CHAPTER VII.
Residence at Jerusalem--Catholic church--The "Nuova Casa"-- Via Dolorosa--Pilate's house--The Mosque Omar--Herod's house--Church of the Holy Sepulchre--Disturbances at the Greek Easter feasts--Knights of the Holy Sepulchre--Mount of Olives--Adventure among the ruin-- Mount of Offence--Valley of Jehosaphat--Siloam--Mount Sion-- Jeremiah's grotto--Graves.
The red morning dawn had began to tinge the sky as we stood before the walls of Jerusalem, and with it the most beauteous morning of my life dawned upon me! I was so lost in reflection and in thankful emotion, that I saw and heard nothing of what was passing around me.
And yet I should find it impossible to describe what I thought, what I felt.

My emotion was deep and powerful; my expression of it would be poor and cold.
At half past four o'clock in the morning of the 29th May we arrived at the "Bethlehem Gate." We were obliged to wait half an hour before this gate was opened; then we rode through the still silent and deserted streets of the Nuova Casa (Pilgrim-house), a building devoted by the Franciscan friars to the reception of rich and poor Roman Catholics and Protestants.
I left my baggage in the room allotted to me, and hastened into the church, to lighten the weight on my heart by fervent prayer.

The entrance into the church looks like the door of a private house; the building is small, but still sufficiently large for the Roman Catholic congregation.

The altar is richly furnished, and the organ is a very bad one.

The male and female portions of the congregation are separated from each other, the young as well as the old, and all sit or kneel on the ground.