Jerome and his contemporaries, together with his successors, give a different version of the identification of the Holy Sepulchre and of the founder of the first church over the consecrated spot; and, what must appear as a little remarkable to every intelligent mind, these later historians, who wrote in succeeding centuries, are far more full and minute in their details than Eusebius, who was an eyewitness of what he wrote. According to them, the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, moved by a pious desire to worship at those shrines sacred to the memory of our Lord, visited Palestine in the year 326 A.D., at the advanced age of eighty. Having identified the sites of the principal events connected with our Lord’s history, she determined to rescue them from oblivion by the erection of enduring monuments, no less expressive of her own gratitude than for the guidance of those devout pilgrims whose devotions might lead them in future years to the Holy Land. Discovering to her satisfaction the stable and manger of the nativity at Bethlehem, and the exact spot of the ascension on Olivet, she ordered the erection of monumental structures on the site of such extraordinary events, at once worthy the Redeemer’s glory and the magnificent reign of her imperial son. Naturally desiring to supply the intermediate link, and perpetuate the memory of the Savior’s death and resurrection, she earnestly sought for Calvary and the reputed tomb of Joseph. Whether the recollection of these most sacred places had been lost, or whether to confirm her faith in the traditional sites, she diligently inquired of the oldest Jewish and Christian inhabitants of the city as to their location, who pointed her to the area at present inclosed within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But the accumulation of rubbish during the lapse of so many years rendered the search difficult and uncertain. Intent, however, on the consummation of an object so laudable, and guided by a divine intimation, she at length came to the sepulchre of Jesus, and near it discovered the three crosses, with Pilate’s tablet, still bearing his superscription. The joy experienced by the unexpected discovery of the crosses was lessened by the tablet being detached from its original cross, precluding the possibility of determining to which of the three it had belonged. Ever fruitful in expedients, Macarius, then Bishop of Jerusalem, suggested the happy thought that the three crosses should be presented in succession to the person of a noble lady at that moment afflicted with an incurable disease, and the one which should impart healing virtue should be regarded as the cross on which the Lord of life and glory suffered. Singly each cross was presented, the first and second, however, without effect, but on the touch of the third she immediately recovered. Content with the accomplishment of a work so grand, and sincerely grateful for the honor Heaven had conferred upon her, she