It is not probable that the early Christians would soon forget a spot of such tender and deep interest to them; for, as I observed at the beginning of this chapter, the subject is also one of some practical character. It was rather to be feared that they would attach to it a reverence that would degenerate into superstition, than that they would entirely forget it. If at our day the idea of the bare possibility of visiting Mount Calvary sends a thrill through the whole system, with what feelings must they have regarded the place when the memory of this event was fresh among the Christians, and when they were able to converse with those who had themselves witnessed the ignominious death of their Lord and Saviour. It does not appear to me at all probable that such a place would be forgotten; and we have a proof of the respect in which it was held, in the fact that Hadrian erected on the sepulchre a statue to Jupiter, and one to Venus on Mount Calvary. This could have been done only to mock their feelings and distress them, by desecrating places held by them in high regard. The fact that he placed these statues on these spots, at all events shows that they were at this time (about one hundred years after the events themselves) considered as the places of the crucifixion and the sepulture of Christ. Helena, the mother of Constantine, two hundred years subsequently to this, erected on the spot a Christian church, which, with some changes not affecting the locality, has continued ever since. There is, therefore, a chain of evidence with regard to these localities of a very satisfactory kind; and as the judgment finds no difficulty in the case, but, independently of tradition, is led to the same conclusion, my own convictions are clearly and decidedly in their favor. Let us then examine into the circumstances of this affecting event. The place of the crucifixion was about six hundred feet from the city wall, to which the ground from this place had a gentle descent; on the east were the low and straggling outskirts of the large suburb of Bezetha; on the west, the ground, at the distance of a few hundred feet, sloped upward rapidly for a short space, and then stretched off in a long ascending plain; on the northward it also ascends gently for the distance of more than a mile. The rock of Golgotha or Calvary is now about sixteen feet in height, though as the ground around it has been elevated by the ruins of the old city, it was probably at that time a few feet higher. It was of sufficient altitude to bring the sufferer into distinct view before all the crowds that probably at this time covered the walls and houses and the upward slopes of the hills, and to make him visible to those “afar off.”[47] A few gardens were near; but most of the space around this rocky knoll was open, and traversed by the dusty thoroughfares to the populous city.