Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1904-12-16
CHRISTMAS IN BETHLEHEM.
The SaVor's Birthplace Is the Scene of
the Most Remarkable and Impressive
Christmas Celebrations In the World

the Most Remarkable and Impressive
Christmas Celebrations in the World.
LFrom an article by Ernest l. Lewis in
the Woman's Home Companion Dec
1901
Bethlehem, the home of Christmas, is
that happy Utopia of which every Amer
lean child dreams-it has more than one
Christmas. In fact. it has three big ones.
ana strangely enough, the one falling on
December 25th of our own calendar is
not the greatest of the three 1t is. at
least the first. Twelve days after the
Latin has burned his Christmas incense
in the sacred shrine, the Greek church.
patriarch, observing that IL is Christmas
time by his slower calendar, catches up
the gloria, and bows in the Grotto of the
Nativity for the devout in Greece the
Balkan states and all the Russias After
period Of another twelve days the great
Armenian church of the East takes up
the anthem of peace and good will and
its patriarch visits the shrine
All three of these big Christmas observ-
ances have some few things i'm common
at least one-the red fez-capped Moham-
medan soldiery of the Sultan that stand
with fixed bayonets as the background
TO brilliant pictures. In this most sacred
of all Christian shrines, and especially on
the natal day--according to the different
calendars-of him who taught the brother
hood of man, the Latin as he chants the
song Of goodwill must be protected from
fanatical Greek and Armenian: the Greek
as he sings his gloria, must be protected
from ferVtd Armenian and Latin; and the
Armenian, as he takes up the glad refrain
must be protected from Greek and Latin
All must be protected from Copt and
al .f-4g II.
turn, must also be protected from the
zealots of the three big churches. This
duty falls on the followers of Moham-
med. The presence of the armed Turk
ish soldiers has prevented riots at the
Christmas and Easter festivals in recent
years The last great clash. thirty years
ago. resulted from discussion over some
curtains. The result of that bloodshed in
the holy of holies and the constant threat
ening attitude of the different protectors
OF the holy shrines, was that the Sultan
stationed a garrison of troops at Bethle-
hem, and connected the town with Jeru-
salem by telegraph wire. Now. at every
hour of the day and night two Moham-
medan soldiers with fixed bayonets stand
sentry over the birthplace of the Naza-
rene.
Rubbing elbows and crowding each
other through the narrow streets of Beth
lehem during its month of Christmases
are representatives OF every station In
life, every natural environment and of the
races of the four corners of the earth,
who have been drawn to the birth place
of the Christ for reverent celebration of
his birth.
In the throng one sees highly decorated
representatives of European and Eastern
imperial and church powers; anchorets
from Engedi in sackcloth and bare feet:
tonsured sandaled, habited monks; pill
grims from Armenia, men and women in
baggy trousers; poor devout serfs from
the Russias, in heavy boots, baggy
clothes, grizzly boards and crock-cut hair;
pilgrims on camels, pilgrims on asses,
pilgrims foot-sore; lepers begging aims;
olive and pearl workers selling their
wares; naughty Mohammedans sneering
Jews, soothing Gentiles, crowd the beau
tiful black-eyed women of Bethlehem.
Everywhere are Turkish solders-for the
garrison has been reinforced as Christ
rnas approached Some of them are new
to Palestine.
ton OF Christmas in Bethlehem does not
vary from year to year. At 2 o'clock in
the afternoon of December Gath a strange
looking cavalcade passes out of Jerusalem
through the Jaffa gate, and skirting the
walls of the city, dips down through the
historic old valley of Hinnon and
stretches itself over the hills on the road
leading to the south. Certainly none of
those spectacular professions that escort
the pope from the Vatican to the High
Altar of ST. Peters In Rome, nor any of
the ecclesiastical professions over the
world, have as much in them to interest
the eye and engage the mind. At its
head rides the Latin Patriarch of Jerusa-
lem, royal representative of Rome, at
tended by bishops and priests attred in
the military and ecclesiastic glory that
the church can endow With him rides
the French Consul to Jerusalem and his
suite, carrying not only the decorations
OF a military republic but those con-
ferred by the church. Massed around
these dignitaries of church and state
rides a troop Of Turkish cavalry as a
protecting escort
The pilgrim from the new world. who
has hurried on from Jerusalem, and has
taken his place with the population Of
the town, on the fiat housetops OF Beth
lehem, is likely to let his eyes wander
over the historic hills
And what panorama lies within the