other reason unknown to us, possibly from a sin- 
 cere conversion to the religion of the Nazarene, 
 adopted the cross as the symbol of his religion and 
 the empire. Considered as a naked historical fact, it 
 was a wonderfully bold act. We have already seen 
 that crucifixion had been detestable to Romans, and 
 the cross as much an emblem of disgrace in their 
 view as a gallows would be in ours to-day. Let us 
 imagine a European or American government adopt- 
 ing the gallows as a standard, and commanding its 
 armies to march to victory under it. What would be 
 the probable effect ? Yet what was the effect in this 
 instance ? The army marched on from victory to 
 victory, until in A.D. 323-324 the Western forces, carry- 
 ing the standard of the Cross, met the Eastern forces, 
 carrying the old banners of Rome, and Constantine, 
 defeating Licinius in a battle in which two hundred 
 thousand men were engaged, near Hadrianople, fol- 
 
28 CONS TA N TINE. 
 
 lowed up his victory to the capture of Byzantium, 
 annihilated the Eastern army on the opposite shore 
 of the Bosphorus, and planted the standard of the 
 Cross where Europe and Asia alike could see it, to be 
 thenceforward the object of their veneration. 
 
 We shall see in a moment what this Christian sym- 
 bol, the Labariim of history, has to do with the wood 
 which is our subject. Constantine was not satisfied 
 with the glory he had attained, even adding his con- 
 quests over the Goths and the unity of the Roman 
 Empire. He had conquered by the cross. What 
 was this cross ? Gauls, Romans and Goths, Persians 
 and Scythians, all might well ask what was this sign 
 which the emperor had adopted, and under which he 
 had been invincible. He had made the world honor 
 the sign, borne in glittering gold at the head of his 
 armies ; he had made it to blaze in jewels on his 
 crown, and had placed it on his coins, so that all who 
 handled Roman money should be familiar with it. 
 After all this he seems to have determined to show 
 them the original cross itself. 
 
 Whether the pilgrimage of his pious mother to the 
 Holy Land originated in her own desire, or in grief 
 for the death of her grandson Crispus, or was sug- 
 gested by her son, does not clearly appear. What- 
 
HELENA, 
 
 29 
 
 ever the origin, however, no one doubts the sincerity 
 and devotion with which the empress accomplished 
 it. Furnished with abundant means and credentials 
 as the representative of the emperor himself, Helena 
 went to Jerusalem in the year 326, and there repre- 
 sented him in the works which she accomplished. 
 Helena was no impostor or helper of imposture. 
 She was a pious old Englishwoman, and may have 
 been imposed on, but I do not know that any one 
 has thought so ill of her as to suggest that there was 
 any hypocrisy in her. 
 
 Besides, she had learned men for her advisers — 
 men whom the world has never accused of wrong or 
 deceit. The most we know of her work is from 
 Eusebius, who was in Palestine and in Jerusalem at 
 about this time. It is alpo an element in the argu- 
 ment for or against the sincerity of her acts and the 
 acts of her advisers, that this precise period was one 
 of great learning and bitter controversy in the 
 Church. The Council of Nice, perhaps the most 
 celebrated in all ecclesiastical history, was held just 
 at this time (a.D. 325), and to its affirmations Prot- 
 estant and Catholic now alike refer as authority. 
 But the learning and piety of the Church and the 
 clergy is less important to the argument than the 
 
30 
 
 LOCA TION OF CAL VAR V. 
 
 fact of the bitter enmity existing between those hold- 
 ing various creeds, and the careful watch kept by one 
 on another for any and every ground of accusation. 
 The Arian controversy was going on. It was a very 
 difficult time, perhaps more difficult than would 
 have been this nineteenth century, for the Church in 
 Jerusalem to deceive the world by an imposture cal- 
 culated to increase its power and influence. 
 
 If, therefore, there was any deceit about the dis- 
 covery of the cross, it was in all probability arranged 
 by Constantine himself, so as to impose on his oid 
 mother, the Christian Church, and the Roman world. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE PLACE OF CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 -^'HERE was very small possibility of deceit with 
 'f ierence to the place of the crucifixion and burial. 
 The spot was well known. Eusebius, Bishop of 
 Caesarea (who was in Jerusalem at the dedication of 
 the church built by Constantine at Golgotha), states 
 that the tomb of Joseph had been purposely covered 
 
Z CA TION OF CA LVARY. 3 1 
 
 deep with earth brought from a distance, over which 
 was a pavement, and on this a temple of Venus ; and 
 that this desecration was by pagans, for the purpose 
 of consigning the tomb to obHvion. 
 
 Helena, authorized by Constantine, destroyed the 
 temple of Venus and began to remove the earth which 
 was polluted by the heathen worship. She was not 
 seeking the sepulchre. The special monumental 
 church was to be built over the place of crucifixion. 
 The sepulchre was found, greatly to the surprise 
 of all, intact, buried in the earth. The Basilica was 
 erected over the rock of Calvary, the sepulchre being 
 in the court in front of the church. 
 
 If the statement of Eusebius was untrue, it could 
 not in those days have gained credence. Jerusalem 
 was full of learned, wily enemies of Christianity, who, 
 had there been any such gross blunder as locating the 
 place within the walls of the old city (where it cer- 
 tainly could not have been), would have exposed it 
 with delight. The walls of the old city on the west side 
 had never been overthrown, so far as history records. 
 Modern writers have curiously misread history on 
 this point. Outside of that western wall, and close 
 to it, was the place pointed out to Helena as 
 Golgotha. 
 
32 
 
 LOCA TION OF CAL VAR Y. 
 
 It is only within the present century that some 
 able writers have quite vehemently combatted the 
 idea that Helena found the right place. Some have 
 even undertaken to locate it elsewhere, on such evi- 
 dence as can now be found. 
 
 The topographical argument rests entirely on the 
 question of the line of the " second " wall, which 
 some modern writers are confident must have run 
 west of the Church of the Sepulchre, thus including 
 the locality within the city of the time of Christ. 
 On this point, I think the learned men of the fourth 
 century, and all the centuries since then, are right, 
 and the few doubters of the nineteenth century are 
 wrong. I think that I have seen the second wall, in 
 a wall of massive stones, which I found in 1870, ex- 
 posed for some hours by the digging out of the rear 
 of a shop on the Via Dolorosa. This wall was of 
 huge stones, Hebrew, probably. Climbing to the top, 
 in the rear of the shop, I found that that pile of ruins 
 known to some as the ruins of the Basilica of Con- 
 stantine, lay against and concealed the western side 
 of this wall. 
 
 Argument on this subject seems of small account 
 when the simple fact, undisputed by any one, is view- 
 ed, that Helena and her advisers located the place 
 
LOCALITY OF CALVARY. 33 
 
 of the crucifixion three hundred years after its occur- 
 rence, and no one then, nor thereafter, for fifteen 
 hundred years, disputed the location, although for all 
 that time it was the very heart of Christendom. 
 
 But it is contended that Helena, and Eusebius, and 
 Macarius, then Bishop of Jerusalem, and other good 
 and wise men, could not have had any satisfactory 
 evidence from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, because 
 the early Christians did not reverence relics or special 
 localities, and would not have preserved the knowl- 
 edge of this locality. Certainly this allegation is not 
 only without authority, but contrary to every au- 
 thority. And in the interests of history, it seems 
 necessary to expose the untenable character of such 
 an allegation, lest the sudden and universal devotion 
 of the Christian world to the discovered locality should 
 seem miraculous. For if they had no previous regard 
 for such a place, and no love, respect, or care for per- 
 sonal memorials of the Life, Passion, Death, and Res- 
 urrection, then their subsequent treatment of cross 
 and sepulchre is inexplicable. 
 
 The Hebrew race were noted for the honor done 
 to the burial-places of their ancestors. '' Whose sep- 
 ulchre is with us to this day," is a common saying 
 in their sacred history, indicating clearly that such 
 places were known and their memory kept. 
 
34 LOCALITY OF CAL VAR V. 
 
 In the ancient tombs, now remaining by hundreds, 
 hewn in the rocks around Jerusalem, one of the most 
 common styles, often repeated, is that in which an 
 outer chamber was left open, for relatives and friends 
 to visit the tomb and sit within the portal, and often 
 a small window opened through the wall from this 
 room into the dark and closed chamber in which the 
 bodies lay. I have seen many tombs of this descrip- 
 tion immediately around Jerusalem. These tombs 
 were for generations of families, and this custom of 
 visiting graves is a Hebrew custom to the present 
 day. All the habits of the Jerusalem Christians must 
 have been in favor of their preserving with accuracy 
 the localities of important events in the life of the 
 Lord. 
 
 The absence of written accounts during the period 
 intervening from the crucifixion to the arrival of 
 Helena, has been noted by some as if the present 
 want of such accounts were evidence that none ex- 
 isted then. To all who are familiar with the subject 
 of ancient writings, and the evidence of the vast 
 quantity and variety which did exist, but which have 
 disappeared, this idea will seem quite erroneous. Of 
 making of books in old times there was no end. Not 
 only were there great libraries, but immense numbers 
 
LOCALIT V OF CAL VAR Y. 35 
 
 of private manuscripts, letters, poems, histories, of 
 which we have ample evidence. These have abso- 
 lutely vanished. We do not possess one in a thou- 
 sand of the works of ancient authors. Millions of 
 pages of ancient records, perhaps in Jerusalem alone, 
 have perished utterly. Eusebius alludes to the 
 " writings " from which information was obtained ; but 
 the customs of the East were such that in a matter 
 of locality like this, where only three hundred years 
 had elapsed, the verbal evidence of residents would 
 have all the weight that would now be given to a 
 topographical map duly verified and recorded. 
 
 The accuracy with which oral tradition delivers 
 history from mouth to mouth, and from generation 
 to generation, is a distinguished fact among Oriental 
 nations. So perfect is this, that among the modern 
 Eastern races news of important events flies rapidly 
 from place to place without variation or exaggera- 
 tion. The people are not excitable. There is no 
 temptation, as among Western nations, to exaggerate 
 for the purpose of creating a sensation. The old 
 men in the khalili bazaar in Cairo, who sit calmly 
 smoking away the time, if they heard that a building 
 had fallen in a neighboring street and killed a hundred 
 people, would but take their pipes from their mouths 
 
36 
 
 LOCALITY OF CALVARY. 
 
 and say gently, '■'' Did you say a hundred ? Mashallah ! '' 
 and resume their smoking. Here or in Europe there 
 would be a wild excitement and a fierce rush of 
 crowds to the scene. Such people repeat statements 
 with deliberation and care. Our abundant knowledge 
 of ancient manners and customs, and the well known 
 fact that they were much the same in ancient days in 
 the East as now, give us authority for believing that 
 the transmission of information was then accurate. 
 
 There is every reason to believe that the Christians 
 of Jerusalem were accustomed, in the years that fol- 
 lowed the life of the Lord on earth, to converse con- 
 stantly about every event in that life, and above all 
 things about the events of the last scene, which they 
 believed, as we believe it, the most sublime and awful 
 event which had ever occurred in the universe of God. 
 
 It seems to be quite absurd to say that the early 
 Christians confined their thoughts wholly to the spir- 
 itual character of the Lord's mission, and cared noth- 
 ing for the physical memorials of his incarnation. 
 Remember the morning of the Resurrection. Let us 
 picture, if we can, the holy women coming in the cold 
 starlight to the tomb of Joseph. As they approached 
 it, it was to them, in their yet untaught love and 
 faith, the burial-place of their murdered Master, a 
 
LOCALITY OF CALVARY. 
 
 37 
 
 place whither, so long as their lives of sorrow on 
 earth should continue, they expected to come, morn- 
 ing and evening, and mourn by his dead dust. So I 
 have frequently seen women in the East, at the break 
 of dawn, sitting by the graves of their beloved dead 
 They approach, and the great rock stands out black 
 in the gloom, with the closed doorway and the seal 
 on the stone, and the guards standing — Roman sen- 
 tinels — watching, that none should open it. If that 
 were all, if, as the poor ignorant mourners believed, 
 that were the end, and the beloved body that lay 
 there was to sink into dust with all the old dead of 
 old Jerusalem, then, so long as disciple or scoffer 
 lived in the city, from generation to generation, this 
 would have been pointed out with Oriental accuracy 
 as the burial-place of Jesus the Nazarene. 
 
 How much more, since that was not all ? ** Who 
 shall roll us back the stone, that we may do the last 
 sad offices for this poor body of our dead, dead 
 Master?" The guard heard the question with the 
 stohd indifference of the Roman soldier. When sud- 
 denly an angel appeared, and rolled back the stone, 
 and showed the astonished mourners and terrified 
 guard the empty tomb. " See, He is not here. He 
 is risen. Why seek ye the living among the dead ? " 
 
38 LOCALITY OF CALVARY. 
 
 There lay the grave-clothes, but the grave was enipty. 
 They had seen the sealed door-stone rolled back, but 
 the crucified body was not there. 
 
 Well might Roman soldiers sink fainting to the 
 ground and remember the words of their centurion, 
 ** Truly this was the Son of God." 
 
 Who will tell us that this was the last visit paid by 
 Mary or the disciples to that tomb in the garden? 
 Who will expect a sensible man to believe that the 
 scene of this stupendous event, unparalleled in the 
 history of man, was treated with indifference by those 
 who loved the Lord, and suffered to be so wholly un- 
 known as to be forgotten ? 
 
 But localities were not the only physical memorials 
 of Christ. There were many others treasured with 
 devout affection by the early Christians. Were they 
 of blood and emotions different from other races of 
 men ? Human nature has been much the same in all 
 ages. We do not forget the graves of our beloved 
 dead. We visit them, lay flowers on them. We 
 keep little memorials of them. It is even common to 
 keep relics of those in no way related to us, but in 
 whose names we have interest. The bullet which 
 killed a great general is preserved in a national 
 museum. The bloody coat in which Nelson fell at 
 
LOCALIT V OF CAL VAR V. 3q 
 
 Trafalgar is one of the treasures of a princely cabinet. 
 The old gray coat of the Little Corporal and Great 
 Emperor has moved many a heart with strong emo- 
 tion, as the eye has caught it in its case in one of the 
 halls of the Louvre. While we in America have small 
 reverence for religious relics, we have a great deal for 
 personal relics. Our historical societies have cases 
 filled with swords of generals, with chairs and tank- 
 ards, and small memorials of those who, for one 
 reason or another, are held in memory. We pay high 
 prices for old autographs. It is some two hundred 
 and fifty years since the Mayflower brought to New 
 England a colony of men and women, and the rock 
 where they are said to have landed is New England's 
 pride, and their household goods are relics enshrined 
 in a hundred cabinets. 
 
 With all this modern human nature visible around 
 us, there are those who would have us believe that 
 no one thought of keeping a relic of the King of 
 kings. No one cared for a memorial of that humble, 
 sorrowful life which ended in the burst of glory above 
 the Mount of Olives when He ascended to his Father 
 and his throne. 
 
 I don't believe them. Lazarus would never part in 
 Hfe with a cup which that hand had touched in the 
 
40 
 
 LOCALITY OF CALVARY. 
 
 evening of the day when it had grasped his hand just 
 loosed from the grave-clothes. The daughter of 
 Jairus would hand down to her children the memori- 
 als of his coming to her father's house. 
 
 The Son of Man had not great store of worldly 
 goods. He was very poor. As now in the East, so 
 then, it is probable that all the clothing a poor man 
 possessed was what he wore. " Take up thy bed and 
 walk " meant as it would mean now, take up the 
 coarse bournoose, the outer cloak, which you threw 
 down to lie on, put it on and go your w^ay. He had 
 no home or household goods or earthly possessions. 
 But Judea and Galilee were full of memorials of his 
 presence, and these were treasured with devout af- 
 fection and reverence ; and when the days of trial 
 came, and the enemy beleaguered Jerusalem and 
 swept Galilee with the besom of w^ar, these were the 
 last possessions with which the persecuted v/ould 
 consent to part. 
 
 That spiritual worship which the Lord taught was 
 no whit less spiritual because the loving disciple held 
 in his hand while he prayed a memorial of the bodily 
 presence on earth of Him who had gone to his 
 throne on high. Do you love your dead child any 
 less when you hold in your hand a lock of his hair? 
 
LOCALITY OF CALVARY, 
 
 4t 
 
 Do not reply to this that such love is of the baser 
 and earthly sort. That human body is the link 
 which makes Him our Elder Brother. I think you 
 would do well to teach yourselves and your children 
 to draw near to Christ the man. It is the only way in 
 which human creatures can at all get near to Him. 
 Dwell on every event of his life and passion. For 
 this the whole history of that life and passion has 
 been given us. Imagine, if you can, the divine be- 
 nevolence of his countenance, the glory that must 
 have been in his smile, the lustre of his eye. Nay, 
 more, when faith grows weak and doubt overtakes 
 you, faint-hearted, do not attempt to lift your heart 
 to the ineffable majesty enthroned on high until you 
 have first heard and obeyed his voice : "■ Reach 
 hither thy finger and behold my hands, and reach 
 hither thy hand and thrust it into my side, and be 
 not faithless, but believing." 
 
