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There are a few so-called sacred places and shrines in Nazareth the supposed scene of the Annunciation; the traditional Workshop of Joseph; the alleged Mensa Christi, a flat stone which He is said to have used as a table when He ate with His disciples; and so on. But all these uncertain relics and memorials, as usual, are inclosed in chapels, belit with lamps, and encircled with ceremonial.
As all the modern sanctuaries in that part of the world are founded on the ruins of ancient shrines, I have no doubt that our hospitable shelter of that night was on the site of some temple to one of the great gods of Crete.
"'So we fared onward, increasing our numbers until our caravan was full one hundred strong. We walked or rode together, ate together, worshipped at the wayside shrines together, chatted and amused ourselves at night around the camp fire, slept side by side, thugs and our intended victims, until our strength should be sufficient and a suitable place for the final deed attained.
It is certain that this feeling has helped to make them indifferent to danger, almost, indeed, contemptuous of it. And in France, I was told, almost everywhere there were shrines in which figures of Christ or of His Mother had survived the most furious shelling.
Perhaps, as we read of these honours to the dead, we may feel they were but poor reparation for the calumnies and injuries heaped on her while living: or, if we seek to measure these things in the balance of the sanctuary, we can believe that to her blessed spirit now, those long years of abandonment and desolation, which cut her off from all communion with this earth for more than half her mortal life, were a far more precious gift than all the shrines, and funeral honours, and popular veneration, which the world in its tardy repentance was moved to give her.
These "calvaries," in many shapes and degrees, are not uncommon in Catholic Germany; "stations of the cross" sometimes groups of painted figures, life-size, sometimes only small shrines with a framed picture within mark the distances up the hill, at the top of which is a representation of the crucifixion; and as the agony in the garden is not included in the "stations," there is generally at the foot of the hill an additional shrine in a natural cave or surrounded by artificial rock-work.
For a moment she stood pensive, her face now grave, now sensitive, now touched with that mysterious exaltation that glows through the histories of the saints, that shines from tapestries, that hides in the dim faces carved on shrines. For the world was trembling and the land cried out under the scourge, and she was ready now for what must be.
No visitor to Canterbury can appreciate what he sees, unless he realizes to some extent the glamour which overhung the resting place of St. Thomas in the days of Geoffrey Chaucer. We have no certain knowledge as to whether the other shrines and relics which enriched the cathedral were destroyed along with those of St. Thomas.
Two sacred pilgrimages he made early in this holiday to the two shrines of his romantic boyhood to Shockoe Cemetery, where he not only visited "Helen's" tomb, but laid a wreath upon the grave of Frances Allan his little foster mother, and to the churchyard on the hill.
All the people who went to Olympia to witness the games laid some precious offering before the shrines, so that the temple came to be noted for its beauty and wealth. Painters and sculptors, too, further adorned it with samples of their skill, and it soon contained numerous gems of art.
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