‘This garden seems a paradise,’ said Tancred. ‘I had not thought that anything so fair could be found among these awful mountains. It is a spot that quite becomes Bethany.’ ‘You Franks love Bethany?’ ‘Naturally; a place to us most dear and interesting.’ ‘Pray, are you of those Franks who worship a Jewess; or of those other who revile her, break her images, and blaspheme her pictures?’ ‘I venerate, though I do not adore, the mother of God,’ said Tancred, with emotion. ‘Ah! the mother of Jesus!’ said his companion. ‘He is your God. He lived much in this village. He was a great man, but he was a Jew; and you worship him.’ ‘And you do not worship him?’ said Tancred, looking up to her with an inquiring glance, and with a reddening cheek. ‘It sometimes seems to me that I ought,’ said the lady, ‘for I am of his race, and you should sympathise with your race.’ ‘You are, then, a Hebrew?’ ‘I am of the same blood as Mary whom you venerate, but do not adore.’ ‘You just now observed,’ said Tancred, after a momentary pause, ‘that it sometimes almost seems to you that you ought to acknowledge my Lord and Master. He made many converts at Bethany, and found here some of his gentlest disciples. I wish that you had read the history of his life.’ ‘I have read it. The English bishop here has given me the book. It is a good one, written, I observe, entirely by Jews. I find in it many things with which I agree; and if there be some from which I dissent, it may be that I do not comprehend them.’ ‘You are already half a Christian!’ said Tancred, with animation. ‘But the Christianity which I draw from your book does not agree with the Christianity which you practise,’ said the lady, ‘and I fear, therefore, it may be heretical.’ ‘The Christian Church would be your guide.’ ‘Which?’ inquired the lady; ‘there are so many in Jerusalem. There is the good bishop who presented me with this volume, and who is himself a Hebrew: he is a Church; there is the Latin Church, which was founded by a Hebrew; there is the Armenian Church, which belongs to an Eastern nation who, like the Hebrews, have lost their country and are scattered in every clime; there is the Abyssinian Church, who hold us in great honour, and practise many of our rites and ceremonies; and there are the Greek, the Maronite, and the Coptic Churches, who do not favour us, but who do not treat us as grossly as they treat each other. In this perplexity it may be wise to remain within the pale of a church older than all of them, the church in which Jesus was born and which he never quitted, for he was born a Jew, lived a Jew, and died a Jew; as became a Prince of the House of David, which you do and must acknowledge him to have been. Your sacred genealogies prove the fact; and if you could not establish it, the whole fabric of your faith falls to the ground.’