 Depend upon it, the Christians of Jerusalem knew 
 and told to one another many of those things which 
 Jesus did that John left unwritten ; and they knew 
 well every spot where the things were done. And if 
 it be said that the Christians were expelled from 
 Jerusalem, this is an error. I do not believe that 
 from the day of the crucifixion to this, evening ever 
 
42 
 
 LOCALITY OF CALVARY 
 
 closed in on Jerusalem unaccompanied by the voice 
 of Christian prayer. Nor is there any historical rea- 
 son for believing it. 
 
 If, therefore, there was any imposture practiced in 
 reference to the cross, it was not with reference 
 to the locality where Helena looked for it. Every 
 one knew that. 
 
 The temple which had been erected over the 
 sepulchre was destroyed, the heaps of earth or rub- 
 bish which covered it were removed, and the tomb 
 exposed to view. It stood on a plain, between two 
 slightly elevated ridges of rock. Near it, in one of 
 these ridges, were other rock-hewn tombs, showing 
 that this was an ancient place of graves. The other 
 ridge to the eastward presented a bluff, a spur of 
 rough rock, standing up about fifteen feet above the 
 level of the ground between it and the sepulchre. 
 This rock was rent in two by a great rift, yet it was 
 a majestic point, and may have been, as it was then 
 understood to be, the place of the crucifixion. 
 
INVENTION OF THE CROSS. 
 
 But the desire of the Emperor Constantine was 
 not wholly accomplished. The sepulchre had not 
 been looked for, and its discovery was a surprise. 
 The cross was yet to be found, and the search was 
 pursued by the Empress. The ridge, on which was 
 the place of the crucifixion, extended eastward to- 
 ward the old wall of the city, and Helena was told 
 by the resident Christians that, as the crucifixion 
 occurred on the eve of the Sabbath, the people had 
 hurried the removal of the tree and all traces of the 
 execution ; that the cross had been thrown into a pit 
 which was under the side of this same ledge of rock, 
 where, being an unclean piece of wood, not to be 
 touched, it had been covered over and left, and where 
 it would probably be found. Against this statement 
 is placed the supposed Hebrew custom of burning 
 crosses after crucifixions, and the improbability that 
 an exception was made in this instance. But Helena 
 caused the spot to be excavated. She found there 
 
 sundry pieces of wood. 
 
 (43) 
 
VI. 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 Thus far history. Here, unquestionably, was the 
 opportunity for imposture ; and if there were any 
 pre-arranged deception, it was at this point that 
 Helena was deceived. Her own sincerity is not ques- 
 tionable. The deep hole under the side of the ledge 
 of natural rock, descending far below the level of the 
 church floor, in which she found the wood, is known 
 as the Chapel of the Invention of the Cross. While 
 other writers of Church history, who were not pres- 
 ent, record this account of the discovery of the cross, 
 Eusebius — who was in Jerusalem at this time, or 
 soon after, and who wrote very much in his Life of 
 Constantine about all that was done by the Emperor 
 through Helena in Jerusalem — is silent on this sub- 
 ject. This fact is suspicious. Did Eusebius doubt 
 the honesty of those who led the Empress to this 
 discovery ? That she did find the wood is beyond 
 dispute, for the world rang with the story. Why, 
 then, did the Bishop of Caesarea omit to record the 
 event ? And it is also proper here to notice the 
 
 general silence of any cotemporaries of Helena on 
 (44) 
 
DOUBTS 
 
 45 
 
 this subject, from which a strong argument is ad- 
 duced against the whole story of the discovery. This 
 is certainly an argument against the verity of the 
 wood ; but the unanimous assent of Church histo- 
 rians immediately after this period, the universal 
 acceptation of the fact by the Fathers and the whole 
 Christian world, leave no room for doubt that the dis- 
 covery was made. There is no extant account of 
 the discovery immediately cotemporary with that 
 event. If any such accounts were written, they are 
 among the innumerable lost manuscripts. The ear- 
 liest notice, however, is only about twenty years later, 
 by Cyril of Jerusalem, and from this time nearly all 
 the historians and Fathers whose works are extant de- 
 scribe, or allude to it as a historical fact. Jerome 
 ridiculed the idea of Constantine in his attempt to 
 connect the discovery with the prophecy of Zecha- 
 riah, but did not doubt the fact of the discovery. 
 No historical event could be much better attested. 
 We may easily believe that Eusebius was an unbe- 
 liever in the verity of the wood, and as he is a very 
 trustworthy authority, his silence on a subject of such 
 importance must be regarded as significant. I think 
 it a fair statement of the case to say that, if Euse- 
 bius were found united with the other Fathers in 
 
46 DOUBTS. 
 
 relating the facts and accepting the verity of the 
 wood, it would be difficult for an impartial student 
 of history to doubt the fact of its verity. The total 
 silence of Eusebius, vastly more important than would 
 have been the silence of any other historian, leaves 
 the subject of the authenticity of the wood in suspi- 
 cious doubt. 
 
 There is one possible exception to this general si- 
 lence. The Emperor Constantine, after learning of 
 the discoveries in Jerusalem, wrote to Macarius, 
 Bishop of Jerusalem, instructing him as to the church 
 to be built over the holy places, and leaving the plan 
 very much to the discretion of the Bishop. He be- 
 gan this letter with expressions of gratitude to God 
 for the wonderful discovery of " the token " of the 
 passion of Christ, which had lain so long concealed, 
 and was now discovered. This has been commonly 
 thought to be a reference to the sepulchre, but it may 
 equally well refer to the cross ; and the instructions 
 which follow, for a glorious building, certainly seem 
 to have been understood by Macarius as referring to 
 the cross and the place of crucifixion rather than to 
 the tomb. For the church was built, not over the 
 sepulchre, but over the place where the cross was 
 found and over Calvary, the sepulchre being left in 
 
FESTIVAL DA YS. 47 
 
 the open court in front. It is also probable that the 
 " Exaltation of the Cross " commemorated in the 
 Church by the annual festival of September 14th, was 
 an important part of the ceremony of the dedication 
 of the Basilica, in A.D. 335. This festival is known in 
 Jerusalem as early as the beginning of the next 
 century. Sophronius (7th century) speaks of it as 
 "in ancient times" preceding the feast of the anasta- 
 sis (the restoration), but it wa^ afterward changed 
 to the 14th. It is certainly a very old festival, men- 
 tioned in various Martyrologies ; and the restoration 
 of the cross by Heraclius, to be hereafter described, 
 was probably arranged to be on the day of that fes- 
 tival. 
 
 The Feast of the Invention of the Cross, on May 
 3d, is said to have been ordered by Silvester I., who 
 died in 335, the year of the dedication of the church, 
 but it is not certain that this day was observed until 
 the eighth century. 
 
 (The Greek and Ethiopic Churches celebrate May 
 7th as the day when a miraculous apparition of a 
 cross was said to be seen over Jerusalem in 346. 
 Cyril of Jerusalem mentioned it in a letter to Con- 
 stantine written a few years later). 
 
VII. 
 
 THE WOOD AND THE NAILS. 
 
 There were found in the excavation more than 
 one cross, and the Fathers, on whose accounts we now 
 depend, do not agree as to the means of identifying 
 the cross of our Lord and distinguishing it from the 
 crosses of the two thieves. Chrysostom and Am- 
 brose say that the title, or a part of it, remained 
 attached to the cross. Another writer states that 
 the true cross was identified by carrying it to a sick 
 woman, who was healed by touching it. The latter 
 account, subsequently suiting the veneration which 
 the Church entertained for the cross, was generally 
 accepted as the manner in which the true wood was 
 verified. The age of miracles was not then sup- 
 posed to be past. It was not long since handker- 
 chiefs, which had touched the apostles, had been car- 
 ried to the sick and cured them. It was therefore 
 not strange that the people believed that the wood 
 which had been dyed with the blood of their Lord 
 should also heal disease. Among the wood found, 
 either attached to a cross or separate, was a fragment 
 
 of a tablet on which was part of the inscription or- 
 (48) 
 
THE NAILS. 
 
 49 
 
 dered by Pilate. Several nails were also found ; it is 
 not certain how many. Only two are definitely men- 
 tioned in some of the accounts, but other writers 
 speak of three and of four, and of nails used for the 
 tablet inscription. 
 
 There was a difference of opinion in the early 
 Church as to the number of nails and the position of 
 the feet of the Lord. They were sometimes repre- 
 sented as nailed separately and sometimes crossed 
 and pierced with one nail. Cyprian, Augustine, Greg- 
 ory of Tours, Innocent III., Theodoret, and Rufi- 
 nus all say that four nails were used, two for the 
 hands and two for the feet. 
 
 A very interesting discussion has arisen in refer- 
 ence to the nails of the cross. The words of the 
 Lord to Thomas clearly show that his hands were 
 pierced by the nails ; but whether the feet were 
 pierced or only bound to the cross by cords, has been 
 a question. Christian writers believe that the feet 
 were nailed, differing as to their position and the 
 ■number of nails. Opponents of Christianity have 
 denied that there is any evidence of this. The dis- 
 cussion was interesting mainly as bearing on the 
 prophetic passage : " They pierced my hands and my 
 feet," and also because the assertion has been made 
 3 
 
50 
 
 J HE NAILS. 
 
 by infidel writers that the death of Christ was only 
 apparent, and not real, and that the resurrection was 
 not miraculous. It is manifest that if his feet were 
 wounded with nails, the walk to Emmaus on the 
 day of the resurrection would have been impossible 
 unless the resurrection was a miracle. When He 
 appeared to his disciples. He said, " See my hands 
 and my feet, that is I myself," thus apparently call- 
 ing their attention to the wounds in both. The men- 
 tion of his feet could have been for no other reason. 
 The testimony of Justin Martyr, however, is conclu- 
 sive. He lived and wrote in the second century. 
 His conversion to Christianity was in A.D. 132. He 
 was learned and accomplished — a Platonist. It is not 
 impossible or improbable that he had known and con- 
 versed with many who were present at the crucifixion. 
 He describes the literal fulfillment of prophecy in the 
 fact of the pierced feet. His evidence is uncontra- 
 dicted, and sufficient even without the confirmation it 
 receives from Tertullian. 
 
 Now, whether these pieces of wood which Helena 
 found were ingeniously prepared by the Christian 
 residents of Jerusalem to deceive her and Constan- 
 tine, or whether the Emperor himself, having in view 
 his favorite sign of the cross, and a determination to 
 
TELEGRAPHIC TRADITION-. 51 
 
 make use of the Christian faith, had arranged the 
 whole spectacle of this discovery, or whether the 
 simple fact was that the cross had lain buried there, 
 and was found where the Christians said it was, every 
 reader must decide for himself. 
 
 The Roman world believed it, and the faith that 
 had carried the labarum to victory was transferred 
 with ten-fold force to the wood of the cross itself. 
 
 The discovery of those old pieces of wood in Jeru- 
 salem shook the world with an emotion scarce ever 
 before experienced. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A TELEGRAPHIC TRADITION. 
 
 All along the coast of the Levant, on various 
 prominent headlands, are remains of old towers, 
 which are pointed out with singular agreement of 
 traditions as built by order of Constantine, to be 
 used in conveying from Jerusalem to Byzantium the 
 intelligence of the discovery of the cross. If this 
 tradition be correct, there is a clear implication that 
 
52 
 
 TELEGRAPHIC TRADITIO^T. 
 
 the Emperor had confidence in the search, and had 
 arranged for tlie sensation which sliould follow it. 
 True, this may have been honestly done, the prepara- 
 tion being based on information obtained from Jeru- 
 salem, that if any authorized agent of the empire 
 could remove Hadrian's temple he would certainly 
 find the cross. 
 
 Finding no account of it, I can only state the fact 
 that in several voyages along the coast of the Levant, 
 I have noticed old towers on the headlands, and on 
 asking what they were, received, at different places 
 and times, from Oriental Christians, the same reply 
 that they were built for watch-towers to signal the 
 discovery of the cross. This is very likely to be an- 
 other of those countless traditions in the East which 
 are connected, without reason, with the Empress 
 Helena. For pretty much every old church and 
 building of every kind, about which nothing is 
 known, is assigned to her in Eastern Christian tra- 
 dition. But it is a grand old notion, and many a 
 night on those seas, I have imagined that signal 
 flashing along the headlands. 
 
 There was no Morse then, and no telegraphic wires 
 were laid, to be the thrilling nerves along which the 
 news of the discovery should spread through all the 
 
TELEGRAPHIC TRADITION. 53 
 
 Christian body. But when the shout went up above 
 the walls of Jerusalem that the cross was found, they 
 lit the signal fire on the tower of David on Mount 
 Zion. Far off at Ramah, where Samuel had once 
 dwelt, a watcher, with eye fixed on Jerusalem, saw 
 the light and touched his beacon. On the hill of 
 Omri, Samaria the strong, they saw the flames, and 
 kindled their own to speed the tidings. The cedar 
 wood blazed high on Lebanon. Berytus flashed it on 
 to Tripoli, and Tripoli to Antioch, city of the Chris- 
 tian name. Then across the gulf to Tarsus, and the 
 flame gleamed from Mount Taurus on the cold waves 
 of the Cydnus and leaped on to Laodicea and to Sar- 
 dis. Pactolus was never so golden as in that mid- 
 night light, gleaming over the white walls of the al- 
 ready crumbling temple of Cybele. From island to 
 island it fled along the yEgean Sea. From the hills 
 of Lesbos, where the wine flowed red and foaming, 
 they saw it who watched on Mount Ida, many-foun- 
 tained Ida, and the plain of Troy, and the yellow 
 waters of Scamander were lit with the ruddy glow. 
 Far Olympus, crowned with eternal snow, Olympus 
 of Bithynia, caught the news, and the blaze on his 
 summit shone over the Propontis, even to the win- 
 dow where the Roman Emperor sat in the solemn 
 
54 
 
 GREAT RESULTS. 
 
 night, and then the shout that had gone up an hour 
 before in Jerusalem, was echoed and re-echoed a hun- 
 dred times by the myriads who thronged the mid- 
 night streets of the new Imperial City. The cross 
 was found. Yes, they believed it. 
 
 We could have believed it then ourselves, but these 
 are colder times. While men speak eloquently about 
 the great battles of the world, they might speak more 
 eloquently about smaller events no less decisive. 
 What a discovery that lot of old wood was ! No man 
 can tell what great effects may proceed from small 
 causes ; and if you seek the origins of the world's 
 great changes, you will find them often in very 
 small incidents. An old woman, digging for old 
 wood in a hole in Jerusalem, was digging the graves 
 of millions of her fellow-creatures, digging under the 
 foundations of empires yet to be, digging the path- 
 way to power for future monarchs, digging the very 
 canals and railroads of modern civilization. Who 
 can tell what might have been the history of the 
 world, if Helena had never found the cross? 
 
IX. 
 
 THE KIND OF WOOD. 
 
 Not a little was written by the early Christians on 
 the wood of the cross, its origin, and Its character. 
 Various traditions became popular as to the growth 
 of the wood and the place of its growth. A mile or 
 two west of Jerusalem, in a valley among the hills, is 
 a Greek monastery, recently repaired and put in or- 
 der, where boys receive a free education. It is one 
 of the best regulated and most useful of all the chari- 
 ties of the churches in and around the holy city. 
 This is the Monastery of the Holy Cross. The build- 
 ings are very old, some of them very fine. The foun- 
 dation dates from an early period, not long after the 
 discovery of the cross by Helena, and the tradition 
 of the establishment Is that it stands on the spot 
 where the tree grew from which the cross was cut. 
 The determining such a spot, and ijiarking it by a 
 monument at a time like that, is an Indication of the 
 veneration for localities which the early Christians 
 exhibited. The world was vibrating with the news 
 that the cross was found, and It met the locality-lov- 
 ing spirit of the times to find and announce the place 
 
 where the wood grew. So it was done. 
 
 (55) 
 
56 
 
 THE WOOD. 
 
 Then began questions as to the genealogy of the 
 tree. How came this wood ever to grow? Whence 
 was it that on some bright morning, long ago, among 
 the wild flowers that carpet Holy Land, a bud should 
 burst the ground, put forth its small leaves, and 
 struggle up into the life and atmosphere, only to be 
 the bearer of the heaviest load of sin and agony ever 
 borne by wood of earthly growth ? 
 
 Many traditions obtained circulation on this sub- 
 ject, not devoid of interest. Most of them were vari- 
 ations of one which may be thus given in its simplest 
 form : 
 
 When Adam, wearied with a thousand years of 
 toil, sank on the earth, exhausted and ready to die, 
 he sent Seth to the angel who kept the way of Eden, 
 to beg of him balm from the garden, wherewith to 
 anoint his limbs. But the angel refused the balm, 
 and only gave to Seth three seeds of the apple from 
 the tree of forbidden fruit, and commanded him, 
 when Adam should be dead, to put those seeds under 
 his tongue and bury him ; promising him that from 
 those seeds should spring a tree that should bear 
 fruit whereby Adam should be saved and live again. 
 From them did spring three trees, of which the wood 
 of the cross was made; He who died on it being the 
 promised fruit the tree should bear. 
 
