Random Recollections Of Foreign Travel.

brought twohemispheres together , to proceed to a successful issue . The Roman Catholic service followed , and then Monseigneur Bauer , the Empress ' s private almoner , delivered a florid harangue , not a sermon , but a speech , ivith powerful declamation

and with many a skilful and even graceful pose . I don ' t recollect much about it . We all thought it very clever , and that it had been most carefully prepared and studied ; and I remember quite well that his corpulent Hi ghnessthe Khedive wentfast

asleep during its delivery , and that his red fez was nodding so palpably that it seemed even betting whether or not the heir to the Pachas would roll over into the

lessors and disci ples of the two faiths stood side by side offering up praise and worshi p in their own forms to the same living God . Think of the religion of fire and sword , the fiercefanaticalfaith which makesthe destruction of the Gaiour the passport to Paradise ,

submitting to pray with him publicly and to acknowled ge , in dark old Egypt of all countries in the world , the principle of religious equalit y , and that each man is entitled to worship the Maker of all in the mode und form his conscience dictates

. Think again of this crowd of W pean Christians in the East , not on a nerce crusade for the extermination of fie Infidel , but to acquiesce in a reli gion which , according to its founder ' s lights , reeogmses the sacred principles of morality , and the glorious Architect of Heaven a >« l Earth , and is , therefore , a potent Wti'ience for cor-,, }

Nor was the harmonious co-operation of the Greek aud Latin Churches a less remarkable testimony to what I may be permitted to term the Masonic influences of the celebration . The hatred borne and displayed by these two branches of the Christian faith give rise to the most

painful and revolting exhibitions . A few weeks later when I ivas in the Holy Land I saw the Moselm sentries , who guard the sacred spot at Bethlehem where the Great Teacher was cradled , despising both sets of pilgrims alike , and spurn with contempt the

crowds of Russians and Armenians , while sneering at the anxiety each set showed to rush in before that of the rival Church . It is , alas ! the stern and brutal handof theTurkish soldier ivhich alone keeps Christians in Palestine from flying at each other ' s throats

and fighting to the death . The poor people who realise the dream of their life , and expend the savings of long years in a pilgrimage to the holy places , are in a large

measure of the most debased and degraded class—as ignorant as hounds , and as abjectly obedient to the voice and whip of their spiritual ruler . You see them in troops of a hundred or two strong , headed by their priest , plodding their weary way on foot on the road from Jaffa by Ramleh to

Jersualem , there to be housed for a time in convents which are in fact large walledin towns . The priests-inculcate loving the Church and hating your brother over the way , as the true reading of the sublime precept ; audit is not to be wondered at if the

smouldering passions thus sedulously fanned should from time to time break out into a flame scorching , andas in some casesdestroying all within its range . I ivas at Jerusalem , on the day the ( Ecumenical Council commenced its sittings at

Home , and mounting the flatroof of the house I occupiedatuight , I wasstruck byseeing the Latin convent illuminated with the little oil lamps formerly known as the " thousand additional" ones at Vauxhall . The effect of

thia incongruous association of ideas ivas just that ivhich the traveller is constantly experiencing at Jerusalem . High-strung expectation , exalted feelings , reverent interest—and then , presto ! indignant disappointment , humiliating indignation , and a desire to punish the hooded impostors who

foist theirlies upon their dupes . When a red composition set on faded brown leaves is shown as the original spots of blood on the Croivn of Thorns , when the precise place is

Empress s lap . There had been a good deal of anxiety as to whether the Canal would be ready for the triumphal opening next day , when a long line of steamers were to go through as far as Ismalia , headed by the Empress ' s steam yacht

L'Ai gle , and his Highness had been at work early and late , and as it turned out had to devote the best part of the next night to superintending personally the shifting of one of his own steamers ivhich had stuck in mid-channeland ivhich he vowed

, he would have blown into the air by gunpowder rather than delay the opening of the Canal an hour—so with allthisfatiguepast , present , and to come—the poor Khedive slept peacefully through Monseigneur ' s eloquencewhile we humble

, people listened and looked on . But the feature of the clay was , it seemed to me , Masonic . For the first time in the history of Christianity and Mohammedanism , pro-