I cannot, however, join in the frequent outcry of imposition, craft and falsehood against the sects who hold these places, and recite these traditions to the visitor. That such things as these are to be found in high and sacred seats, is doubtless true, and that they are sometimes practised here is also very probable; but I can find, for a great many of these traditions, an origin of a more charitable nature, and I believe one more consonant with the real state of the case. We live now in an age of light and knowledge, and find it hard even to imagine the darkness that once covered Europe and all these lands. We can form only some idea of it from the books of the middle ages--books full of fable and false philosophy on every subject. These fables on medicine, on alchemy, on astrology, and on a multitude of other topics, grew up, we are willing to believe, from men’s ignorance; in some cases there may have been deliberate deception; but in most, their origin was in the gross ignorance of the times; they show the strivings of minds shorn of their strength by diseases hereditary and for ages universal; men saw but dimly, and wandered into the ways of error when really and honestly in search of truth. And if we are willing to extend this charity to the other sciences, why not also to that of religion, where men’s feelings are apt to be more warmly affected, and even in a good cause, to warp the judgment, particularly if it be weak, than in any other? In this very city, the Mahomedans have a great variety of traditions with respect to the mosque of Omar, and some other of their sacred places about Jerusalem, quite as wild as any thing among the Christian sects; yet when we listen to them, we do not at once cry out “craft and roguery,” and believe the narrator to be wilfully imposing on us. We are willing to suppose him honest. We look at him; his face is grave; he has the appearance of sincerity; and we attribute the error to the deep and dark ignorance in which these people are known to live. Now I wish to claim for the Christian traditions just what we are willing to give to those of the Mahomedans. The principle of charity may, it is true, be carried too far, but I wish to see it carried further than it is. Let us go among these sacred places cautious, as cautious as you choose; but not sneering, or cultivating bitter feelings towards one another; let us pity the ignorance of our brother and commiserate him, but not load him with harsh epithets. Uncharitable insinuations are certainly very much out of place in this region, which should excite only humble and tender feelings; where, amid tauntings and contumely showered upon him, the Saviour prayed, “Father, forgive them, _for they know not what they do_.”