TRADITIONS. 
 
 57 
 
 This legend had numerous variations. A cutting 
 of the tree is spoken of, instead of the seeds, which 
 was planted by Seth on Adam's grave. The rod of 
 Moses was cut from this tree. Solomon hewed down 
 the tree to make a beam or pillar of the temple from 
 its wood, but it would not fit. The Queen of Sheba 
 refused to go near it, prophesying that it would bring 
 destruction to the Hebrews. Solomon cut it away 
 and had it buried. The pool of Bethesda was near 
 its place of burial, and received its healing qualities 
 from this fact. The wood floated to the surface of 
 the water during the trial of Christ, and was taken 
 for the upright beam of the cross. 
 
 Variations of this legend abounded in what is now 
 well called the folk-lore of various European peoples. 
 The aspen tree was accused of trembling because the 
 cross was of aspen wood. In England a notion has 
 been heard of, how extensively we know not, that the 
 wood was mistletoe, then a tree, but ever since a par- 
 asite. Maundeville (fourteenth century) speaks of a 
 tree which was still lying as a bridge over the Ke- 
 dron, '' of which the cross was made." 
 
 The early writers were fond of finding the cross 
 prefigured. Justin Martyr sees it in the paschal lamb, 
 spitted with crossing spits, (Dial. c. Tryph.) In the 
 3* 
 
58 TYPES OF THE CROSS. 
 
 Epistle of Barnabas (c. xi.), it was said that at the 
 battle of Rephidim the Holy Spirit caused Moses to 
 make the sign of the cross in holding up his hands, 
 and in the same chapter the passage in 2 Esdras, v. 5, 
 *' and blood shall drop out of the wood," is cited as 
 prophetical of the cross. Jacob's ladder, the waving 
 of the sacrificial offerings in the temple, various atti- 
 tudes of men in ordinary labor, all were brought to 
 notice as types of the cross. " Birds in flying," said 
 Jerome, " make the sign of the cross ; a man swim- 
 ming or praying takes the form of the cross." It may 
 be curious to note here, that although that superb 
 constellation, the Southern Cross, must have been 
 well known to Christians of the Thebaid and farther 
 northward, we find no definite allusion to it in any 
 of the early Christian writers. 
 
 The Venerable Bede, writing in the fifth century, 
 says the cross was of four kinds of wood — cypress, 
 cedar, pine, and box. John Cantacuzenus asserted 
 the same. Innocent says the upright was one wood, 
 the transverse beam another, the title a third, and 
 the feet were supported on a projecting step made 
 of a fourth wood. 
 
 Others assert that the cross was of cypress, cedar, 
 palm, and Dlive-wood. 
 
THE WOOD. 59 
 
 Lipsius, the most learned and exhaustive writer on 
 the subject, thinks, with reason, that the cross was 
 oak — a wood abounding in the country, easily pro- 
 cured, and strong for the purpose. He thinks such 
 relics as he had seen were oak. 
 
 The most careful examination that I have been 
 able to make of some of the larger fragments which 
 still exist, leads me to think that the wood was oak. 
 The tablet at Santa Croce in Rome, which, there is no 
 reason to doubt, is that found by the Empress, had at 
 first glance the appearance of old olive-wood ; but on 
 closer and careful examination with a glass, I was in- 
 clined to regard it as oak. The Vienna fragments are 
 very like old oak. But all the fragments I have seen are 
 so discolored, and their surface grain is so disintegra- 
 ted by time and changes of temperature, that no one 
 can assert with much confidence what species of 
 wood any of them are. 
 
 There are very few fragments anywhere which pro- 
 fess to be relics of the Holy Cross. The common idea 
 that enough wood is shown in various places as relics 
 of the true cross to build a dozen crosses, is a very 
 foolish error, invented by some one who imagined 
 that when a church claimed to possess a piece of the 
 true cross, it must be a piece of at least some feet in 
 
6o CON STAN TINE. 
 
 length and solid contents. Generally speaking, that 
 very rare and highly-prized relic, '* a piece of the true 
 cross," whether possessed by a church, a crowned 
 head, or a private individual, is a minute speck of 
 wood, scarcely visible to the naked eye, set some- 
 times on an ivory tablet, always enclosed in a costly 
 reliquaire. 
 
 No other fragment is known so large as the Santa 
 Croce tablet, which is not ten inches long by sev- 
 en wide. There are but very few fragments known 
 which are large enough to be called pieces of wood. 
 Leaving out the Santa Croce tablet, all the relics of 
 the Holy Cross, claimed to be such, that I have been 
 able to hear of in all the world, if gathered into one 
 piece, would not make another block of wood as 
 large as the Santa Croce tablet. This tablet is not 
 generally spoken of as a part of the cross itself. 
 
 X. 
 
 CONSTANTIN E. 
 
 Helena sent to Constantine a piece of the wood 
 and several of the nails. We say " several," for the 
 number is uncertain. Rufinus says that she sent 
 
THE NAILS. 6 1 
 
 "Clavos, ex quibus ille frenos composuit 
 
 quibus uteretur ad bellum. Et ex aliis galeam, etc." 
 It would require three, and perhaps four, to meet the 
 requirements of this statement, which, however, was 
 probably not intended to be accurate. Whether 
 these were sent immediately after the discovery, or 
 delayed a year or more, does not appear. Constan- 
 tine was doubtless then in Byzantium or Nicomedia, 
 planning the royal city of Constantinople. He di- 
 rected the wood to be placed in the head of a statue 
 of himself, to adorn the new capitol. He used part 
 of the nails for a helmet, and one or more of them 
 for ornaments on the bridle of his horse, in fulfill- 
 ment of the prophecy of Zechariah, which foretold a 
 universal gathering of the Church when " Holiness to 
 the Lord " shall be on the bridles of the horses. This 
 fact illustrates the determination of Constantine to 
 make every possible use of the influence of the cross, 
 natural or supernatural, for he thus made his stand- 
 ard, his helmet, and his war-horse alike bearers of the 
 talisman. And the helmet and war-horse of this 
 emperor had not been, and were not likely to be, 
 kept for peaceful show. 
 
 What became of these or of the other nails, if any, 
 reserved by Helena, it is impossible to say. State- 
 
62 CONSTANTINE. 
 
 ments and traditions innumerable are found in all 
 ages since, but they are so inconsistent and contra- 
 dictory, they require so many nails to satisfy us of 
 their possible truth, that the conclusion is irresistible 
 that the history of the original nails found can not 
 be traced. Crowns that have claimed to be banded 
 with their iron have no historical genealogy on which 
 we can depend, and we therefore abandon them as 
 hopelessly lost. The iron crown of Monza, commonly 
 supposed to have a band made from one of the nails, 
 has no title to such a claim. This is an old crown, 
 but three hundred years ago this tradition was not 
 attached to it. 
 
 There is no question in history more perplexing, 
 scarcely any more interesting, than this, of the motives 
 inducing the whole conduct of Constantine with 
 reference to Christianity. Retaining the old idea of 
 the pagan emperors that the religion and its priests 
 were subjects of the imperial command, he regulated 
 Church matters without himself entering the Church. 
 He was not even baptized until in the last hours of 
 his life ; yet he judged the Arian controversy, and re- 
 vised his judgment, approved the Council of Nice, 
 and denounced all who should not adopt the Nicene 
 Creed, made the cross his standard, and abolished for 
 
CONSTANTINE. 63 
 
 it the imperial eagles. But apparently, at the very 
 time when he was publishing " Holiness to the Lord " 
 on his bridle, he was absorbed in jealousy of his son 
 and heir, Crispus, whom he foully and secretly put to 
 death (a.D. 326). His personal character gives no 
 indications of the refining and elevating influence of 
 the faith he upheld. He died, leaving the empire 
 nominally Christian, but his death was the signal for 
 the barbarian character of his race to manifest itself. 
 He had murdered his oldest son, best of the family, 
 and his nephew, Licinius ; he had murdered his wife 
 of twenty years. His successor, her second son, 
 Constantius, before his two brothers could arrive on 
 the scene, destroyed in one horrible massacre nearly 
 all others that were left of the blood of the first 
 Christian emperor. 
 
 If we knew more of the religious character of the 
 age in which Constantine lived, we might better judge 
 whether the pagan faith had become so vague as to 
 amount to no faith at all, and thus the time grown 
 well suited for the emperor to adopt and foster a re- 
 ligion whose purity and power he recognized. He 
 was a man of gre t ability. The Decree of Milan 
 was a bold and successful stroke of policy. The 
 restoration of all Christian rights and property, star- 
 
64 CONSTjyTIArE, 
 
 tling as it was to those who had but lately been under 
 the heel of Diocletian, attached to the new monarch 
 every Christian in the empire. He could see that 
 here was an opportunity to recover for himself that 
 religious power which former emperors wielded when 
 pagan faith was a power, but which ceased to exist 
 when men cared nothing for religion or its altars. 
 Was it, then, the sagacious politician, the wily states- 
 man, who resolved to take this new religion, gather 
 to it the infidel, atheist masses in all parts of the 
 Roman Empire, and wield the power thus created ? 
 Was the story of the vision and the '^ in hoc signo 
 vinces " w^iich he told to Eusebius only a revival of 
 the same sort of story which had helped his predeces- 
 sors in the early days of Rome to keep their follow- 
 ers in hand, by convincing them of the direct favor 
 of the gods ? Was the mission of Helena to Jerusalem 
 to seek the cross, and the arrangement for her to find 
 it, all a part of the same cunning plan to consolidate 
 his empire by the aid of religious enthusiasm? 
 
 It is a black side of character to look at, and it 
 would be pleasanter to think the other explanation 
 true, that he had a good old English mother, a devout . 
 Christian, who taught him from his youth up, and 
 whom he loved and kept near him always ; and that 
 
CHURCH AND STATE 65 
 
 in all that he did, the faith and teachings of his mother 
 were dear to him, and that to her influence is due the 
 subjection of the Roman Empire to Christianity. But 
 it must be confessed that in the personal character of 
 Constantine there is very little to admire. 
 
 Our subject, rife with suggestions to the honest 
 student of history, will lead him in weighing the 
 motives of Constantine, to observe here the beginning 
 of the relations of Church and State. The Roman 
 emperors had wielded all the power of the religion. 
 Constantine made Christianity the State religion, and 
 used it ; perhaps made it so for the sake of using it. 
 Thus the Church became subject to the State. But 
 later the Church threw off the yoke and subjugated 
 the State. And the Roman history is not the only 
 instructive history of this kind. The absolute divorce 
 of Church and State, which existed before the days 
 of Constantine, has scarcely since that day been seen 
 except in America. 
 
XL 
 
 lESUS NA2ARENUS REX J U D A E O R U M . 
 
 Among the pieces of wood found in the pit was a 
 fragment which contained parts of a trilingual inscrip- 
 tion. This fragment Helena conveyed to Rome. 
 When received in that city, parts of a Greek, of a 
 Latin, and parts of the letters of a HebreV in- 
 scription were legible. It was at once inclosed in a 
 leaden box. 
 
 The basilica of Santa Croce in Jerusalemme was 
 erected by Constantine to receive this piece of wood. 
 The foundations were laid in earth brought from 
 Jerusalem. By his special order the relic was de- 
 posited above the vaulted roof of the church, in a 
 sort of dead window which was walled up. A mosaic 
 inscription recorded its place of deposit, and the 
 church which bore its name thus preserved it for 
 many centuries. 
 
 As years rolled along the fate of Rome changed, 
 
 and the Church of the Holy Cross (which, although 
 
 within the old walls, is far away from the modern 
 
 center of the city, and actually in the country) was 
 
 sadly neglected and sank into obscurity. The mosaic 
 (66) 
 
THE IX SCRIP TIOM. ^y 
 
 inscription was defaced, and became illegible, so that 
 at length it was only a tradition that the church pos- 
 sessed this piece of the sacred wood, but no one 
 could point it out among the relics in the treasury- 
 chamber. High up over the walls of Rome, in silent 
 obscurity, while intestine quarrels shook the capital, 
 through civil v/ar and invasion, through all the suc- 
 cession of murder and shame which marked the his- 
 tory 'of the Roman Empire, through the dark and 
 still years when ruin fell on old Rome, and palace 
 and wall crumbled into dust, surmounting the fall- 
 ing stones of the old city, and unaffected by its 
 changing dynasties and changing inhabitants, the 
 wood of the cross remained in the vaulted roof of 
 Santa Croce. After many centuries, some workmen, 
 repairing the old church, accidentally broke into the 
 walled-up window, and found the leaden chest. Be- 
 lieving that they had found treasure, they were at 
 the first disposed to conceal the box, but on opening 
 it they were disappointed at sight of a somewhat 
 musty and very ancient -looking piece of wood. 
 Little did they imagine the splendor of that w^ood, 
 or over what white brow the faith of men had placed 
 its sacred characters. The joy of Rome when it 
 learned of the discovery was great beyond descrip- 
 
68 THE IN SCRIP now 
 
 tion. The city rang with the shouts of the people, 
 and the title of scorn which the derision of a Ro- 
 man Governor invented for the cross of the victim, 
 became the object of adoration to Rome itself. 
 
 Part of this tablet fragment is still in the Church 
 of Santa Croce at Rome. The appearance is that of 
 a decayed piece of board, on which remain traces of 
 inscriptions in three languages. The Hebrew is quite 
 illegible, only parts of a few letters remaining visible. 
 I am not aware that any careful examination has 
 been made of this old piece of w^ood in modern 
 times, and no publication which I have been able to 
 find has given any account of it since the seventeenth 
 century. It is preserved in a chapel, behind and 
 above the high altar of the church, access to which 
 is had by a long winding passage through the rear 
 part of the Basilica, and ascending numerous steps. 
 
 I owe sincere thanks to an eminent dignitary of 
 the Church who procured for me the privilege of 
 examining the relic, and accompanied me one pleas- 
 ant afternoon to the chapel in the old Basilica, 
 which has so long been its guardian. The Greek 
 Nazarenous B- and the Latin, Nazarams Re- are still 
 legible. Traces of Hebrew letters are also visible on 
 the upper edge of the fragment. They are cut in 
 
-o THE inscription: 
 
 the wood, not written on it. This peculiarity is 
 worth noticing : that the Greek word {Nazarenous) 
 is wrongly spelled, and both the Latin and Greek 
 inscriptions read from right to left, after the Hebrew 
 custom. From this it has been argued that a He- 
 brew did the work for Pilate. Others have held that 
 the workmanship of the different parts is so diverse 
 in character that the various inscriptions must have 
 been cut by different persons, the order from right to 
 left being selected by Pilate because his inscription 
 was intended to be in some sense insulting to the 
 Jews. So far as my observation extends, no one has 
 thought of denying that it is the piece of wood sent 
 to Rome by Helena, for the reception of which the 
 original Basilica was erected in the year 331. It 
 is annually exhibited with great pomp on Easter 
 Sunday. 
 
 Bonus, de Cruce Triumphante, gives an engrav- 
 ing of the tablet, and from him it would appear that 
 the board was painted white and the letters were 
 red. Alban Butler says it was so when the leaden 
 case was discovered and opened (in 1492), but 
 that these colors are since faded.^ I can scarcely 
 credit these statements, for I did not find in 1870 
 
 * F. C. H. in N. and Q., 2d S., IX. 515. 
 
THE INSCRIPTION. 
 
 71 
 
 any trace of paint on the wood, the color and 
 surface presenting the appearance of very ancient 
 wood, which has never had any varnish or paint on 
 it. The letters are incised, and may have been 
 painted once, but seem now only dark on account of 
 the change of color by age. Decay invades the 
 inscription. The letter N in Nazarenus has quite 
 disappeared in the dry rot, as have the lower parts 
 of the letters RE in the same word, and the begin- 
 ning of Basileus in the Greek, and of Rex in the 
 Latin. The illustration will show what portion of 
 the entire tablet this professes to be. 
 
 I made a rough drawing of the tablet while examin- 
 ing it, and after returning to my hotel, colored it from 
 memory ; but as I have not any knack at such use of 
 either kind of pencil, I can only say that the cut, 
 which I present herewith, is a reduced copy of my 
 work and not of the tablet, of which, however, it 
 will give a fair idea. The picture is certainly not 
 without interest, since it represents what all Chris- 
 tians of all names for more than a thousand years 
 believed to be a part of the tablet which Pilate 
 placed above the head of Christ. 
 
XII. 
 
 VERA CRUX. 
 
