Archæologists have called in question the identity of this ruin, and have claimed it as the remains of the Convent of the Black Nuns, founded in 1132 A.D. by Mesilinda, Queen of Fulco of Jerusalem, over which she placed her sister Ireta as abbess, a matron of approved piety. Yet it is highly probable that, as Bethany has always been inhabited, and as the recollection of the raising of a man from the dead would be among those longest and most tenaciously cherished by a people, either this arch is a part of the stone house which tradition asserts to have been occupied by Lazarus and his sisters, or, if the remains of the convent of Mesilinda, it marks the spot where he resided. Illustration: BETHANY. Under the brow of a hill in the northeast part of the town is the supposed tomb of Lazarus. Twenty-six stone steps lead to a vaulted chamber twenty-two feet below the surface of the ground, which is excavated in the rock, and measures eleven feet long, nine wide, and seventeen high. On the left a small door opens to a narrow vault where the dead once rested. Bearing marks of great antiquity, there is no reason to doubt the identity of this tomb. The saying of those Jews who came to comfort Mary, that “she goeth unto the grave to weep,”[184] would indicate, at first, that her brother had been interred some distance from the town; this, however, does not necessarily follow, as the same remark would be appropriate if the sepulchre was in the village, whatever may have been the distance from her dwelling. Like many other Syrian towns, Bethany has risen to importance, and inherits an imperishable name from the presence and miracles of Jesus. It was to Judea what Capernaum was to Galilee――the scene of his greatest works, and the place where he delivered his most sublime lessons of wisdom and love. When the ingratitude of Jerusalem forced him from her gates, he sought repose in Bethany, as, when driven by the Nazarenes from his native city, he selected Capernaum as the place of his adoption. Bethany was his temporary abode in his frequent journeys from Moab to Judea. Coming from the land of Moab, “a certain woman named Martha received him into her house;”[185] and from the same region he came to raise Lazarus from the dead.[186] At a later period, here he dined in the house of Simon the leper;[187] here the grateful Mary washed his feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head,[188] and from an alabaster box, which “she had kept against the day of his burial,” she poured the precious ointment on his head as he sat at meat. From this humble village he made his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, and here, in the house of pious orphanage, he spent the last night but one prior to his crucifixion.