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visited the places hallowed by the Saviour's sufferings and glory. From
Bethlehem, where the Mother found shelter in a stable, and therein "in a
manger laid" the newborn Redeemer, to receive the adoration of the
shepherds, on through the country which the Lord travelled in His
mission, till finally she beheld Mount Calvary and looked upon the place
of the Sepulchre, now marked by the Christian temple raised by Helena.
Her presence brings to mind the visit of this Helena, the Emperor
Constantine's mother, one hundred years before, but the Greek matron
must have beheld it with very different emotions. She had been reared in
the philosophers' gardens of Athens, amid the glories of the Parthenon
and the many wonderful works of art which the Greek genius had created,
and in her new home in Constantinople she had not been altogether weaned
from the traditions of her youth. In glowing contrast to ancient Athens
she now saw a city whose prized monuments were the chapels erected on
spots rendered sacred by the footsteps of the Christ and the relics of
saints and martyrs. To this city she came as a Christian pilgrim, and
her devoutness of spirit showed that her heathen culture, in which she
took a pardonable pride, had been consecrated to the religion she
professed, and her endeavor to relieve the sufferings of the poor and
the unfortunate proved that she had learned the lesson of caring for
others from the example of the Master.

Her alms and pious foundations in the Holy Land exceeded even those of
the great Helena; and the destitute of the land had reason to be
grateful to the empress for her unbounded liberality. In return for her
zeal, she had the conscious satisfaction of returning to Constantinople
with some of the most sacred relics of the Church--the chains of Saint
Peter, the relics of Saint Stephen, and a portrait of the Virgin Mary,
reputed to be from the brush of Saint Luke. The first martyr's relics
were deposited with great ceremony in the chapel of Saint Laurence, and
the piety of the empress won for her the loving admiration of the devout
populace.

But this pilgrimage to Jerusalem, with its many tokens of the affection
of her subjects, and her triumphal return to the capital city, marks the
termination of the glory of the Athenian maiden as empress of the East.
Then began the rivalries and conflicts which finally brought about
Eudocia's downfall. To understand these we must first of all take into
conside