 The principal portion of the wood, now and al- 
 ways afterward known as Vera Crux, the True Cross, 
 was retained by Helena in Jerusalem and deposited 
 in the great church or basilica erected under the 
 order of Constantine over the place of the cruci- 
 fixion and burial, and dedicated in the year 335. 
 The Church of the Resurrection, or, as it is com- 
 monly called, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
 now in Jerusalem, occupies the same site, but is 
 vastly more extensive, reaching from beyond the 
 Sepulchre on the west to the Chapel of the Inven- 
 tion of the Cross on the extreme east. 
 
 For three hundred years the cross was in the cus- 
 tody of the Bishop of Jerusalem, and was annually 
 exhibited on Easter Sunday to the pilgrims who 
 thronged the Holy City. From time to time persons 
 of large wealth, or of high position, were permitted 
 to purchase fragments, small splinters, which were 
 carried to Europe and placed in monasteries, abbeys, 
 
 and churches. These were always received with 
 (72) 
 
VEXILLA REGIS. 
 
 73 
 
 great veneration, and many of these relics doubtless 
 remain still in the treasuries of European religious 
 establishments. Tradition began to say that the 
 wood constantly replaced itself as fast as splinters 
 were cut from it. 
 
 To some of these fragments we Protestants owe 
 a great deal more than most of us imagine. For 
 this old wood not only shook empires, but it warmed 
 hearts and gave to the world some of its most highly 
 valued poetry and song. 
 
 It was about the year 580 that a fragment of the 
 wood was sent to France, of whose history we know 
 this, that it gave to the Christian world that magnifi- 
 cent hymn of the Church, ^^Vexilla regis prodeunt,'' 
 which in its original form and in translations has 
 moved the hearts of Christians in all times since. 
 
 There was a church to be consecrated at Poictiers, 
 in France, in or about the year 580, and Gregory of 
 Tours had received certain relics to be there placed. 
 Venantius Fortunatus wrote a hymn, which Dr 
 Neale says was composed on the occasion of the re- 
 ception of these relics. This hymn was one of those 
 inspirations which enter at once into the life of the 
 Church — one of the songs which men grow to loving 
 so much, vv'hich become so sacred by reason of the 
 4 
 
74 
 
 VEX ILL A REGIS. 
 
 long successions of generations who utter them in 
 praise and prayer that we believe they will last the 
 Church so long as it is a Church militant, and we 
 sometimes think may be part of the utterances to be 
 used by the Church Triumphant. 
 
 It is obvious from the hymn that the chief among 
 the relics was a fragment of the cross. Let us intro- 
 duce it here in its best known modern form : 
 
 Vexilla regis prodeunt : 
 Fulget crucis mysterium. 
 Qua vita mortem pertulit, 
 Et morte vitam protulit. 
 
 Quae vulnerata lanceae 
 Mucrone diro, criminum 
 Ut nos lavaret sordibus, 
 Manavit unda et sanguine. 
 
 Impleta sunt, quas concinit 
 David fideli carmine, 
 Dicendo nationibus : 
 Regnavit a ligno Deus. 
 
 Arbor decora et fulgida, 
 Ornata regis purpura. 
 Electa digno stipite 
 Tarn sancta membra tangere. 
 
VEX ILL A REGIS. 75 
 
 Beata, cujus brachiis 
 Praetium pependit saeculi, 
 Statera facta corporis 
 Tulit que prccdam tartari. 
 
 O crux ave, spes unica, 
 Hoc passionis tempore 
 Piis adauge g:ratiam 
 Reis que dele crimina. 
 
 Te, fons salutis, Trinitas, 
 Collaudet omnis spiritus : 
 Quibus crucis victoriam 
 Largiris, adde praemium. 
 
 Instead of the more familiar version in English, of 
 the Vexilla Regis, we select that of Dr. Neale, whose 
 wonderful power of rendering the songs of the 
 Church in word and spirit, seems almost like inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 The Royal banners forward go, 
 The cross shines forth with mystic glow ; 
 Where He in flesh, our flesh who made, 
 Our sentence bore, our ransom paid. 
 
 Where deep for us the spear was dyed. 
 Life's torrent rushing from his side ; 
 To wash us in the precious flood 
 Where mingled watei flowed and blood. 
 
'A 
 
 VEXILLA REGIS. 
 
 Fulfilled is all that David told 
 
 In true prophetic song of old ; 
 
 Amidst the nations, God, saith he. 
 
 Hath reigned and triumphed from the Tree. 
 
 Oh, tree of beauty, tree of light ! 
 Oh, tree with royal purple dight I 
 Elect upon whose faithful breast 
 Those holy limbs should find their rest I 
 
 On whose dear arms, so widely flung. 
 The weight of this world's ransom hung 
 The price of humankind to pay 
 And spoil the spoiler of his prey ! 
 
 Oh, cross, our one reliance, hail ! 
 This holy passion-tide, avail 
 To give fresh merit to the saint 
 And pardon to the penitent. 
 
 To thee Eternal Three in One 
 Let homage meet by all be done ; 
 Whom by the cross thou dost restore. 
 Preserve and govern evermore. 
 
 The last two stanzas of the hymn are of a later 
 period. It is to this same time and author, and to 
 the same or another fragment of the wood that we 
 owe that other glorious hymn, the Pange lingua gloru 
 osu whose refrain has so moved the souls of men in 
 
PANGE LINGUA. 
 
 77 
 
 the solemn commemorations of Good Friday. A 
 stanza will suffice here. 
 
 Pange lingua gloriosi 
 Proelium certaminis, 
 Et super crucis trophaso 
 Die triumphum nobilem 
 Qualiter Redemptor orbis 
 Immolatus vicerit. 
 
 Crux ficlelis, inter omnes 
 Arbor una nobilis ; 
 Nulla silv^a talem profert, 
 Fronde, flore, germine. 
 Dulce lignum, dulces clavos, 
 Dulce pondus sustinet. 
 
 Sing, my tongue, the Saviour's glory, 
 
 Tell his triumph far and wide ; 
 
 Tell aloud the famous story 
 
 Of his body crucified. 
 
 How upon the cross a victim 
 
 Vanquishing in death, He died. 
 
 Faithful cross, oh tree all beauteous ! 
 Tree all peerless and divine ! 
 Not a grove on earth can show us 
 Such a flower and leaf as thine. 
 Sweet the nails and sweet the wood 
 Laden with so sweet a load ! 
 
78 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 In a curious little book, published in Rome in 1609, 
 entitled De Particula ex PRETIOSO ET VIVIVICO 
 LiGNO Sacratissimae Crucis, etc., by A. F. An- 
 gelo Rocca Camerte, an Augustin, who was prefect 
 of the Apostolic treasury, we find an account of a 
 fragment which was then in the treasury. This was 
 supposed to be the same fragment for which Leo I. 
 thanks Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, in one of his 
 letters, about A.D. 450. This treatise is very inter- 
 esting, the author describing various small fragments 
 of the wood, and going at considerable length into 
 the discussion of the nails, their number, etc., and the 
 character of the wood, which, from such relics as he 
 had seen, he believed, with Lipsius, to have been 
 oak. 
 
 The history of Jerusalem and its sacred places and 
 relics during the three centuries after Constantine is 
 very obscure. What prayers were offered before that 
 wood in those years, God only knows, before whom 
 long ago the worshipers themselves have knelt for 
 judgment. What tears have fallen on the rock of 
 Jerusalem before the shrine of the cross in those days, 
 they best know whose eyes shut on the griefs of life 
 twelve centuries ago. 
 
 In the seventh century Jerusalem experienced a 
 
CHOSROES. 
 
 79 
 
 succession of terrible changes. In the year 614 Chos- 
 roes, the Persian, descended upon Syria, and the first 
 great event in the history of the wood was its capture 
 by this monarch in that year. The repose of the 
 reHc in Jerusalem was disturbed by the approach of 
 his host, swollen with volunteer Jews and Arabs, alike 
 desirous to be revenged on the hated followers of 
 Christ who had possession of the Holy City. Fresh 
 from the conquest of Asia Minor, and eager to invade 
 Egypt, the enemy came down through Galilee with 
 resistless force, and threw themselves against the for- 
 tifications of Jerusalem. 
 
 That invasion must have been fierce beyond paral- 
 lel. It was in vain for walls and gates to oppose the 
 fierce onslaught. Forcing their way into the city, 
 they carried rapine and destruction through the 
 streets, which were not unused to similar scenes. 
 Ninety thousand Christians fell fighting in the Holy 
 City for the cross of Christ, and when the last defend 
 er was gone, the cross fell into the hands of the in- 
 fidel foe. 
 
 I am tempted to pause a moment and relate one of 
 those thousand legends which, founded perhaps on 
 some small base of truth, have been built up around 
 the story of this wood. I have no knowledge of its 
 
8o A TRADITION. 
 
 origin, and can only relate it as I heard it, sitting, 
 one sunny day, on the Mount of Olives, and listening 
 to a friend whose talk abounded in such traditions. 
 He was eloquent when he spoke of the Greek who 
 fought last on the hill of Calvary for the wood of the 
 cross. It was a pet subject with him. I wondered if 
 he dreamed it. It sounds like a vision of the night. 
 
 That Greek was a giant, \vho appeared among the 
 garrison of Jerusalem, unknown to all. He might 
 well have been a descendant of those who fought with 
 Leonidas ; he was a fit predecessor to Richard. His 
 sw^ord was like the sword of Goliah. He had fought 
 steadfastly all the day, and with his own arm he had 
 slain a hundred of the rabble foe, Jew and Gentile 
 alike. Wherever he appeared, the enemy fell like grain 
 before the sickle. Retreating slowly, h^ had at last 
 stationed himself at the door of the Chapel of the 
 Cross, within which the priests were bowed in prayer, 
 and here for a long time his single arm kept back a 
 thousand of the enemy. Driven at length within the 
 wall, he stood erect at the foot of the cross, now 
 visible to the eyes of the foe, and when they had 
 hewn the praying priests to the ground, he stood 
 alone to fight for the wood of Christ's suffering. They 
 shrank aghast from the visage that flashed through 
 
THE CROSS CAPTURED. 8 1 
 
 his armor. His eye was like the eye of an angel. 
 Lifting between his clasped hands the cross-hilt of 
 his sword, he offered up a prayer to Him for whom 
 he fought, and Christ sent down his angels to be with 
 him in the conflict. In vain they pressed on him. 
 One sweep of his strong arm cleared the circle around 
 him, and the altar was ready for other victims. The 
 night came down, and none could approach the cross, 
 for the stout warrior, who, with God's help, yet guard- 
 ed it ; and when the gloom was too thick for foe 
 to recognize foe, they left him there, alone, triumph- 
 ant, to the company of God and the angels. In the 
 morning he was gone, and on the floor of the chapel 
 they counted of the slain by his hand twelve chiefs 
 and forty-four of the stoutest soldiers of the guard of 
 Chosroes. Men might well say it was Michael the 
 Archangel himself. 
 
 Thus much of tradition. We follow veritable 
 history. 
 
 The tide of battle rolled on westward and north- 
 ward, breaking on the shores of the sea and losing it- 
 self in the sands of the Libyan desert. The reign of 
 Persia extended from the pyramids to the unknown 
 wastes of Scythia, and the victorious monarch retired 
 beyond the Euphrates, bearing with him the True 
 
82 THE CROSS CAPTURED. 
 
 Cross as one of the trophies of his conquests. It 
 would appear that its preservation was due to the 
 Christian wife of Chosroes. 
 
 Alas for Jerasalem ! What a bloody " city of peace " 
 she has been in all her long history ! War, war for- 
 ever in her walls. I doubt if so much blood has been 
 poured out on any other city pavement from Babylon 
 to Rome. 
 
 Jerusalem was more desolate now than it had been 
 since the captivity of the Sons of Israel, when they 
 were led away beyond the rivers of Babylon. The 
 Church of the Resurrection was in ruins over the sep- 
 ulchre of Christ, and the personal affliction of the in- 
 habitants, great and terrible as it was, seemed nothing 
 compared with the loss which the city and the Chris- 
 tian world had sustained in the capture of the True 
 Cross. All the western world mourned the judgment 
 of God, and for fourteen years ceased not to pray for 
 the restoration of the object of their affection. 
 
 While the cross remained in the hands of the 
 Eastern pagans, a new power began to arise, which 
 was to control the destinies of the eastern world. 
 The camel-driver of Mecca had become a prophet, 
 and the children of Ishmael and Esau had begun to 
 overrun the inheritance of Isaac and Jacob. 
 
HOL Y CROSS DA Y. 83 
 
 After ten years of battle, Heraclius, the Roman 
 Emperor, on the plains of Nineveh, destroyed the 
 Persian forces and recaptured the cross. The Em- 
 peror returned from the East, and as he approached 
 Jerusalem, mindful of his own lowliness, compared 
 with Him whose cross he was now carrying, dis- 
 mounted, and bared his head and feet. Then, taking 
 the wood on his own shoulders, as his Lord and mas- 
 ter had taken it six hundred years before, he carried 
 it toward Calvary. The gates of the city flew open 
 on his approach, and the monarch carried his load to 
 Calvary and deposited it in its ancient place. The 
 day of the return of the cross was the feast day of 
 the Exaltation of the Cross, and, commemorating both 
 occurrences, is marked in the calendar of the Church, 
 and remains to this day in the Roman and English 
 Church calendars as Holy Cross Day. It was the 
 14th of September, A.D. 629. 
 
 But the repose of Jerusalem was forever ended. 
 W\^ Arabian power was rapidly increasing, and in 
 the year 637, Jerusalem yielded to their armies, and 
 Omar entered the city. With that toleration which 
 has always marked the Moslem rule in Jerusalem, a 
 special edict permitted the cross to remain in the 
 possession and custody of the Christians in Jerusa- 
 
84 PILGRIMS' TOMBS. 
 
 lem, and pilgrims continued as before to throng all 
 the avenues of approach to the city. But worship 
 was carried on in a more quiet and unostentatious 
 manner. Processions were interdicted, crosses were 
 forbidden to be worn pubHcly by priests or laity, and 
 bells were only permitted to be tolled. For four 
 hundred years the caliphs governed Jerusalem, and 
 the Holy Places remained in their hands. 
 
 The history of the cross and sepulchre under Mos- 
 lem rule is the story of generation after generation 
 of pilgrims who came to the Holy City, prayed at the 
 tomb and the foot of Calvary, and sought graves in 
 the dust of the valley of Jehoshaphat or on the hill- 
 side of Aceldama. Millions of those who could tell 
 the story of the cross in those years, lie silent around 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 I was walking one afternoon on the slope of the 
 hill of Evil Counsel, opposite the lower slope of 
 Mount Moriah and Mount Zion, seeking among the 
 countless tombs which perforate the rocks on that 
 hill-side for some inscription or legend that might 
 give a hint as to the occupants of these now deserted 
 sleeping-places, when I found a small entrance to a 
 tomb which has generally escajjcd observation, and 
 has attracted but little notice. Descending into it, 
 
PILGRIMS' TOMBS. 85 
 
 with some little difficulty, I found a vaulted chamber 
 in the rock of the mountain, from which various 
 rooms and passages opened in three directions. 
 
 Lighting the candle, which an Eastern explorer al- 
 ways carries in his pocket, I penetrated these various 
 rooms. In some I found only the ordinary rock- 
 hewn couches, which I can best describe by likening 
 them to the berths in a steamboat, in which lay, white 
 and ghastly, the skeletons of the dead occupants, not 
 to be awakened by my tread. Penetrating still deeper, 
 however, I found rooms in which the dead lay in vast 
 piles, heaps on heaps of bones, with the dry dust of 
 decayed humanity, scattered among them. I can not 
 estimate the number of the dead lying in this cavern. 
 There were many hundreds, perhaps thousands. In 
 one chamber I climbed to the top of the heap and 
 crawled over it on my hands and knees, crushing deep 
 at every step into the fragile mass, and here I thought 
 to count the skulls that lay on the top. I tossed them 
 one by one into a corner, and counted till I reached a 
 hundred, and there was no visible diminution of the 
 number. Then I stopped and left the dead in their 
 dust, and came out to the fresh air on the hill-side, 
 where the old wall of the temple shone in the 
 red sunlight, and Mount Zion gleamed rugged and 
 stern, but beautiful for situation, as of old. 
 
S6 PILGRIMAGE. 
 
 Various reasons have since that time led me to 
 think that the dead who were in this tomb may have 
 been the pilgrims of the cross in the years to which 
 this history has now led us. They may be of a much 
 later period, and if so, then the dust of the pilgrims 
 is elsewhere mingled with the dust of holy land. 
 
