in cultivation have met with remarkable success, and are much spoken of at present.
Whatever good the various missions here may, in time, accomplish (at presev.t, it does not amount to much), Jerusalem is the last place in the world where an intelligent heathen would be cojJ verted to Christianity. Were I cast here, ignorant of any religion, and were I to compare the lives and practices of the dift'erent sects as the means of making my choice — in short, to judge of each faith by the conduct of its professors — I should at once turn Mussulman, When you consider that in the Holy Sepulchre there are nineteen chapels, each belonging to a different sect, calling itself Christian, and that a Turkish police is always stationed there to prevent the bloody quarrels which often ensue between them, you may judge how those who call themselves followers of the Prince of Peace practice the pure faith he sought to establish. Between the Greek and Latin churches, especially, there is a deadly feud, and their contentious are a scandal, not only to the few Christians here, but to the Moslems themselves. I believe there is a sort of truce at present, owing to the settlement of some of the disputes — as, for instance, the restoration of the silver star, which the Greeks stole from the shrine of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. The Latins, however, not long since, demolished, vi et armis, a chapel which the Greeks commenced building on Mount Zion. But, if the employment of material weapons has been abandoned for the time, there is none the less a war of words and of sounds still going on. Go into the Holy Sepulchre, when mass is being celebrated, and you can scarcely endure the din. No sooner does the Greek choir begin its shrill chant, than the Latins fly to the assault.
