d; then "all her ways were pleasantness, and all her
paths were peace;" "plenteousness was in her palaces;" and "Jerusalem
was the joy of the whole earth."

But since the awful crime which was committed there, the Lord has poured
out the vials of his wrath upon the once chosen city; dire and fearful
have been the calamities which have befallen her in terrible succession
for eighteen hundred years. Fury and desolation, hand in hand, have
stalked round the precincts of the guilty spot; and Jerusalem has been
given up to the spoiler and the oppressor.

The day following the occurrences which have been related, I had a long
interview with Ibrahim Pasha, and the conversation turned naturally on
the blasphemous impositions of the Greek and Armenian patriarchs, who,
for the purposes of worldly gain, had deluded their ignorant followers
with the performance of a trick in relighting the candles which had been
extinguished on Good Friday with fire which they affirmed to have been
sent down from heaven in answer to their prayers. The Pasha was quite
aware of the evident absurdity which I brought to his notice, of the
performance of a Christian miracle being put off for some time, and
being kept in waiting for the convenience of a Mahometan prince. It was
debated what punishment was to be awarded to the Greek patriarch for the
misfortunes which had been the consequence of his jugglery, and a number
of the purses which he had received from the unlucky pilgrims passed
into the coffers of the Pasha's treasury. I was sorry that the falsity
of this imposture was not publicly exposed, as it was a good opportunity
of so doing. It seems wonderful that so barefaced a trick should
continue to be practised every year in these enlightened times; but it
has its parallel in the blood of St. Januarius, which is still liquefied
whenever anything is to be gained by the exhibition of that astonishing
act of priestly impertinence. If Ibrahim Pasha had been a Christian,
probably this would have been the last Easter of the lighting of the
holy fire; but from the fact of his religion being opposed to that of
the monks, he could not follow the example of Louis XIV., who having put
a stop to some clumsy imposition which was at that time bringing scandal
on the Church, a paper was found nailed upon the door of the sacred
edifice the day afterwards, on which the words were read--

"De part du roi, defense a Dieu
De faire miracle en ce lieu."

Th