 The history of the four hundred years after Omar, 
 could that dust speak, I should ask of it. From what 
 homes they came no man may know. What heart, 
 think you, beat under those skeletons ? What sighs 
 and prayers escaped those lips, none can tell. But we 
 know who the pilgrims were. There were stout men 
 from merrie England — merrie then, for those were 
 days that begat Robin Hood and his men to be born 
 a century later. There were cheerful ballad-singers 
 from Provence, for Provence was then expecting Pe- 
 trarch, though he came not for three hundred years. 
 But Provence had then her Christian ballads, and the 
 Rhone valley was melodious with their sound. There 
 were flaxen-haired men from Norway and Sweden, 
 brave hearts from the Rhine banks, and many young 
 maidens and wives that came long journeys to the 
 foot of the cross and found graves at Aceldama. Im- 
 agination fails to paint the events of one pilgrimage, 
 fails utterly to follow one single aching heart from 
 
FRAGMENTS. 87 
 
 its home in far lands through all the weary way be- 
 tween that home and the gates of the Holy City, 
 much less those thousands who died without the 
 walls, having never seen the cross they so longed to 
 behold, nor pressed their foreheads to the rock of the 
 sepulchre. 
 
 And they all believed in it. A long faith if a false 
 one. 
 
 They all believed it. The history of those pilgrim- 
 ages will never be written ; but it is beyond question 
 true that that piece of wood in Jerusalem now influ- 
 enced the history of every nation in Europe, and 
 guided the destiny of the human race. At this point, 
 if our history were more than a sketch, we might fol- 
 low various small fragments of the wood which were 
 taken from Jerusalem, and thus show the streams of 
 its influence flowing here and there and permeating 
 European life, action, and history. It becomes a 
 subject of wonderful interest. Let us take a single 
 illustration, which shows how it may have had its 
 influence, remote, but perceptible, on our own Ameri- 
 can language, history, and civilization — an influence 
 dating back to this period before the Crusades. 
 
 The Norman Conquest of England shaped the 
 whole future history of the English race. How that 
 
88 A NORMAN RELIC. 
 
 conquest was affected by the religious sentiment of 
 the period is matter of history. WiUiam the Norman 
 extracted an oath from Harold, the last of the Saxon 
 kings, which oath had a paralyzing effect on the Sax- 
 ons, if it did not affect the counsels, and finally un- 
 nerve the arm of Harold himself at Hastings. The 
 remarkable fact is recorded that when Harold took 
 this oath he was shocked at the holy character of 
 the relics exposed by William, on which he had made 
 what he previously regarded as a mere trifling prom- 
 ise. What were these relics? 
 
 None was so highly venerated in that day as the 
 True Cross. This we know by ample evidence. See 
 what may have been the connection. Robert of 
 Normandy, known as Robert H., father of William 
 the Norman, made the pilgrimage on foot to Jerusa- 
 lem. History does not tell us which of his numerous 
 crimes he sought to expiate, whether the wrong he 
 had done Arlotta, the furrier's daughter, of Falaise, 
 in the year 1024, whence was born William the Nor- 
 man, Bastard and Conqueror, or the poisoning of 
 Richard, his brother, in 1028, whose throne he seized 
 and occupied. Bat penitence came in 1035, tardy 
 indeed, but, like slow penitence in most cases, terri- 
 ble even to remorse when it did at length seize him, 
 
Et HAKIM 
 
 89 
 
 and the stout knight fled apace to the sepulchre. 
 On his return he died before reaching home ; but sent 
 to France a piece of the True Cross, which was de- 
 posited in an abbey. It is at least possible, and 
 when we remember Harold's great emotion at that 
 time, it seems highly probable that the piece of the 
 cross which Robert sent home was one of the relics 
 on which his son William made Harold swear that 
 oath which unnerved his arm and ensured the con- 
 quest of England by the Normans. 
 
 Similar influences can be traced on other European 
 nations at this same period. But we pass on with the 
 history of the chief fragment remaining in Jerusalem. 
 At the beginning of the eleventh century. El Hakim, 
 the fanatic caliph of Egypt, invaded Palestine and 
 destroyed Jerusalem. The Church of the Resurrec- 
 tion was absolutely razed to the ground, but his at- 
 tempt to burn the Holy Sepulchre failed, the rock 
 resisting the fire. The cross was rescued from his 
 hands and concealed by Christians in Jerusalem, and 
 remained concealed from public gaze, but at times 
 exposed to the eyes of the devout during the turbu- 
 lent years that were now passing over the Holy City. 
 El Hakim's conquest was in the year 1009. For 
 ninety years the sufferings and wrongs of Christian 
 
go THE FIRST CRUSADE. 
 
 pilgrims were ten-fold increased, and then came the 
 day of vengeance. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM. 
 
 The entire history of the first, second, and part of 
 the third crusade belongs to the history of the cross. 
 All over Europe oaths were taken upon its fragments 
 to " take the cross " and redeem the Holy Land. The 
 cross was the sign worn to distinguish the Crusader. 
 Armies knelt when priests lifted the jeweled reli- 
 quaires which held these minute, but poAverful relics, 
 and the faith of the Christian world led to the rescue 
 of the sacred wood. It remained in the hands of the 
 Bishop of Jerusalem, concealed from infidel gaze, a 
 mystery whose power v/as more feared by the Sara- 
 cens than the armies of the Christians. This fear was 
 abundantly shown by the later history of the wood 
 when it fell into Moslem hands. 
 
 During the years which marked the approach of 
 Godfrey and his valiant crusaders, it remained con- 
 
THE FIRST CRUSADE: 
 
 91 
 
 cealed until that Friday morning, 13th July, 1099, 
 when the white horseman appeared on the Mount of 
 Olives, and the Christian hosts entered the breach, 
 and Jerusalem was again freed from the infidel. 
 
 Of the fury of that combat, when Jerusalem fell 
 into the crusaders' hands, no words can give any 
 adequate idea. The Christians spared none of the 
 infidels. Shrieks, cries, the clash of armor, the 
 shouts of knights and their retainers, the wails 
 of women — then as now in the East, thrilling, pierc- 
 ing wails — rent the sky with a hideous confusion of 
 sounds which made the very atmosphere seem filled 
 with ringing voices of despair or of fury. But sud- 
 denly from the very heart of the city a sound was 
 heard that overpowered all other sounds. It was as 
 the voice of an archangel, so sudden was the stillness 
 that took possession of the city. Down the hillside 
 of .Zion, up the ascent of Moriah, along the crescent 
 slope of Bezetha and Akra, swept a train of stoled 
 priests, headed by Daimbert, the legate of the Pope, 
 bearing the wood of the true cross for which they 
 had fought, and which, safe and intact, they now be- 
 held. Swords fell from the grasps of slayers. The 
 carnage ceased. No sound was heard in the streets 
 unless it were souls of Saracens and Christians escap- 
 
^2 JERUSALEM LIBERATED. 
 
 ing through bubbling wounds. Stillness profound 
 as that of a deserted city reigned, as for a little while 
 the conquerors knelt, every man where he stood, in 
 blood and mire, gazing with unutterable joy on the 
 cross, which had been found in its secret place, and 
 was now triumphantly shown to the victors. 
 
 Then, loud and clear and joyful, the full chant of 
 the Benedicite sounded out, as the procession swept 
 along, lifting the sacred wood high up over the car- 
 nage it had caused. The Saracens gasped as they 
 saw it, and choked with impotent curses. The dying 
 crusaders beheld it through the bloody films that 
 gathered in their eyes, and smiled as they departed, 
 murmuring the Nunc Dimittis. Bareheaded, unarm- 
 ed, and chanting with the stoutest monk of them all, 
 close behind the cross, followed Godfrey, first king 
 that was to be, and Tancred, Raymond, and Eustace, 
 Hugh de St. Paul, and Gaston de Beam, and a host 
 of other worthies, whose names live in history and 
 song, proud followers of the cross whose freedom 
 they had this day won. Never did setting sun go 
 down on a sadder city or grander procession than 
 when it went down that night on Jerusalem liber- 
 ated. 
 
 Restored to its place on the rock of Calvary, the 
 
A NO/^ IVA V RELIC. 
 
 93 
 
 cross was again the joy of the whole earth, during 
 the brief sad history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. 
 One by one the kings of the Holy City died and 
 were buried at its base. Godfrey first on the right, 
 Baldwin on the left, lay down like brave knights by 
 the sacred wood for which they had fought, and 
 slept, as brave knights should, at the foot of the cross 
 they had rescued. 
 
 Take here again one instance of its importance in 
 European history. Perhaps the highest price ever 
 paid for a fragment of it was paid to Baldwin I., by 
 Sigurd, prince of Norway, known to fame as Sigurd 
 the Crusader. He is one of those heroes of history 
 that romance can not make more interesting than he 
 appears in sober truth. Starting from Norway on an 
 excursion after fame, the fair-haired boy of eighteen, 
 at the head of ten thousand men, sailed into the 
 Straits of Gibraltar. He passed a year of delight to 
 himself and his followers in fighting the Saracens 
 on the coasts of Spain and Morocco, doing deeds of 
 valor that are recorded both in the Norwegian songs 
 and the Latin Chronicles. 
 
 At length he arrived at the Holy Land, and went 
 up to Jerusalem to purchase a piece of the true cross, 
 and to accomplish his pilgrimage. Baldwin was in 
 
94 
 
 A NOR WA V RELIC. 
 
 want of naval assistance, and the young warrior was 
 ready for battle. That, indeed, was his business and 
 his pleasure. He willingly consented to join in an 
 attack on the great city of Saida, or Sidon, then the 
 strongest port on the Eastern Mediterranean, and 
 having captured it, relinquished all his rights of con- 
 quest to Baldwin, accepting a fragment of the wood 
 of the cross as his sole reward. The Norwegian 
 chronicle says that King Baldwin and the Patriarch 
 caused this splinter of the wood to be taken off, and 
 on it '' they both made oath that this wood was of 
 the holy cross upon which God Himself had been 
 tortured. Then this holy relic was given to King 
 Sigurd, with the condition that he and twelve other 
 men with him should swear to promote Christianity 
 with all his power, and erect an archbishop's seat in 
 Norway if he could, and also that the cross should 
 be kept where the holy king Olaf reposed, and that 
 he should introduce tithes and pay them himself." 
 
 Thus, by the wood of the cross, Christianity was 
 founded firmly in Northern Europe. Many volumes 
 would be necessary to trace the influences thence 
 proceeding in all the later history of Norway, Sweden, 
 Denmark, and Germany. Perhaps it was from this 
 purchase by Sigurd that came a splinter of the wood 
 
THE DARLING QUEEN. 05 
 
 which lay on the breast of Dagmar, the " darling 
 queen" of Denmark, when, in the year 12 12, she, 
 young and beautiful, was carried to her grave. ' The 
 Danish legends say, that though she lay dead as 
 they bore her toward the church, yet she awoke at 
 the sound of the voice of her husband, King Valde- 
 mar, who came riding down the street and met the 
 procession. And as in her life before, so now she 
 begged of him mercy for the poor, the outlawed, the 
 prisoners, and then slept again, and was buried with 
 the jewel on her breast. Long after, her tomb was 
 opened and the reliquaire taken out, and it is now 
 in the museum in Copenhagen, prized by all Denmark 
 as a precious relic, but more for the memory of the 
 well-beloved Dagmar than for the splinter of wood 
 supposed to be within it. The jewel itself, enameled 
 in Byzantine style, with pictures of Christ and the 
 Virgin Mother, St. John, Basilius, and Chrysostom, is 
 in the form of a cross, and is, perhaps, the oldest 
 known enameled cross. All Denmark knows it ; and 
 the King presented to the Princess Alexandra a fac- 
 simile of it on the occasion of her marriage with the 
 Prince of Wales, in token of the trust of Denmark, 
 remembering Dagmar, that she, too, would win such 
 love and honor when Queen of England. 
 
THE HOLY SEPULCHRE. 
 
 A hundred and eighty-seven years the kingdom of 
 Jerusalem had existence, and then it became but a 
 name, a soundinej- title annexed to western thrones. 
 I'Vom year to year the history of the cross was the 
 same. Broken hearts found consolation before the 
 wood. Weary souls found refreshment before it. 
 Tired men found rest at its foot. 
 
 If there is hallowed ground on the earth, it is the 
 ground which human knees have pressed in prayer, 
 which humble and sincere grief has sanctified with 
 tears. Within the circuit of the walls of the Church 
 of the Resurrection at Jerusalem there may be in- 
 closed, perhaps, an acre of ground. The earth is the 
 great historian. Its hills and rocks, its plains and 
 seas are the memorials of great events. But could 
 the history of that one acre of ground be written, its 
 stories would be more strange and sad than those of 
 any thousand other acres on the surface of the globe 
 Within the Holy Sepulchre itself the rocky floor is 
 but six feet by two, a narrow strip, on which the vis- 
 itors who stoop down to look in will sometimes see 
 three or possibly four pilgrims kneeling with fore- 
 heads pressed on the low marble plate that covers the 
 shelf whereon the body lay. That little piece of 
 floor, those twelve square feet of rock, h:.ve a history 
 
CI? OSS AND TOMB. 
 
 97 
 
 which will be told ages hence when other stories of 
 this world's surface are forgotten with the ashes it 
 will have gone to. 
 
 There millions of pilgrims have knelt, believing 
 that there Mary knelt when they laid Him in the 
 sepulchre, and threw her arms around his silent form 
 in the last embrace; and that there his feet first 
 touched the rock of the world He had redeemed 
 when He awoke from the slumber of atonement. 
 Whether their belief was true or not, there year by 
 year, from the days of Constantine until this, the 
 lowly and the great, slaves and emperors, men of all 
 nations and all classes, brought their loads of sin and 
 laid them down on that small floor. Near it, a few 
 paces to the east, was the Rock of Calvary, where 
 the wood of the cross was enshrined, and the devout 
 knelt before it. He who prayed in Jerusalem knelt 
 first at the cross and then at the tomb. Here the 
 betrayer and the betrayed alike found consolation. 
 Here the oppressor and the oppressed met on equal 
 ground and with equal humility. Nor was it uncom- 
 mon, in those days of which we now speak, for the 
 knightly wrong-doer, coming conscience-driven to the 
 cross, and the poor and lowly wronged, coming as 
 well in meek contrition and shame, to meet face to 
 
 s 
 
q8 medieval hymns. 
 
 face on their knees, with the cross and its lessons of 
 penitence and sacrifice before them. 
 
 From time to time in this, as in all periods of its 
 history, the devotion of men to the wood inspired 
 eloquence in sermon and in song, which became part 
 of the literary treasures of the Church, and had and 
 still have power. If the wood of the cross had never 
 produced any other effect in the world than this, this 
 alone would have made the history important and 
 precious. There is something very holy in an old 
 song of praise, which has expressed the devout emo- 
 tions of men, and women, and children from age to 
 age. We all cherish such songs. The Pange Lingua 
 and the Vexilla Regis were the predecessors not only 
 of the familiar translations known to us, but of such 
 noble hymns as " When I survey the wondrous 
 Cross," and many others of like power. 
 
 The poetic literature of the cross is abundant, and 
 a small part of it would fill many pages of this vol- 
 ume. Adam of St. Victor, in the twelfth century, 
 looking toward Jerusalem and the much-loved wood, 
 now surrounded by the defenders of the kingdom and 
 visited by many pilgrims, wrote the sequence, which 
 Dr. Neale regards as his masterpiece, and which he 
 translates in his Mediaeval Hymns. We reproduce 
 this translation here : 
 
LAUDES CRUCIS x\TTOLLAMUS. 
 
 Be the Cross our theme and story, 
 
 We who in the Cross's glory- 
 Shall exult for evermore. 
 
 By the Cross the warrior rises, 
 
 By the Cross the foe despises. 
 
 Till he gains the heavenly shore. 
 
 Heavenward raise songs and praise : 
 Saved from loss by the Cross, 
 
 Give the Cross his honor due. 
 Life and voice keep well in chorus ; 
 Then the melody sonorous 
 
 Shall make concord good and true. 
 
 Love be warm, and praise be fervent, 
 Thou that art the Cross's servant. 
 
 And in that hast rest from strife : 
 Every kindred, every nation. 
 Hail the Tree that brings salvation, 
 
 Tree of Beauty, Tree of Life ! 
 
 O how glorious, how transcendent 
 Was this Altar ! how resplendent 
 
 In the life-blood of the Lamb ! 
 Of the Lamb Immaculate 
 That redeemed our ancient state 
 
 From its sin and from its shame. 
 
 (99) 
 
100 
 
 LAUDES CRUCIS. 
 
 This the Ladder Jacob saw 
 
 Whereby all things Christ shall draw 
 
 To Himself, both friends and foes : 
 Who its nature hath expended 
 In its limits comprehended 
 
 All the world's four quarters knows. 
 
 No new Sacraments we mention ; 
 We devise no fresh invention : 
 
 This religion was of old ; 
 Wood made sweet the bitter current : 
 Wood called forth the rushing torrent 
 
 From the smitten rock that rolled. 
 
 No salvation for the mansion 
 Where the Cross in meet expansion 
 
 On the door-post stood not graved ; 
 Where it stood, the midnight blast 
 Of the avenging Angel passed, 
 
 And the first-born child was saved. 
 
 Wood the widow's hands collected. 
 When salvation unexpected 
 
 Came, the Prophet's mystic boon : 
 Where the wood of faith is wanted. 
 There the Spirit's oil is scanted, 
 
 And the meal is wasted soon. 
 
