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ient tombs; one of them is said to be the sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea. Of the antiquity of these tombs there cannot be the slightest doubt; and their being here forms the best argument for the authenticity of the Holy Sepulchre itself, as it shows that this was formerly a place of burial, notwithstanding its situation in the centre of the ancient city, contrary to the almost universal practice of the ancients, whose sepulchres are always found some short distance from their cities; indeed, among the Egyptians, whose manners seem to have been followed in many respects by the Jews, it was a law that no one should be buried in the cultivated grounds, but their tombs were excavated in the rocks of the desert, that the agricultural and other daily pursuits of the living might not interfere with the repose of the dead. It is mentioned in the Bible that Christ was led _out_ to be crucified; but it is not quite clear from the passage whether he was led out of the city of Jerusalem itself, or only from the city of David on Mount Sion, which appears to have been the citadel and place of residence of the Roman governor. If so, the site of the Holy Sepulchre may be the true one; and, in common with all other pilgrims, I am inclined to hope that the tomb now pointed out may really be the sepulchre of Christ. Descending a flight of steps from the body of the church, we entered the subterranean chapel of St. Helena, below which is another vault, in which the true cross is said to have been found. A very curious account of the finding of the cross is to be seen in the black-letter pages of Caxton's 'Golden Legend,' and it has formed the subject of many singular traditions and romantic stories in former days. The history of this famous relic would be tedious were I to narrate it in the obsolete phraseology of the father of English printing, and I will therefore only give a short summary of the legend; although, to those who take an interest in monastic traditions, the accounts given in old books, which were read by our ancestors before the Reformation with all the sober seriousness of undoubting faith, afford a curious instance of the proneness of the human intellect to mistake the shadow for the substance, and to substitute an unbounded veneration for outward observances for the more reasonable acts of spiritual devotion. In the middle ages, while the worship of our Saviour was completely neglected, the wooden cross upon which
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