Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-05-12
IN NAZARETH
SACRED SITES THAT ARE POINT
ED OUT TO PILGRIMS.
Much Faith Required-Claims of Var.
ious Orders of Monks-Build-
ings Of Mud.
william E. Curtis in Chicago Record-Herald.

William f. Curtis in Chicago Record-Herald.
1t calls for a faith sufficient to move
mountains to believe in all the sacred sites
one is shown at Nazareth and the stories
that are told by the pious men in charge of
them. They give details that are not only
unnecessary. but which none save simple
tons or fanatics can accept. They show
you a rock upon which the Virgin Mother
used TO sit while she gossiped and discussed
domestic affairs with her neighbors; they
point out the exact spot upon which she
was sitting when the angel of the annuncia-
ton appeared to her. and the paths in
which she used to walk leading the Child
Jesus by the hand. They take you to the
workshop IN which Jesus assisted His
father with carpenters tools, and a friend
insists that he was shown old earthen jar
in.which the Virgin carried water from the
well, but they did not go so far with me.
The points of greatest interest in Naza-
reth are cavern over which Joseph and
Mary lived when Jesus was a child; the
synagogue in which Christ taught; a stone
upon which He dined with His disciples
both before and after the resurrection; the
Mount of the Precipitation. from which the
people threatened to east Him down the
Cliff, and a spring at which Mary re-
ceived the startling announcement from the
angel. All of these places are problematical
and located by guesswork, some of them ac-
curately, perhaps, but nobody knows. for
there is not the slightest tangible evidence
that any of them were consecrated by
actual association with the Redeemer Of
Men.
Accounts of Monks.
There is a great difference among the
monks who have charge OF the holy places,
and their stories sometimes vary according
to the credulity Of their listeners young
Frenchman who showed us around the
Church of the Annunciation was a fanatic,
bursting with zeal. faith and piety. vino evil
IDENTIFY believed everything he said and de-
sired us to believe IL also, but another
Franciscan brother. an American, older,
wiser and more thoughtful, who kindly ac-
companied us through the village, was less
positive and more rational In his eXplana-
tions. He qualified all his statements, ard
gave us the facts as near as 1t was posi-
bic to relate them.
He did not repudiate the claims of the
Greek monks to certain sacred sites, as the
Franciscans usually do. nut summed up
in intelligent and judicial manner the
evidence against both. When he took us
to the Greek Church. which has been
erected over Mary's well. which the Greeks
declare was the scene Of the annunciation.
he was welcomed with cordially by the
Russian priests, who showed none OF the
animosity that had been apparent when
We have seen them together elsewhere.
"A spring at NaZaretu
The good brother told us that there Is
no testimony either in the scriptures or in
secular history to establish the anthem
ITCHY Of anything in Nazareth, but the
fathers of the chruch, taking sacred and
secular history and traditions into consid-
Grafton, have located the scenes identified
with the early life of the Savior as intelli-
gently and .conscientiously as possible.
With the exception of the single visit to
Jerusalem when Jesus was twelve years
old, there is not one authentic anecdote
of His life during all those thirty years
previous to His public ministry. Nothing
of ancient Nazareth remains that can be
identified, he said. and il is only matter
of conjecture that the town stands upon
the site that ii occupied twenty centuries
ago.
This conjecture is based upon the fact
that the only spring which furnishes water Q.
to the entire population must be the same
that served the purpose in the days OF the
Savior. and the town must have been built
around IL then as ROW The houses are OF
mud and soft rock, which disintergrates
rapidly in the heavy rains that prevail at
certain seasons in this climate. Walls or
this stone will not last as long as lumber.
And Furthermore. the entire hamlet has
been destroyed and forsaken at least three
times during the Christian era. so that 1t
is practically certain that every stone that
stood in the village at the Saviore day
long ago crumbled to dust and was blown
away to enrich the soil of the plain %
E,sdraelon