not overlook the fact that when he was crucified there were very many in

Jerusalem who believed that he was the true Son of God. To publicly

execute such a personage was sufficient in itself to make the locality of

the execution a memorable place for ages; added to this, the storm, the

darkness, the earthquake, the rending of the vail of the Temple, and the

untimely waking of the dead, were events calculated to fix the execution

and the scene of it in the memory of even the most thoughtless witness.

Fathers would tell their sons about the strange affair, and point out the

spot; the sons would transmit the story to their children, and thus a

period of three hundred years would easily be spanned--[The thought is

Mr. Prime's, not mine, and is full of good sense. I borrowed it from his

Tent Life."--M. T.]--at which time Helena came and built a church upon

Calvary to commemorate the death and burial of the Lord and preserve the

sacred place in the memories of men; since that time there has always

been a church there. It is not possible that there can be any mistake

about the locality of the Crucifixion. Not half a dozen persons knew

where they buried the Saviour, perhaps, and a burial is not a startling

event, any how; therefore, we can be pardoned for unbelief in the

Sepulchre, but not in the place of the Crucifixion. Five hundred years

hence there will be no vestige of Bunker Hill Monument left, but America

will still know where the battle was fought and where Warren fell. The

crucifixion of Christ was too notable an event in Jerusalem, and the Hill

of Calvary made too celebrated by it, to be forgotten in the short space

of three hundred years. I climbed the stairway in the church which

brings one to the top of the small inclosed pinnacle of rock, and looked

upon the place where the true cross once stood, with a far more absorbing

649

The Innocents Abroad