 Rome beheld each armed vessel 
 And Maxentius vainly wrestle 
 
LAUDES CRUCIS, lOI 
 
 In the deep against its might : 
 This procured the bright ovation 
 O'er the Persian and the Thracian 
 
 When Heradius won the fight. 
 
 Types of old in Scripture hidden 
 Setting forth the Cross, are bidden 
 
 In these days to fuller light ; 
 Kings are flying, foes are dying, 
 On the Cross of Christ relying 
 
 One a thousand puts to flight. 
 
 This its votaries still assureth. 
 Victory evermore secureth. 
 Weakness and diseases cureth, 
 
 Triumphs o'er the powers of hell ; 
 Satan's captives liberateth. 
 Life in sinners renovateth. 
 All in glory reinstateth 
 
 Who by ancient Adam fell. 
 
 Tree, triumphal might possessing, 
 Earth's salvation, crown, and blessing. 
 Every other praetergressing 
 
 Both in bloom and bud and flower ; 
 Medicine of the Christian spirit. 
 Save the just, give sinners merit, 
 Who dost might for deeds inherit 
 Overpassing human power. 
 
102 THE CROSS IS LOST, 
 
 The kingdom of Jerusalem fell. Once we read 
 that the cross was carried to the gate of the city with 
 Baldwin and his army when they went down to meet 
 the Saracens at Askelon, and one chronicler relates 
 that the wood was actually carried to that battle- 
 field, where the crusaders triumphed. The better 
 opinion would seem to be that it never left the Holy 
 City until that day when, the kingdom being in dan- 
 ger, Guy of Lusignan, last king of Jerusalem, brought 
 it to the plain of Galilee to rally the drooping spirits 
 of his soldiery, and lost it with his kingdom. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE CROSS IS LOST. 
 
 No scene in history is more profoundly solemn 
 and sad than is that presented by the council of 
 knights which Guy, last King of Jerusalem, called to- 
 gether in the camp at Sephouri, on July i, 1187, 
 when the Christian army were gathered for the last 
 struggle with Saladin. 
 
 The days of Godfrey, Tancred, and the soldiers of 
 old time were gone by. Godfrey had finished work, 
 and lain down, on the right-hand side, close as grave 
 
DISHONOR. 103 
 
 could well be cut in the stone, at the foot of the rock 
 of Calvary. A little later Baldwin, his successor, took 
 his sleep near by, on the left-hand side, and the two 
 dead knights reposed in peace till an enemy tore 
 them out of their graves, and scattered their dust to 
 become part and parcel of holy land. The defense 
 of cross and sepulchre had ceased to be, either to 
 king or knight, of any importance compared with 
 the defense of possessions and power. Dissensions, 
 jealousies, enmities, all the ordinary consequences of 
 greed, ambition, avarice, and pride, had weakened the 
 kingdom. The old faith was dead. The cross was 
 enshrined in a golden case, blazing with jewels, but 
 the defenders thought more of the gold and the 
 jewels than of the wood within, or the Lord of whose 
 death it was the memorial. Men were seeking per- 
 sonal advantage, utterly oblivious of honor, honesty, 
 or duty; women, even to the queen herself, had 
 abandoned ordinary respect for virtue, and the court 
 at Jerusalem was vile in the eyes of men and of God. 
 In the midst of this universal degradation, a few 
 knights remained, whose lives shine out conspicuous 
 amid the gloomy surroundings. These were men of 
 the grand old mould, in w^hich Godfrey and Tancred 
 and their brothers in arms were cast. 
 
104 
 
 RA VMOND OF TRIPOLI. 
 
 Had there been, on the part of the Christian 
 knights, any respect for oaths or knightly honor, the 
 kingdom might have been prosperous, and the land 
 at peace. But the sum of their iniquities was com- 
 plete, and the Saracen Sultan, wearied with their re- 
 peated violations of faith, had assembled his forces to 
 the terror of all Palestine. 
 
 Raymond, Count of Tripoli, nearer, perhaps, than 
 any other knight, to the old type, had been on the 
 worst possible terms with Guy. His castle of Tiberias, 
 on the shore of the sea of Galilee, only a few miles 
 distant from Sephouri, was now beleaguered by the 
 Saracens in full force. His wife was in the castle, 
 surrounded by the enemy, who had carried the city, 
 but were held at bay by the defenders of the citadel. 
 Raymond had been at actual war with Guy, himself 
 indeed a claimant of the throne to which Guy had 
 come in away not very honorable ; but on this oc- 
 casion of such terrible importance to the Christian 
 cause, he had thrown aside all personal animosity, left 
 his wife and castle surrounded by the enemy, and 
 joined the army of the Cross at Sephouri. But the 
 Grand Master of the Templars, and the larger portion 
 of the knights, who formed the miserable support of 
 Guy's tottering throne, less noble than Raymond, re- 
 
THE SCENERY. 
 
 [05 
 
 tained their bitter feeling toward him, and by person- 
 al influence with the weak king, overcame the force 
 of his wise counsels. The end was at hand, and some 
 foresaw it with Raymond, yet determined to fight 
 that last battle as brave men, true to God and king- 
 dom. The question submitted to the council was 
 whether the Christians should march out from the 
 hill country, across the hot plain, destitute of water, 
 attack the Saracens, and relieve Tiberias, or whether 
 prudence required them to remain in their position, 
 permit the fall of Tiberias, and await a more favor- 
 able opportunity for the decisive battle. Raymond, 
 whose personal interests were in Tiberias, nobly laid 
 them down, saying, in the old knightly style, that he 
 could easily win back his castle, and rescue his wife 
 from captivity, but that the kingdom once lost, all 
 was lost. 
 
 The scene of the events now about to occur was 
 full of interest, and full of warning. But a little way 
 from them, to the southward, was the plain of Esdra- 
 elon, the battle-ground on which, in ancient wars, the 
 judgments of God had been executed. Across the 
 valley Guy might see the village of Endor, where 
 Saul, in just such distress as his own, had sought 
 counsel of the dead prophet, and obtained no com- 
 5* 
 
'06 THE CROSS. 
 
 fort. Beyond were the mountains of Gilboa, gloomy 
 with terrible warning to the recreant King of Jerusa- 
 lem. Lebanon towered above them to the north- 
 ward, and away in the north-east the snowy sum 
 mit of Hermon pierced the sky. 
 
 To the eastward stretched the broad plain which 
 lies between the last slopes of the Lebanon hills and 
 the blue sea of Galilee, and on this plain, the low hill 
 of Hattin was then, as now, supposed to be the 
 Mount of the Beatitudes. Thence there was no com- 
 fort to be derived, but rather terror, for there was no 
 one of the blessings there pronounced to which the 
 Christian knights could lay claim, no one which they 
 had not specifically forfeited by innumerable sins. 
 
 In the center of the camp was the wood of the 
 cross. Thinking to revive the fainting courage of his 
 soldiers, Guy had persuaded the Patriarch to send it 
 from Jerusalem to Galilee, in charge of the Bishop of 
 Ptolemais (Acre), and the Bishop of St. George 
 (Lydda). The council was fierce and angry. The 
 Grand Master boldly charged Raymond with treason 
 and denounced his advice as intended for ill. 
 
 In the night, the Grand Master persuaded Guy to 
 reject the wise counsel of his ablest advisers, and de- 
 cide upon leading out his army to meet Saladin. 
 
THE TWO LEADERS. JO/ 
 
 The scene, in a moral view, was one of the most 
 remarkable in history. 
 
 The two armies, encamped within a few miles of 
 each other, and about to engage in battle, were the 
 representatives of two faiths. The one, the army of 
 Islam, imbued with vigorous, living, enthusiastic faith 
 in the camel-driver of Mecca; the other, the army of 
 the Cross, having scarce enough of the ancient faith 
 to entitle them to the Christian name ; looking to the 
 wood with a superstitious hope that it might have 
 some virtue, but utterly oblivious now of Him whose 
 death for their salvation it typified. 
 
 The leaders of the two armies presented a terrible 
 contrast in character. The religion of the cross was 
 not responsible for the shame of the one, who was a 
 worthless king and a perjured knight, nor was Islam 
 to be credited with the nobleness of the other. Guy 
 was an exceptional disgrace to Christianity. Saladin 
 was an exceptional glory to Mohammedanism. 
 
 The greatest soldier and the purest monarch of his 
 age, a man the like of whom has been rarely known 
 in this world, was Yusef Salah-ed-Din, or as his name 
 is" now commonly written, Saladin. A devout Mo- 
 hammedan, constant in prayer, brilliant in feats of 
 arms, the soul of honor, accustomed to victory but 
 
I08 YUSEF SALAD IN. 
 
 always self-restrained, stern and tremendous in battle, 
 but gentle and pitiful as a woman to the conquered, 
 unrelenting in justice but merciful beyond prudence, 
 ever ready to forgive injuries even the most foul, 
 true as truth, I know no more resplendent character 
 among the heroes of history. 
 
 Scenes in his life are full of poetic beauty. His 
 ever open hand and purse, filled again and again with 
 the spoils of conquest, were emptied in charity. A 
 Christian mother whose babe had been seized by a 
 Saracen and carried into the hostile camp, rushed in 
 frenzy across the lines and made the air ring with her 
 wails. Saladin heard her, called her to him, found 
 the child, paid the ransom to his soldier, and sent the 
 mother back rejoicing and safe. When Jerusalem 
 fell into his hands (November, 1187), the terms of the 
 capitulation were fixed that the Christians should pay 
 ten dinars ransom for every man, five for every wom- 
 an, and two for every child, and those who could 
 not pay should be prisoners and slaves to the con- 
 querors. 
 
 The clemency of Saladin was unparalleled. He dis- 
 charged free large numbers unsolicited. Then two 
 of his generals obtained the liberty of 1,500 Armeni- 
 ans, alleging that they were their countrymen, and 
 
YUSEF SALADm. lOQ 
 
 only pilgrims. Thousands of poor Christians re- 
 mained unransomed, of whom many were women and 
 children. Seif-ed-Din, brother of the Sultan, said to 
 him, '' I have fought well ; give me a thousand slaves." 
 •' What will you do with them?" said the Sultan. 
 " What I see fit." The Sultan approved his brother's 
 intent, gave him a thousand, and they were at once 
 set free. Then the patriarch went to him, and the 
 Sultan gave him seven hundred ; and to another who 
 begged them, five hundred more, all of whom went 
 free. " Now I will give my own gift of charity," said 
 Saladin ; and opening the gates, he directed that all 
 the poor, known absolutely to be too poor to pay the 
 ransom, should have free egress till sunset, and 
 thousands thus went out free. 
 
 Then he opened his purse and poured out actual 
 wealth on the widows and orphans of the Christian 
 knights that he had slain in battle. And when the 
 great companies of the Christians went to the part 
 of the land still in Christian possession, he sent troops 
 with them, charged to take such care of the sick and 
 feeble, that these Saracens, imbued with the spirit of 
 their leader, put the women on their horses, and 
 walked, carrying the children in their arms. It was 
 not strange that when he died the mourning of the 
 
£IO YUSEF SALADIN. 
 
 Moslems in Damascus was greater than before or 
 since for any other Sultan or Khalif. The account of 
 his death, given by Ben-Sjeddadi, his biographer, who 
 was with him to the end, is exceedingly simple and 
 touching. Lying in the delirium of fever, as the last 
 night wore on, his faithful physician, who, says the 
 historian, remained by his side to direct, if it might 
 be, his wandering mind toward God, read aloud now 
 and then passages from the Koran. Toward morning, 
 as Abou-Sjafarus read the words, " He is God, and 
 beside Him there is none other," the face of the dying 
 monarch grew resplendent, he murmured, " It is 
 most true," and so died. Abulfeda says, " He left in 
 his treasury nothing save forty-seven pieces of silver 
 money and one piece of Tyrian gold, out of all the 
 spoils of Egypt, Syria, the Eastern regions, and 
 Arabia Felix ; so great had been his liberality. He 
 transmitted neither house nor land to any heir." 
 Such was the leader of the Saracens, who, as his 
 name, Salah-ed-Din, implies, was the hope of the re- 
 ligion, the " Defender of the Faith." 
 
 This brief digression to outline the character of the 
 great Sultan who wrested the cross and sepulchre from 
 the Christians, is not wholly out of place in the history 
 of that wood. We have already said that no faith is 
 
FAITH AGAINST FAITH. ' m 
 
 contemptible ; that faith in falsehood is a power. 
 The triumphs of the cross had been triumphs of faith. 
 By faith Godfrey had hewn his path to the door of 
 the Holy Sepulchre, and redeemed the memorials of 
 the passion of his Lord. Now holy faith was dead in 
 the hearts of the followers of Christ, and their un- 
 certain counsels and feeble arms were opposed to the 
 Soldan whose life was a long illustration of his faith 
 in One God and Mohammed as his apostle, and to 
 the united faith of his followers in the same creed. 
 The Deus vult of the crusaders was no longer uttered 
 with one voice from hearts beating as one. The 
 Allah Khbur of the Saracens was the utterance of 
 faith that was firm unto death. And firm faith in the 
 camel-driver of Mecca triumphed over feeble faith in 
 the cross and in Him who had died upon it. There 
 is therefore a great interest in this connection in the 
 character of the descendant of Abraham, whom God 
 selected as his instrument to bring about the final 
 accomplishment of the tardy blessing of Isaac 
 bestowed on Esau. 
 
 Yielding to the advice of the Grand Master of the 
 Templars, Guy moved his army from the hill country 
 out on the plain of Hattin, and Saladin advanced 
 from the sea-shore to meet him. 
 
112 BA TTLE OF HA T TIN. 
 
 The warnings of Raymond were found to have been 
 wise. The heat was terrible. There was no water. 
 The Saracens held all the positions. The battle com- 
 menced on the 4th day of July, and lasted, with vary- 
 ing fortune, through the day. Saladin, with eighty 
 thousand men, made desperate attacks on the Chris- 
 tian hosts. One charge of twenty thousand horsemen, 
 led by the Sultan in person, is one of the most terrible 
 in military history. 
 
 Saladin himself observed the vast power of the 
 Cross, around which he saw the Christians gathered 
 in their strongest array, and remarked, as an Arabian 
 historian records, that they rallied around it with the 
 utmost bravery, " as if they believed it their greatest 
 blessing, strongest bond of union, and surest defense." 
 Night came down on the battle-field, while its fate 
 was undecided. The morning of July 5th broke 
 terribly. . It was very hot, and the Saracens set fire 
 to the grass and brush, from which the strong kham- 
 seen wind blew flames and smoke into the Christian 
 hosts, blinding and suffocating them. The plain of 
 Hattin became a very hell, where, as an old chroniclei 
 says, " the sons of Heaven and the children of fire 
 fought their great battle." And now, in the hour of 
 their agony, somewhat of the old valor seemed to re- 
 
BATTLE OF HA TThV. 
 
 113 
 
 turn to them, and templars vied with knights of St. 
 John in vahant deeds around the cross. Saladin 
 directed his heaviest forces toward the capture of the 
 wood, for he believed that so long as it remained in 
 Christian hands, so long their arms would continue 
 strong, their courage and determination invincible. 
 Slowly, as the day wore on, the lines closed in on the 
 diminishing numbers of the Christians, until the fight 
 thickened around a slight eminence on which the 
 cross was upheld in the center of the Christian host. 
 Geoffrey of Lusignan, the gallant brother of the 
 king (the one who had laughed gaily when told of 
 Guy's elevation to the throne, and said : " What, make 
 Guy a king ! If they only knew me they would make 
 a god of me ! ") Geoffrey, and Raymond, and Re- 
 naud of Sidon, and other knights, still kept other 
 parts of the field. Whether Guy was captured or 
 slain no one cared. The cross was once more the 
 object of their dying devotion, and around the cross 
 thousands poured out their lives, until the last man 
 fell, and the Saracen seized the talisman. Who that 
 last man was we can not tell, may never know, unless, 
 perhaps, his last utterances be kept in the golden 
 vials of the elders. Whoever he was, he is worthy to 
 be looked at for an instant, standing in blood and 
 
114 THE CROSS IS LOST. 
 
 mire over the holy wood, crushing, with mace and 
 battle-axe, the crowding heads of the infidels. He 
 was the last of millions to die for that blind old faith 
 and he was a worthy type of the innumerable host 
 that had gone before him. Never after were such 
 men known among the sons of Adam. 
 
 So on the fifth day of July, 1 187, the cross was 
 lost on the field of Hattin. It was never again in the 
 possession of Christians. The Saracens rejoiced great- 
 ly over the splendor of the gold and jewels which 
 encased it, and Saladin was wise enough to fear 
 that in the hands of his enemies the old wood might 
 be worth more than treasures of gold, and carefully 
 kept it. 
 
