eeks and the Romans each have a
different location for the same event. This is true with regard to the
point where the angry people were about to throw Jesus over "the brow of
the hill" (Luke 4:29). I saw no place that struck me as being the one
referred to in the Scriptures, and in reply to an inquiry, a lady at the
English Orphanage, who has spent twenty years in Nazareth, said she
thought it was some place on that side of the town, but the contour of
the hill had probably changed. She also mentioned that the relics taken
out in excavations were all found on that side, indicating that the old
city had been built there. When Brother McGarvey visited Palestine, he
found two places that corresponded somewhat with Luke's reference to the
place. Concerning one of them he wrote: "I am entirely satisfied that
here is where the awful attempt was made." I was shown the "place of
annunciation" in the Latin monastery. On the top of a column stands the
figure of a female, probably representing the Virgin, and a bit of ruin
that is said to date back to the time of Constantine is pointed out.
Here, I was told, stood the first church building erected in Nazareth.
One of the "brothers" took the key and went around to a building
supposed to stand on the site of Joseph's carpenter shop. It is a small
chapel, built about 1858 over the ruins of some older structure. In the
floor of marble or stone there are two wooden trapdoors, which are
raised to show the ruins below. Over the altar in the end opposite the
door is a picture to represent the holy family, and there are some other
pictures in different parts of the little chapel. From here I went to
the Virgin's Fountain. If it be true that this is the only spring in
Nazareth, then I have no doubt that I was near the spot frequently
visited by the Nazarene maid who became the mother of our Lord. I say
near the spot, for the masonry where the spring discharges is about a
hundred yards from the fountain, which is now beneath the floor of a
convent. The water flows out through the wall by two stone spouts, and
here the women were crowded around, filling their vessels or waiting for
their turn. The flow was not very strong, and this helps to explain why
so many women were there before daylight the morning I went to Tiberias.
I saw one woman, who was unable to get her vessel under the stream of
one of the spouts, drawing down a part of the water by sticking a leaf
against the end of the spout. I