_The Pool of Bethesda._--It is not doubted that when Christ told the blind man to “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam,” he was sending him to the very pool which still bears that name. About the Pool of Bethesda, “by the sheep _gate_” (John v.), there has not been the same assurance and unanimity. The traditional pool occupies what was once a valley north of the Temple; but as the valley itself was there when Titus sought to attack the Temple from the north, we judge the pool to be a later construction. The two arches at the western end of it, with their staircases now buried in rubbish, are not the same as “five porches.” Again, several writers have supposed that the so-called Virgin’s Fountain might be the true Bethesda, because it is an intermittent spring, and because the modern Jews believe the water of this pool to be a sure cure for rheumatic complaints. They often go in numbers, men and women together, and stand in their clothes in the pool, waiting for the water to rise. But the Virgin’s Fountain is too far away from the Sheep-gate to be the pool which the Evangelist refers to. It was pointed out some years ago by M. Clermont Ganneau that the Pool of Bethesda should be sought near the Church of St Anne, where an old tradition has placed the house of the mother of Mary, calling it _Beit hanna_, “House of Anne.” This expression is exactly identical with _Bethesda_, both expressions signifying _House of Mercy_, or _Compassion_.[42] This anticipation has been verified; for in the year 1888 the ancient pool of Bethesda was found a short distance north-west of the present Church of St Anne. Certain works carried on by the Algerian monks laid bare a large tank or cistern cut in the rock, to a depth of 30 feet, and Herr Schick recognised this as the Pool of Bethesda. It is 55 feet long from east to west, and measures 12½ feet in breadth. A flight of twenty-four steps leads down into the pool from the eastern scarp of rock. Herr Schick, who at once saw the great interest of this discovery, soon found a sister-pool, lying end to end, 60 feet long, and of the same breadth as the first. The first pool was arched in by five arches, while five corresponding porches ran along the side of the pool. At a later period a church was built over the pool by the Crusaders, and they seem to have been so far impressed by the fact of five arches below, that they shaped their crypt into five arches in imitation. They left an opening for getting down to the water; and further, as the crowning proof that they regarded the pool as Bethesda, they painted on the wall of the crypt a fresco representing the angel troubling the water of the pool.