It was, indeed, a day of concentrated interest and gratification, such as I had never experienced before, and do not expect ever to feel again. After breakfast our large Company broke up into smaller parties, and proceeded to visit the various localities. In company with Lieutenant F. I walked over to Mr. Nicholayson’s, and, under the guidance of that gentleman, we went, with the Commodore and family, first to the church of Mount Calvary and of the Holy Sepulchre. But is this church really on the site of the crucifixion, and of the sepulture of our Saviour? This is a question which it may be well to settle before proceeding further, so that we may know with what feelings to approach spots of such sacred and interesting titles. It is a subject on which my own mind is satisfied almost beyond a doubt, and if the reader will for a short time give me patient attention, in a somewhat dry and difficult examination of facts, I think he may find himself rewarded for his labor. It is true that the question with regard to the exact _locality_ of these events is of little consequence, compared with the great subject of the redemption itself, and the query whether we have, by a living faith, made that salvation ours; but still it is one not without its practical consequences. The mind often tries to picture the scene of the Saviour’s sufferings, the uplifted bloody cross, the hours of agony, the tumultuous crowds of scoffers below; and our feelings are touched, and the heart is benefitted, by contemplating the price that was paid for our salvation, the obligations under which we are placed by it, and the assurance it gives us of the surpassing love of Him who spared not his own Son, but gave him freely for us; the whole scene is often one of pious thought and of pulpit description, and has frequently enlisted the skill of painters, and is a matter of practical interest. My impression is, that the scene we sketch is very seldom correct, and that the event itself had a depth of humiliation that our thoughts do not reach; and in this I do not have reference to the condescension of the sufferer, but to circumstances connected with the locality of the suffering. Our thoughts, when they turn to this subject, I believe place before us an eminence of considerable elevation, sloping gradually upward, and crowned at the summit by the crosses of our Saviour and the malefactors, while the slopes are all crowded with the excited spectators. This, I believe, is the picture that is generally presented to our mind; and there is in it a degree of physical dignity, that the event itself, I am inclined to think, did not possess. On the other hand, if my apprehensions are correct, the crucifixion was attended with every physical circumstance that could make it humbling as well as painful; instead of being on the summit of a lofty eminence, it was on a rocky knoll at the bottom of a natural theatre of hills; on