evation, instead of giving him the advantage,
positively unfitted him.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiv. 1, 2; Mark xiii. 1, 2; Luke xix. 44, xxi. 5,
6. Cf. Mark xi. 11.]

[Footnote 2: Mark xii. 41, and following; Luke xxi. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Mark xii. 41.]

In the midst of this troubled life, the sensitive and kindly heart of
Jesus found a refuge, where he enjoyed moments of sweetness. After
having passed the day disputing in the temple, toward evening Jesus
descended into the valley of Kedron, and rested a while in the orchard
of a farming establishment (probably for the making of oil) named
Gethsemane,[1] which served as a pleasure garden to the inhabitants.
Thence he proceeded to pass the night upon the Mount of Olives, which
limits the horizon of the city on the east.[2] This side is the only
one, in the environs of Jerusalem, which offers an aspect in any
degree pleasing and verdant. The plantations of olives, figs, and
palms were numerous there, and gave their names to the villages,
farms, or enclosures of Bethphage, Gethsemane, and Bethany.[3] There
were upon the Mount of Olives two great cedars, the memory of which
was long preserved amongst the dispersed Jews; their branches served
as an asylum to clouds of doves, and under their shade were
established small bazaars.[4] All this precinct was in a manner the
abode of Jesus and his disciples; they knew it field by field and
house by house.

[Footnote 1: Mark xi. 19; Luke xxii. 39; John xviii. 1, 2. This
orchard could not be very far from the place where the piety of the
Catholics has surrounded some old olive-trees by a wall. The word
_Gethsemane_ seems to signify "oil-press."]

[Footnote 2: Luke xxi. 37, xxii. 39; John viii. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 3: Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 53 _a_.]

[Footnote 4: Talm. of Jerus., _Taanith_, iv. 8.]

The village of Bethany, in particular,[1] situated at the summit of
the hill, upon the incline which commands the Dead Sea and the Jordan,
at a journey of an hour and a half from Jerusalem, was the place
especially beloved by Jesus.[2] He there made the acquaintance of a
family composed of three persons, two sisters and a brother, whose
friendship had a great charm for him.[3] Of the two sisters, the one,
named Martha, was an obliging, kind, and assiduous person;[4] the
other, named Mary, on the contrary, pleased Jesus by a sort of
languor,[5] and by her strongly developed speculative instincts.
Seated at the feet of