Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1910 — CHURCH OF HOLY SEPULCHRE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CHURCH OF HOLY SEPULCHRE.

Strange Picture Which the Traveler Sees in Jerusalem. A celebration of Easter Day .at the tomb of the Living Christ in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, at Jerusalem, gives to Christians bf every age, sect and country a thrilling experence never to be forgotten. Throughout all of Holy Week the narrow, winding streets of the Holy City are thronged with a strange mixture of races, nations and tongues, all drawn there by a common impulse and a universal faith in the fundamental truth of Christ’s resurrection, ■without which the Christian’s faith is indeed -vain. Christians of the Latin .rite, adherents of the Graeeo-Russian Orthodox Church, Copts and Armenians. Syrians and Abyssinians, believers in the various denominations of Protestant Christendom, are strangely blended in these ancient highways with Jews and Mohammedans, while everywhere are the Turkish soldiery, stationed at the holy places through an alleged desire on the part of the government to keep the peace among the Christians! Devotional interest in the different stages of the Passion of Christ leads pilgrims to visit, in turn, the garden of Gethsemane, with its ancient olive trees; the prison into which Our Lord was led, the monastery now covering the floor of the house of Pontius Pilate, and every step of the Via Dolorosa, that narrow way upon which the Savior fell under the weight of the cross. The great ceremonies of Palm Sunday, of Maundy or Holy Thursday, and Easter Sunday are in, or just withput, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, that ancient church which guards the tomb of Christ and the rock of Calvary; the church that was built by the Emperor Constantine and for which the Crusaders fought and died. This church is a lofty structure of limestone, of a yellowish tint, the main building surmounted by a dome little less in size than that of our national capitol. The church was erected on the sipping hillside, and a chapel at one side of the church, rising higher than the rest of the building, rests upon the very rock of Calvary, where the cross of Our Savior stood. Convents and monasteries adjoin the church, and it is fronted by a court, upon which, nearly two thousand years ago, the people stood afar off and watched the awful tragedy of the world’s redemption. Entrance to the church is through an arched doorway of generous height and leading into a large square vestibule, or inner porch. In the center of this space lies the stone of (faction, so called from the tradition that upon this stone the body of Our Lord was laid when Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus “wound it fa linen cloths, with the spices.” This etone is a species of marble of roseate tint, rectangular in shape. It is about eight feet in length and is about four feet wide, standing some four inches above the floor. Massive candles are grouped together at either end of this sa-

cred slab and pilgrims aproach it with every outward demonstration of veneration and respect. Some have been known to cut out strips of cloth, according to the exact dimensions of the stone, rubbing the cloth upon it, afterward taking the Cloths with them to their homes and country for use as winding sheets when death shall claim them for the life beyond the grave. The inner circumference of the church building is fitted up with brilliantly decorated chapels of the various divisions of Eastern and Western Christendom. A spacious and vaulted aisle connects these with the great central rotunda Info which they open.. In the exact center of this rotunda rises the tomb of Our Lord, the Holy Sepulchre itself. It is a marble structure, bearing every evidence of great antiquity and looking more like a mortuary chapel than the tomb described in Scripture as hewn out of a rock. Its dimensions indicate a height of thirty feet, depth of twenty-fiye feet and a width of

seventeen feet. Quaint lamps of brass, with globes of different colors, are sus pended from the alabaster top of thtomb and it is further adorned with oil paiutings. Grouped around the entrance are mas sive golden candlesticks, bearing decorated candles, some twelve feet in length. The flickering flame Of these tall lights illumines in a fitful manner the gloomy splendors of this great church. Passing ..between these rows of candles the pilgrim enters beneath a low arched door into the vestibule of the tomb, in the center of which rises a marble column about three feet hign, in the top of which is inserted a piece of stone which trad'tion declares tp be a portion of the rock that was rolled away from the door of the sepulchre on the night of the Res-

urrection. The stope walls of the tomb are heavy and thick and the space within very limited in extent, scarcely holding more than four or five persons at one time. To the right of the entrance a white marble slab is set into the wall and resting on an upright slab some four feet' in height. Upon this pure white stone itself, or ledge, the sacred body of the Redeemer is supposed to have rested until His glorious resurrection from tho dead. This is the object of chief interest to all visitors and pilgrims, many of the latter mingling sobs and tears with their prayers.

THE HOLY SEPULCHRE.