 Very soon after, an attempt was made by the Chris- 
 tians to cast discredit on the wood in the possession 
 of the Saracens. A Knight Templar declared to 
 Henry of Champagne that during the battle he had 
 buried the cross on the field, and marked the spot. 
 Search was made, but no cross was found. There was 
 no reason to doubt its fate. A few years later this 
 was perfectly settled. 
 
 The victory of Saladin was complete. King, tem- 
 plars, knights, almost the entire Christian host, were 
 his captives. He pursued his victory to the besieg- 
 
THE CROSS IS LOST. 
 
 115 
 
 Ing and capitulation of Jerusalem, and thus put an 
 end to the kingdom which Godfrey had founded. 
 
 Europe rang with wails of agony when the terrible 
 news that the cross was lost reached her people. 
 Richard, the stout-hearted, armed himself, and went 
 to regain it. How the great men of Europe throng- 
 ed to the Holy Land ; how they fought with the 
 princely Saladin ; how Richard's stout arm did val- 
 iantly at Askelon and at Jaffa ; how a truce was con- 
 cluded with the Soldan for a term of years — all this 
 is known. From the repeated efforts made by Rich- 
 ard, between 1190 and 1192, to purchase the cross 
 from Saladin, and his refusal of any price for it, it is 
 manifest that the latter possessed it, and regarded it 
 as of great importance to keep the talisman of the 
 Christians in his possession. At the siege of Acre, 
 in 1 190, the Sultan offered to give up the cross as 
 part of the terms agreed on, but the Christians failed 
 to fulfill their promises, and did not recover it. From 
 time to time, in the years 1191 and 1 192, we hear of 
 it, as in the possession of Saladin, in Jerusalem. Af- 
 ter the truce was concluded, Geoffrey de Vinsauf (in 
 the Itinerary of Richard) states that some of the 
 English crusaders who went to Jerusalem were 
 permitted by the Sultan to see and kiss the cross. 
 
Il6 THE CROSS IS LOST. 
 
 Two different bodies of pilgrims thus saw it, the 
 Bishop of Salisbury being of the number. 
 
 Then it disappeared. Of its fate no man knows 
 anything. History and romance are suddenly quiet 
 on the theme and the True Cross became a memory. 
 A century later, a patriarch in Jerusalem professed to 
 have found it, but no one seems to have had faith in 
 his discovery. Three hundred years later, about the 
 time when America was discovered, the Christians of 
 Constantinople claimed to have the wood, and those 
 of Cyprus to possess the cross of the Penitent Thief. 
 But their claims were disputed, and soon forgotten. 
 From that sad day on the plain of Galilee there has 
 not been in Christian hands a cross for which there 
 was faith enough to fight, except in wordy wars, and 
 the old wood which Helena found, and which blood 
 and tears sanctified, Saladin destroyed or hid, and it 
 is doubtless long ago dust of the dust of Jerusalem. 
 
 It became the burden of story and song. In lordly 
 halls of Europe for centuries after that, men bowed 
 in humble adoration before those fragments of the 
 wood which pilgrims had carried home from Holy 
 Land. Many sad mourners found consolation before 
 them. Many a joyful girl clasped her arms around 
 the lover who had sworn faith on such a fragment. 
 
ANOTHER AGE. 
 
 117 
 
 In silent crypts under cathedral piles many kings lay 
 in dust with hands clasped closely together on jewel- 
 ed reliquaires holding the sacred wood. 
 
 For centuries, when the hall fire blazed high in cas- 
 tles where the Rhone rushed to the sea, and flashed 
 its light on old armor that had done brave duty in 
 the sacred wars, lord and lady, retainers and servants, 
 sat or stood in silent entrancement while the minstrel 
 swept his hand over the harp and woke its sounds to 
 illustrate brave deeds done in Holy Land for Holy 
 Cross. Nearly seven hundred years have elapsed 
 since the battle of Hattin was fought on the plain of 
 Galilee, and the wood, which had been such a power 
 in the world, has passed forever out of the wars and 
 councils of men. And the ages have changed, and 
 men have changed, and Islam, the religion of Mo- 
 hammed, has for fifty years past been propagated by 
 the swords of the people, who for that seven hundred 
 years have been praying daily to be delivered from it. 
 
XIV. ■ 
 
 CU I BONO? 
 
 I VENTURE to hope that what has been written 
 will serve to show the historical importance of the 
 wood of the cross. 
 
 And if any one ask, What is the good of this story 
 now ? it would be sufficient answer to say that no 
 history could be more valuable as history. 
 
 But there is other good to be derived from an un- 
 prejudiced examination of the faith and works of the 
 men of those old ages. 
 
 We will not stop now to discuss, what perhaps we 
 can never know, whether in those times, as compared 
 with our times, the sum of human happiness was 
 greater or less, or whether a larger or smaller propor- 
 tion of men, calling themselves Christian, prevailed 
 to reach the desired rest. 
 
 The debt which we owe to the " dark ages," in the 
 careful preservation from oblivion of a vast portion 
 of ancient literature, is abundantly acknowledged. 
 Not so fully, however, is the debt recognized which 
 we owe to the men before the Reformation for much 
 
 (ii8) 
 
THE DARK AGES. 
 
 119 
 
 of our religious instruction. There were a great 
 many good men and women in those times, and their 
 influence was felt in and after the Reformation. 
 There is not space here to enter fully into this sub- 
 ject ; but I think a single illustration will be inter 
 esting, especially as it is one not hitherto brought to 
 public notice. 
 
 All intelligent readers are aware of the great value 
 of picture -illustration. I think it may be safely 
 affirmed that all who are taught Bible history in 
 childhood derive more lasting impressions from pic- 
 tures than from reading. The influence exerted by 
 a picture which is widely circulated, is ten-fold that 
 of the ablest commentator. 
 
 Immediately after the invention of printing in the 
 fifteenth century, the Bible was published in various 
 languages and dialects of Europe, and as the inven- 
 tion of wood engraving had preceded that of printing 
 only a short time, the two arts went hand in hand. 
 The art of wood engraving was apparently due to the 
 desire of the monks and priests to accompany relig- 
 ious instruction with illustration. And here comes 
 in one of the most interesting facts in the history of 
 illustration ; that is, the history of illustrating pub- 
 lished thought by accompanying pictures. 
 
120 BIBLE ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 In Cologne, between the years 1470 and 1475, was 
 published a Bible (which, as well as most of the others 
 to which I shall refer, I have before me now). 
 
 This Bible, a large folio, in the dialect of Cologne, 
 was thoroughly illustrated with large wood-cuts, the 
 work of an unknown artist, but one whose power was 
 great for the time, although his pictures are in that 
 quaint old style which characterized the early period 
 until Durer. This old artist worked, I doubt not, in 
 that pious spirit which sanctified so much of the art 
 of that and the next century. He must have been 
 imbued with all the peculiar faith which the history of 
 the cross indicates ; and, I have no hesitation in saying^ 
 he exerted a wider influence on the entire European 
 world and our own times, by some of his queer old 
 pictures, than any other man who has in any age 
 attempted to illustrate the Bible. The evidence of 
 this is very plain, and will, I am aware, be a surprise 
 to many who have some familiarity with the subject. 
 When Koburger published his great illustrated Ger- 
 man Bible in Nuremberg in 1483, he obtained from 
 Cologne the wood-blocks of this old artist and used 
 them. In Holland, when the famous Halberstadt 
 Bible was published in 1520-23, they secured these 
 same cuts and used them for that edition. I do not 
 
BIBLE It L US TRA TIONS. \ 2 1 
 
 know what other service the original blocks per- 
 formed, but my own library shows thus much of their 
 influence in Germany and the Netherlands. But this 
 was only a beginning of the teachings of this old 
 artist. In the latter part of the fifteenth century 
 illustrated Bibles were published in Venice, and the 
 Italian artists, feeling the simple power of this Co- 
 logne artist, reproduced his designs, and they re- 
 mained always after that the " stock designs," if I 
 may be pardoned the expression, which were used by 
 publishers of Bibles in Italy, intermingled with other 
 original work. 
 
 Early in the sixteenth century, Lyons, in France, 
 became the chief place of publication of illustrated 
 Bibles. It is probable that a Venice printer, remov- 
 ing to Lyons, carried with him the wood-blocks 
 which had been used in Venice, and thus introduced 
 the designs to Lyons printers. New artists exe- 
 cuted new pictures, but still many of the Cologne 
 designs remained favorites. Edition after edition of 
 the Bible appeared with them. They were varied in 
 execution, slightly altered in accessories, but the de- 
 sign remained the same. They appear in many 
 Lyons Bibles, down to 1540. In 1521, a Bible pub- 
 lished by Sacon for Koburger, contained many of 
 
f 2 2 BIBL E ILL US TRA T10N3. 
 
 them, redrawn with great skill, but with identical 
 composition, probably by Hans Springinklee ; and 
 from this Bible many were copied, some with, some 
 without improvement, in the famous Icones Vetcris 
 Testamenti, first published in 1538, which are com- 
 monly attributed to Hans Holbein, but which are 
 certainly not by him, unless he was a mere copyist ; for 
 a large proportion of \\\q Icones are mere copies of 
 pictures which had appeared in very many Bibles in 
 many countries, before Holbein was born, and long 
 before the publication of the first edition of the 
 Icones. Nor was the end of the old Cologne artist's 
 influence here. The Lyons Bibles gave the material 
 for illustration to a long series of French Bibles. 
 Froschover, in Zurich, published his splendid Bible 
 of 1545, with the Ico7ies and other illustrations. 
 German Bibles used the same designs of the un- 
 known Cologne artist. Bible illustrations, not in 
 Bibles, but separate publications, continually ap- 
 peared, and the same old designs pervaded the his- 
 tory of Bible illustration down to the present day. 
 I think it perfectly safe to say that that old Cologne 
 artist, a man of the sort that the dark ages produced, 
 has instructed millions of his fellow-men in Bible his- 
 tory, giving them more fixed and permanent ideas on 
 
ANCIENT CHRISTIANS. 1 23 
 
 the subject than all the comiientators shice his day, 
 and sound orthodox ideas too. 
 
 This illustration may suffice to show that modern 
 religious teaching and thinking owe something to the 
 old times. But there are more important lessons than 
 this to be learned from the study of the history of 
 human faith in the wood of the cross. 
 
 The men who believed in it were not all fools. 
 The age in which we live is not in all respects better 
 or brighter than the ages that are past. I am not 
 sure that the Christianity of the Church in the fourth 
 century was any less enlightened, that it was any 
 more superstitious, than the Christianity of our own 
 times. I am even inclined to think that a man might 
 believe in the wood of the cross, love it, venerate it, 
 give his life for it, and at the same time believe in 
 Him who died on the cross, love Him, and be faithful 
 unto death in that love, as well as we who have no 
 wood of cross to think of. 
 
 Nay, more. We live in a cold, incredulous age, in 
 which men, calling themselves Christian, look with 
 self-righteous contempt on the Christians of what are 
 called the dark ages, and thank God they in these 
 days are not like the men of those days. But the 
 Church and the world might be better if there were 
 more such men now. 
 
124 Z06-r TREASURES. 
 
 The Protestant Church has suffered terrible loss 
 because of the idea, which is sedulously inculcated by 
 many who ought to know better, that the modern 
 Church, since the reformation, is in some sort a new 
 Church, and that all which preceded it in Church his- 
 tory, from apostolic times, was debased, full of error 
 and falsehood, unworthy of study, and, if possible, to 
 be forgotten. In the cultivation of this notion the 
 entire body of Church history is consigned to the 
 Greek and Roman Churches as a mass of tradition, 
 error, and fabrication. We have lost the lives of 
 many martyrs, priceless treasures of example, the 
 noblest histories of human faith and endurance, and 
 lost them because other Churches have called them 
 saints and made them intercessors. We have lost 
 invaluable pages of Church history full of instruction — 
 pages as trustworthy as those of Herodotus and Taci- 
 tus — because of an insane idea that these old histori- 
 ans belonged to Churches that were repudiated in the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 But we have lost yet more. In our rigid opposi- 
 tion to relics and relic-worship, in our laudable efforts 
 to substitute spiritual for formal services, we have 
 lost a great deal of the spirit of reverence for holy 
 things. 
 
REVERENCE FOR THE DEAD. 
 
 125 
 
 Surely there is something very solemn and very 
 beautiful in the repose to which the early Christians 
 of Rome, the men, and women, and children bap- 
 tized by Peter and Paul, were carried when they 
 slept in peace. Eighteen hundred years have gone 
 by, and they rest in their tombs, and men go now and 
 pray in the little chapels among them, where hus- 
 bands and lovers, wives and children prayed by the 
 dead before and after hiding them out of sight. 
 
 Even the Moslems regard the burial-places of their 
 dead with veneration, and never wittingly disturb 
 their repose. Stamboul has grown a thousand years 
 around the cemeteries, shaded with dense masses of 
 cypress trees. 
 
 We do not so care for our dead. I said we had 
 lost reverence for holy things. The dead are holy. 
 
 It is not difficult to point out more than one grave- 
 yard, where the old folk and young folk of genera- 
 tions past were laid to rest with many tears, where 
 the sound of the wind through the pine-trees and 
 the long grass was very musical and very solemn, so 
 that when one who was weary leaned over the fence 
 and looked on the low mounds, he could think, not 
 unpleasantly, of lying down there some day himself. 
 Over those graves the blessed words of hope in the 
 
126 REVERENCE FOR OLD CHURCHES. 
 
 resurrection had been said. Silent, peaceful family 
 groups were there, fathers and sons, mothers and 
 daughters, gathered to the dust that death always 
 sanctifies. But through one of those acres of God's 
 earth a railway line carries the rush of modern travel, 
 with shrieks and whistles of engines, and another, 
 and another, and another are utterly laid waste, such 
 dust as could be found, carried away in boxes in 
 strange confusion, and warehouses or factories built 
 with their foundations in the unrecovered ashes of 
 the ancestral dead. It is rank barbarism that does 
 all this ; and it is done because the age lacks the 
 spirit of reverence. 
 
 No man now can look out a " snug place to lie " 
 with any certainty that he will find his bones again 
 when he seeks them. Surely the world is large 
 enough to make this barbarism unnecessary. It will 
 take but a short arithmetical calculation to show how 
 very small a portion of the earth's surface would be 
 necessary to give all the human race of all the ages 
 such burial as would leave each one ample room to 
 rest undisturbed. Why, then, the desecration? 
 
 We have not much reverence for old churches. 
 Old churches are holy, if but for the memory of 
 prayer. If not on earth, there are in heaven some 
 
REVERENCE EOR ALL CHURCHES. t?? 
 
 who lemember with joy those old churches. How 
 many in the city of New York are now occupied as 
 stables, shops, factories, theaters ? How many in 
 other cities, and even in villages ? 
 
 We have not much reverence for any church, old 
 or new. Every church is, or should be, holy. On 
 week-day or Sunday, in time of service or at other 
 times, it should be entered reverently ; and lessons 
 of reverence taught here will be practiced elsewhere. 
 The boy who is taught to take off his cap reverently 
 as he enters the church-door, and not to put it on 
 till he is again in the porch, will be a better boy, and 
 learn a lesson of reverence which will accompany 
 him in other scenes of life. The man or the family 
 who think it as disrespectful to come late to the serv- 
 ices of the church, without excuse, as to go late to 
 a dinner, will be found to practice courteous rules of 
 conduct with one another, and in social life ; for rev- 
 erence breeds courtesy. 
 
 Lack of reverence for the place of worship is the 
 underlying reason why so many go to church to see 
 and be seen, and why the persons in the church are 
 often more the subject of thought and observation 
 than the ceremonies of the church. And this is 
 greatly due to a prevailing notion that reverence for 
 
128 REVERENCE FOR FORMS. 
 
 the church and its services is formalism, or supersti- 
 tion. 
 
 In our very proper desire to be rid of that which is 
 mere form in worship, and destitute of Hfe and spirit, 
 too many are sweeping in their denunciation of all 
 forms. It must not be forgotten that form is so es- 
 sential to devotion that no one has yet been able to 
 divest himself of the necessity of using more or less 
 in acts of worship. The Friends, most rigid oppo- 
 nents of unmeaning rites and ceremonies, sit in 
 formal meetings, wear formal dresses, and are other- 
 wise formalists. Kneeling in prayer is a universal 
 formality. 
 
