close this volume here, for he will find little to his taste in my journeyings through Holy Land.  Noble old man—­he did not live to see me—­he did not live to see his child.  And I—­I—­alas, I did not live to see him.  Weighed down by sorrow and disappointment, he died before I was born—­six thousand brief summers before I was born.  But let us try to bear it with fortitude.  Let us trust that he is better off where he is.  Let us take comfort in the thought that his loss is our eternal gain.

The next place the guide took us to in the holy church was an altar dedicated to the Roman soldier who was of the military guard that attended at the Crucifixion to keep order, and who—­when the vail of the Temple was rent in the awful darkness that followed; when the rock of Golgotha was split asunder by an earthquake; when the artillery of heaven thundered, and in the baleful glare of the lightnings the shrouded dead flitted about the streets of Jerusalem—­shook with fear and said, “Surely this was the Son of God!” Where this altar stands now, that Roman soldier stood then, in full view of the crucified Saviour—­in full sight and hearing of all the marvels that were transpiring far and wide about the circumference of the Hill of Calvary.  And in this self-same spot the priests of the Temple beheaded him for those blasphemous words he had spoken.

In this altar they used to keep one of the most curious relics that human eyes ever looked upon—­a thing that had power to fascinate the beholder in some mysterious way and keep him gazing for hours together.  It was nothing less than the copper plate Pilate put upon the Saviour’s cross, and upon which he wrote, “This is the king of the jews.”  I think St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, found this wonderful memento when she was here in the third century.  She traveled all over Palestine, and was always fortunate.  Whenever the good old enthusiast found a thing mentioned in her Bible, Old or New, she would go and search for that thing, and never stop until she found it.  If it was Adam, she would find Adam; if it was the Ark, she would find the Ark; if it was Goliath, or Joshua, she would find them.  She found the inscription here that I was speaking of, I think.  She found it in this very spot, close to where the martyred Roman soldier stood.  That copper plate is in one of the churches in Rome, now.  Any one can see it there.  The inscription is very distinct.

We passed along a few steps and saw the altar built over the very spot where the good Catholic priests say the soldiers divided the raiment of the Saviour.

Then we went down into a cavern which cavilers say was once a cistern.  It is a chapel, now, however—­the Chapel of St. Helena.  It is fifty-one feet long by forty-three wide.  In it is a marble chair which Helena used to sit in while she superintended her workmen when they were digging and delving for the True Cross.  In this place is an altar dedicated to St. Dimas, the penitent thief.  A new bronze statue is here—­a statue of St. Helena.  It reminded us of poor Maximilian, so lately shot.  He presented it to this chapel when he was about to leave for his throne in Mexico.