Dr. Clarke, whose skepticism in regard to the holy places in the capital has been already mentioned, grants that the tradition respecting the Cave of the Nativity is so well authenticated as hardly to admit of dispute. Having been always held in veneration, the oratory established there by the first Christians attracted the notice and indignation of the heathens so early as the time of Adrian, who, as is elsewhere stated, ordered it to be demolished, and the place to be set apart for the rites of Adonis. This happened in the second century, and at a period in the emperor's life when the Grotto of the Nativity was as well known in Bethlehem as the circumstance to which it owed its celebrity. In the fourth age, accordingly, we find this fact appealed to by St. Jerome as an indisputable testimony by which the cave itself had been identified. Upon this subject there does not seem to be the slightest ground for skepticism; and the evidence afforded by such a writer will be deemed sufficient for believing that the monastery erected over the spot, and where he himself resided, does at this day point out the place of our Saviour's birth.[103] Nothing, observes a late traveller, can be more pleasing, or better calculated to excite sentiments of devotion, than this subterranean church. It is adorned with pictures of the Italian and Spanish schools, representing the mysteries peculiar to the place,--the Virgin and Child, after Raphael; the Annunciation; the Adoration of the Wise Men; the Coming of the Shepherds; and all those miracles of mingled grandeur and innocence. The usual ornaments of the manger are of blue satin, embroidered with silver. Incense is continually smoking before the cradle of the Saviour. "I have heard an organ, touched by no ordinary hand, playing during mass the sweetest and most tender tunes of the best Italian composers. These concerts charm the Christian Arab, who, leaving his camels to feed, repairs, like the shepherds of old, to Bethlehem, to adore the King of Kings in his manger. I have seen this inhabitant of the desert communicate at the altar of the Magi with a fervour, a piety, a devotion unknown among the Christians of the West." No place in the world, says Father Neret, excites more profound devotion. The continual arrival of caravans from all the Nations of Christendom--the public prayers--the prostrations--nay, even the richness of the presents sent thither by the Christian princes--altogether produce feelings in the soul which it is much easier to conceive than to describe.[104]