The first sight of Nazareth was veautiful—and there they went to the Hotel Galilee. Mr, Oursler was disappointed to find a church built over the traditional home of the Holy Family:
"Was the lace of the Annunciation' just anot!
disappointment; I was not yet uj er church? It was a Snowing that every holy spot in Pales Kino was not a holy spot merely, but a church, reeking of incense, and for-Didden to travellers unless they paid ridge. You were supposed to be at ihe home of the father and mother Desi Christ and what you saw as a church of tenth-rate architect Sure. built half-way up a hill of houses fud convents, cypress trees and tactus hedges; below the church Crumbled the ruins of old, roofes buildings.
They had met in the street a young Franciscan, who kindly si 1 i vho ki: showed {hem round; they followed him, as he jingled his keys, and Mr. Oursler admits that he was not bored with the remains of the Crusader's Church or the old Church of St. Helena. But disappointment again came upon him when they arrived at the carpenter's shop:
.. Here, again.
econ candelabra. The workshop of a with tiles and lace anc was, church the carpenter Joseph, where he taught his son an honest trade—look what the priests have made of it. If there who Py Jesus, and he was an appren-Hise fo his earthly father here, an fae also the Son of God. what dis-Tomtort he. must feel at all, this frumpery. Pity, too. no doubt for the zeal of honest little fellows to inbrove t, Like tying ribbons round ihe hair of an Apollo by Phidias.
he amiable sceptic seems to have overlooked the fact that had it not Deen for those who have accepted and kept the faith, his trip would have been merely fo Palestine and not to a Holy Land and there would then Rave been no opportunity for his being in this particular matter a sceptic or for his growlings about churches and incense, The Synagogue pleased him better "Happily. it was not so burdened swith gilt.and altar frumpery as those other places." Here he felt he came closer to "the outcast Nazarene," and afterwards, walking through the streets, was struck by the resemblance
tional paintings of Christ—a man wit of the men he saw to the conven-"failing hair, beard, noble features, piercing eyes," hammered him out round copper tray for a trifling sum. Here at last he felt the Bible had come to life.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.