But places sacred to one nation are indifferent to another—one class of men exult over a monument, which to their neighbours is but a block of stone. Yet there is one holy place where all the nations of the earth come together to worship—one country rich with a perpetual attraction. The soil thrills to the consecrating touch of love and grief; the ages of the past dwell in it as in a sanctuary. Making no account of the wandering handful of wild Asiatics who surround him, the traveller there seeks not scenes of to-day, but cities of the dead. The place has a solemn array of lofty inhabitants, undying fathers of the soil; generation after generation, conquerors, defenders, devotees, have come and gone and departed. But we do not search this country for traces of the Saracen or the Crusader; passing beyond them as modern visitors, a more ancient race claims the universal awe. It is not the city of Godfrey of Bouillon, but of David of Bethlehem, which shines on yonder cluster of hills; and these are not the knightly names of romance which sanctify the tombs. The brave Crusaders claim memories in other countries, but they have no memory here where their blood watered the sacred soil. Turk and Christian, creatures of to-day, stand on the same platform as we do,—beyond the earliest of them are the true monuments and memories of this country— “Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, Which eighteen hundred years ago were nailed For our redemption to the bitter cross.” The story begins and ends in this great figure appearing visibly before our eyes, and we bow our head to acknowledge Jerusalem, the universal centre of pilgrimage—Judea, Galilee, the Holy Land.