It is a strange conglomeration of imaginary associations and real value of material. The atmosphere is at times dreadful enough within to justify that daring little touch of realism in the French bas-relief over the door, where some of the spectators at the raising of Lazarus are holding their noses with their hands! The chapel of the Empress adjoins the altar of the Penitent Thief; Adam and Abraham jostle each other for standing ground under the sacred roof; the stone of anointing has been “often changed” according to the guide-book, and the column of scourging “judging from the narratives of different pilgrims, must frequently have changed its colour and its size”--yet pilgrims poke a stick at it and kiss the part that has touched the stone to-day. Every incident of the world’s great tragedy is commemorated there, from the footprint of Jesus to the silver socket in the rock where His Cross was erected. Futile enough all this, and even wearisome. But the worship of fifteen hundred years is neither futile nor wearisome. And that worship seems to detach itself from the legends and find its embodiment in the marvels of precious stone that are gathered there. As one sees the slabs of costly stone with which the rock is overlaid--the ruddy yellow slab of the “anointing,” the red and white polished limestone of the central shrine, the green serpentine and the black basalt--one remembers the tomb which the Roman bishop ordered in St. Praxed’s, with its “peach-blossom marble,” its lump of _lapis lazuli_, “blue as a vein o’er the Madonna’s breast,” and its block of jasper, “pure green as a pistachio-nut.” But there is a difference. The stones of the Holy Sepulchre were given in love: they are the tribute of many souls whose adoration was the noblest feature of their times.