 Ordinary social life — the pleasant relations of men 
 to their fellow-men — are sustained by formalities. 
 Formal addresses in correspondence, the established 
 customs of intercourse, hand-taking, bowing with 
 more or less formality to acquaintances, friends, la- 
 dies or gentlemen, the ordinary rules of social life, 
 the outward show of respect to courts and authori- 
 ties, all are forms, and without more or less of them 
 civilization could not exist. It is needless to argue 
 from the conceded propriety of these forms, that 
 there is no impropriety in a reverential observance of 
 more or less formality in the approach of man to 
 
LITURGIES, 129 
 
 God. Forms are so necessary that liturgical worship 
 is in use by all Christians of all denominations except 
 only the Friends. This is more or less full, invariable, 
 formal, and rubrical in different denominations. But 
 the most formal style of liturgical worship is in use 
 in all denominations, where not only the words of 
 prayer and praise are printed for use, but they are 
 arranged in rhythmical order, with rhyming termina- 
 tions, are set to musical notes, and sung aloud in 
 unison by the whole body of worshipers, sometimes 
 led by a choir and accompanied by musical instru- 
 ments. This is the acme of formality in worship, as 
 practiced in the old Hebrew temple and by the Chris- 
 tian Church from a very early period. The use of 
 rhyming passages was an introduction during the 
 ages called dark, and was not then common, but it 
 commended itself to the taste of Protestantism, and 
 to it we owe the great body of eloquent, passionate 
 song in which the Christian heart of our own time 
 pours out its deepest and holiest emotions. 
 
 This is quite sufficient reason for caution and mod- 
 eration on the part of those who condemn liturgical 
 worship, and who wonder at the reverence with which 
 Christians of some names regard the liturgies and 
 formalities of their church service. While Protest- 
 ed 
 
130 
 
 CHURCH SERVICES. 
 
 ants differ in this respect as to some parts of formal 
 church service, I doubt whether there is an English- 
 speaking Protestant Christian of any name who could 
 hear, without a shock of pain, a ribald parody, or 
 other ridicule, of that portion of all Protestant litur- 
 gies in all the churches which commences with the 
 words, " Rock of Ages, cleft for me," or that other 
 passage which begins, "Jesus, Lover of my Soul." 
 I have styled them passages from liturgical services, 
 for such they are. All hymns used in public worship 
 are liturgical in every sense, and as such we all agree 
 in using them. 
 
 It is plain from this that the importance of rever- 
 ence for some formalities in church service is recog- 
 nized by all good people. There is no real difference 
 of opinion about this, however much people may 
 think they differ. The danger is, that in zealous con- 
 demnation of forms and ceremonies, the spirit of 
 reverence may be wholly extinguished. Who shall 
 decide, for his fellows, just how much formality is 
 useful and suited to every one's devotional exercise ? 
 Let us be tolerant, lest, from our denunciations of all 
 formalities, men argue that they need not show any 
 outward respect to God, or to his ordinances. 
 
 I am not to be understood as teaching or as oppos- 
 
RITUALISM. 
 
 131 
 
 ing what is now called ritualism. I do not know 
 what it is, and I have never been able to find any one 
 who could draw the line beyond which is ritualism. 
 There are practices and formalities in church decora- 
 tion and church worship which are classed as ritual^ 
 istic, which are, to my tastes and limited knowledge, 
 very absurd. A great deal of so-called Ritualistic 
 art, which is seen in England and in America, used in 
 church services and symbols, does not assist some 
 worshipers in devotional feeling, because they hap- 
 pen to know that instead of being a reproduction of 
 early Christian symbolic art, they are drawn out from 
 the obscurity and semi-oblivion which should have 
 been mercifully left to cover later periods of art igno- 
 rance, and debasement. Church inscriptions abound 
 in forms of the alphabet which were used when most 
 men did not know how to read or write. Notably a 
 very large portion of modern church decoration in all 
 denominations is Saracenic in origin and character, 
 and suggests to the mind of the worshiper associa- 
 tions with Mohammed and his followers, or with Ali 
 and the Metawali. 
 
 To be a thorough-going and consistent " ritualist," 
 as some understand the word, calls in our day for a 
 great deal more critical knowledge of the general his- 
 
132 
 
 CHURCH SERVICES. 
 
 tory of art than is imagined, and some symbolic de- 
 vices in churches inevitably provoke smiles from the 
 educated, as showing the errors of " ecclesiologists." 
 
 But however absurd these errors, they do not justify 
 irreverent regard for the Church or for the services in 
 which they occur. Aside from these manifest blun- 
 ders, there are forms in all Churches, of all denomi- 
 nations, and in some these forms are carried to a 
 greater extent than in others ; but however offensive 
 to the tastes or the judgment of some of us these 
 may be, it becomes us to be very careful in judging 
 others, lest we be judged ourselves. 
 
 For example : I went back not long ago, after 
 nearly a half century of wandering, to the up-country 
 village where I was born, and to that old Presbyterian 
 church in which I was baptized, where the faith once 
 committed to the saints was, in those days, kept by 
 noble old Scotch Christians, elders of the Church, 
 giants in frame and faith, whose memory is as pre- 
 cious as the memory of those of ancient time whom 
 they have gone to join, and where, in a new and 
 stately building, fitly decorated as the House of God, 
 the same faith is now preached and prayer goes up 
 as of old. It was a peaceful summer Sunday morn- 
 ing, and on the communion table before the pulpit 
 
FL WERS A KD A L TA R- CL THS. 
 
 133 
 
 was a vase of fresh and glorious flowers, filling the 
 great building with delicious perfume, and leading 
 every devout mind to the thought that this was the 
 most fitting of all decorations and offerings among 
 the simple forms of morning prayer. I know that 
 the stout old elder on whose lap I remember many a 
 time sitting in childhood, and the mighty Scotch 
 divine, who was a neighboring pastor, often conduct- 
 ing the services in that church, would have had more 
 than hesitation in their day in permitting that per- 
 fume ; for they would have been unable to see exactly 
 the difference between the odor of the summer blos- 
 soms and the sweet incense from a golden censer. I 
 am sure that the venerable Scotch pastor, grand old 
 Christian, stern yet lovely, a man among men of his 
 day, like Godfrey among the Crusaders, I know that 
 he would have thundered in his broadest Scotch dia- 
 lect, " You might as well put a gay cloth on the 
 table and set candles on it and call it an altar.'* 
 
 I am not quite clear myself, even in these days of 
 greater enlightenment, that they were not correct, so 
 far as this, that the flowers and the altar-cloths, the 
 incense and the candles, all originate in the same 
 idea. The custom of using flowers for church deco- 
 ration in Sunday services is widespread, and many 
 
134 FLOWERS IN CHURCHES. 
 
 Churches, of various denominations, make provision 
 for it as regularly as for the services. They mean 
 something or mean nothing. They are not designed 
 merely for people to look at. They are beyond ques- 
 tion intended as decorative accompaniments of wor- 
 ship. We all like the flowers, but we do not all like 
 the decorative and symbolic altar-cloths and vest- 
 ments. 
 
 Let us not give up the flowers. They are pure, 
 comely, fitting parts of that service of praise in which 
 *' mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars," 
 "young men and maidens, old men and children," 
 unite. Their use is one of the most beautiful acts of 
 reverence for the house of God and the services of 
 the Church, and tends to increase the affection and 
 respect of young and old for the Church and the 
 forms of Church worship. 
 
 It is very difficult to judge others in such matters 
 without condemning ourselves ; but whatever our 
 judgment, it is plain enough that we all claim respect 
 for such forms of religious worship as we ourselves 
 approve and practice ; and the lesson of reverence 
 which needs most to be taught in our times, would 
 be thoroughly learned if, in our judgment of our fel- 
 low-Christians, we put into thorough practical use 
 
FORMALITIES. 
 
 135 
 
 the golden rule of doing to others as we would have 
 others do to us. 
 
 He who practices the formality of kneeling in 
 prayer, should not be so self-righteous as to criticise 
 Daniel or any one else for opening his windows to- 
 ward Jerusalem before he kneels. 
 
 Those errors of formalists, which are hindrances in- 
 stead of helps to devotion, will not be corrected by 
 ridiculing them. If they are helps to those who use 
 them, it illy becomes us, who cling to our own favorite 
 formalities, to set ourselves up as their judges, especi- 
 ally when in so doing we encourage general irreverence 
 for religious observances. If I could persuade a Mo- 
 hammedan to substitute Jesus Ben-Mariam for Mo- 
 hammed in his prayers, I would be quite content that 
 he should adhere to his fixed hours of devotion and 
 to the ablutions and postures which to him express 
 his sense of humility. 
 
 The men of the early Christian ages are not to be 
 despised because they carried their spirit of reverence 
 to such an extent that they assembled for prayer at 
 the graves of the martyrs, and turned their faces with 
 loving veneration toward a piece of wood which they 
 believed to be the cross. It is very easy to ridicule 
 their proneness to submit to all sorts of impostures. 
 
136 A CONTRAST. 
 
 but it is not so easy to imitate the fervency of their 
 faith in Him who died on the cross. The men of the 
 middle ages are not to be despised because they 
 thought so much of that wood that they made long, 
 sad pilgrimages to pray at its foot, and left all to 
 fight and die for it. It is easy to sit at home and 
 laugh at zealots, but it is not easy to find men in this 
 age of the world ready to defend their faith, and their 
 brethren holding the same faith, against the oppres- 
 sions of the Turk. 
 
 Let us remember always that there was no earthly 
 advantage, no plunder of rich cities, for which those 
 armies went to the Holy Land. They fought for no 
 earthly crown, but only for the kingdom of Heaven. 
 It may be an instructive lesson to compare them, 
 marching through unknown countries, through much 
 difficulty, in pain, trouble, well-nigh despair, fighting 
 their way, battle-axe in hand, to the gates of Jerusa- 
 lem, for the love of Christ, as soldiers bearing the 
 cross, with a mass meeting of modern European 
 Christians assembled in vociferous council to vote 
 that the commercial interests of Europe demand 
 the preservation of the Mohammedan power as a 
 barrier to the encroachments of Christian powers 
 on one another, and then going to church to pray 
 
REVERENCE FOR THE CROSS. 137 
 
 in Latin, " Ut Turcarum et hereticorum conatus rep 
 rimere, et ad nihilum redigere digneris ; " or in plain 
 English, to be delivered from the wiles of Turks and 
 heretics. 
 
 If the old reverence for sacred things begat super- 
 stition in faith, is it not just possible that the modern 
 want of reverence begets coldness to absolute frigidity 
 in faith ? There is a golden mean between the two 
 extremes, and I am persuaded that a study of such 
 histories as this which I have sketched will not lead 
 any one to the superstition, but may help toward that 
 mean. If it leads to reverence for the graves of the 
 dead, reverence for the places of ancient and of 
 modern worship, reverence for the church, its walls, 
 its aisles, its services, its formalities, it will do 
 good. 
 
 This much it may help to teach, a greater rever- 
 ence for the cross as the symbol of faith. In this re- 
 spect I think there are fewer at the present day than 
 there were fifty years ago, who would not agree with 
 me. It was a great loss to the Protestant Church 
 when it gave up the symbol, which from the days of 
 the Apostles had been the visible sign of the Chris- 
 tian belief. The loss is now greatly repaired. The 
 use of the cross, on spires, in churches, and worn as 
 
138 
 
 THE CROSS A SYMBOL. 
 
 a jewel, in gold, or pearls, or precious stones, is not 
 now denominational. Ships that come in from the 
 ocean, now see from far off the cross lifted above the 
 roofs of American cities, on churches of many de- 
 nominations, but of one faith, and know thereby that 
 these people all call themselves by the name first 
 used at Antioch. Nor is it now supposed when a 
 lady wears a gold or jeweled cross, that it is worn as 
 an amulet, or with superstitious purpose, but in all 
 places it is recognized as a simple acknowledgment 
 of the faith once delivered to the saints. We see in 
 churches of all kinds, on festival occasions, the cross 
 decorated with flowers, the prominent adornment. 
 When Christians sing such hymns as " When I survey 
 the wondrous Cross," *' Am I a Soldier of the Cross," 
 no one imagines them idolatrous. 
 ~ " But," — I hear some hesitating reader say, a reader 
 who with Paul glories in the cross, yet fears to 
 overstep the line between symbolism and idolatry, 
 *' But those old Christians, Ambrose and Augustine 
 and Jerome, were so deluded that they really 
 believed in that wood, and revered it as the wood 
 of the Very Cross ; would you have us in this nine- 
 teenth century of light and grace, believe in such 
 relics?" 
 
GETHSEMANE OLIVES. 
 
 139 
 
 Frankly, my good reader, if what I have written be 
 not sufficient answer, I do not know how to reply so 
 as to meet fully all of your mind which is in the ques- 
 tion. But I w^ill try. 
 
 I would encourage the preservation of localities of 
 great events, tombs of great men, swords and person- 
 al memorials of great, patriotic soldiers. I have a 
 broken hour-glass that I have reason to believe once 
 measured the thunderous utterances of Luther, and 
 the mellifluous accents of Melancthon, in the pulpit 
 of the old church at Wittemberg, and I prize it very 
 highly. Curiously enough, in this age of relic-des- 
 pisers, I have never seen any one who was not very 
 much interested in looking at such relics as this. In 
 my travels in Holy Land, I have gathered and pre- 
 served many flowers which grew in soil that may 
 have been the dust trodden by the holy feet that were 
 afterw^ard pierced on the cross. Curiously enough, 
 in this time of relic-despisers, I have never found 
 man or woman to whom I gave one of those faded 
 flowers who did not treasure it. 
 
 There are some very aged olive trees in the Garden 
 
 of Gethsemane. Many persons believe they are more 
 
 -than eighteen hundred years old. 1 do not ; but I 
 
 think they have seen many centuries of the storms 
 
[40 
 
 REV^ERENCE FOR RELICS. 
 
 that have passed over Jerusalem. They do not bear 
 many olives, and the small yield of oil, pressed care- 
 fully by the old Franciscan guardians, is very pre- 
 cious. I have a little of that oil, poured into the 
 vial which holds it, by the good old Fra Luigi, in the 
 little hut in the corner of the garden, well-nigh ex- 
 hausting, as he did it, the last drop remaining of that 
 year's yield. I like to look at that golden oil, and 
 no other of all the olives or palms of the world so 
 interests me. 
 
 I know a man to whom, as to you and to me, it 
 has come to lay in the dust the beloved dead ; and 
 to him it is an ever holy and pleasant memory that 
 those heads lie pillowed on fragrant herbs that he 
 gathered in the garden of the agony. 
 
 Now I can not, and will not undertake to explain 
 why this is. But I will, by your leave, ask you, my 
 reader, a question. 
 
 If you possessed a clearly verified fragment of that 
 wood which, in the fourth century, Helena found 
 under the rocky base of Calvary, that wood on which 
 millions of men, and women, and children gazed, 
 through penitential tears, in the long ages, which the 
 Persian carried away captive, and the Roman emperor 
 brought back on his own shoulder, around which the 
 
A PLAIN QUESTION. I4I 
 
 tide of war surged, until Godfrey, victor, sword in 
 hand, pressed his lips upon it, refusing to be crowned 
 with gold in the city where his Master was crowned 
 with thorns, that wood for which all Christendom 
 poured out its blood, until the fearful day at Hattin — 
 if you had a verified, unquestionable piece of that 
 wood, would you burn it, to kindle your fire? And, 
 now, one question more. If it were sure to you, 
 without a doubt, that the red stain on the fragment 
 was the blood of your Lord, would you think any 
 more of the wood than of any other chip ? What 
 would you do with it ? 
 
 I do not think, when we come to compare minds, 
 that sensible, civilized men, in the old centuries 
 or in these times, differ very much on this subject. 
 Only in those days, millions who did not possess 
 such fragments, felt toward the wood enshrined 
 in Jerusalem, or captive among the Saracens, just 
 that emotion that you would feel, if you held in 
 your hand the wood, stained with that blood, one 
 drop of which were enough for the salvation of a 
 universe. 
 
 When the twilight — the soft twilight of Rome, 
 whose sad splendor seems the most fitting robe of 
 the old city — when that twilight makes the arches of 
 
142 POOR SINNERS. 
 
 the Basilica more lofty and distant, stretching up- 
 waid in the gloom until their dim tracery seems like 
 cloudy bars across a murky sky ; when the pillars 
 tower away into unseen heights and the frescoes of 
 Pinturicchio, that tell the story of Helena and the 
 finding of the cross, fade into dimness like the history 
 they illustrate, the traveler from this cold country of 
 ours may see, with wondering eyes, a little group of 
 pious women kneeling before the shrine of Santa 
 Croce near the chapel of Helena, with bowed heads, 
 and lips musical because they utter prayers. These 
 are no nuns or devotees. They are sinners of poor 
 broken-hearted Rome — that once was Rome. They 
 have come from the market, the street, the villa, the 
 palace. They are rich and poor together, penitent 
 alike, and their tears make holy the pavement, as they 
 fondly believe, with woman's proverbially trusting 
 faith, that they kneel before that fragment which yet 
 'bears the title of the crucified Nazarene. I would not 
 drive them away. Would you? I think not. There 
 "let them kneel, those few sad women, in the Roman 
 twilight — alone — fitting watchers, like those who 
 stood afar off and gazed at Calvary; fitting watchers, 
 in these incredulous times, around the last great 
 fragment of the wood which a thousand years of 
 
THE END. 143 
 
 human faith and prayers and blood and agonies, 
 made worthy to be loved and revered, even though 
 it be not the wood of the tree that bore its fruit on 
 Calvary. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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