Tommy wanted to know what that meant, and Robert told him that “jot” wuz the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and “tittle” meant the little horn-shaped mark over some of the letters.
And I sez: “I never knew what that meant before.” But Miss Meechim said she did––she always duz know everything from the beginning, specially after she’s hearn some one explain it. But to resoom: We went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where many different religious sects come to worship. The place where many think the body of our Lord wuz lain when he wuz taken down from the cross is covered with a slab worn down by the worshippers, and in the little chapel round it forty-three lamps are kep’ burning night and day.
But I felt more inclined to think that the place where the body of our Lord wuz lain wuz outside the city where the rocky hill forms a strange resemblance to a human skull, answering to the Bible description. Near there a tomb, long buried, has been found lately that corresponds with the Bible record, which sez: “Now in the garden was a new tomb wherin no man had been lain.” There wuz places in this tomb for three bodies, but only one had been finished, and scientists say that no body has ever crumbled into the dust that covers this tomb. Ruins show that ages back an arched temple once covered this spot. But what matters the very spot where his body lay, or from where he ascended into the heavens. Mebby it can’t be told for certain after all these years; but we know that his weary feet trod these 287 dusty roads. And as we travelled to Bethlehem and Bethany and Nazareth, his presence seemed to go before us.
It wuz a lovely morning when we left Jerusalem by the Jaffa gate and went down acrost the valley of Hinnom, up acrost the hill of Evil Council, and acrost the broad plain where David fought many a battle and Solomon went about in all his glory.
We stopped a few minutes at the convent of Mar Elias to see the fine view. From here you can see both places where the Saviour wuz born and where he died. It is a very sightly spot, and I hearn Josiah tell Tommy:
“This is a beautiful place, Tommy; it wuz named after Miss Elias; her children built it to honor their Mar; and it ort to make you think, Tommy, that you must always mind your Mar.”
“Mar?” sez Tommy inquirin’ly, “Do you mean my mamma or my grandma?”
I wuz glad the rest of the party wuz some distance away and didn’t hear him. Josiah always jest crowds his explanations, full and runnin’ over with morals, but he gits things wrong. I hated to hurt his feelin’s, but I had to tell Tommy this wuz named, I spozed, from the prophet Elijah, who wuz, they say, helped by angels on this very spot as he flowed away from Jezabel; they gin him water and food, such good food that after eating it he could travel forty days and forty nights without eating agin.
Jezabel wuzn’t a likely woman at all; I wouldn’t been willin’ to neighbor with her.
Rachel’s tomb is a little furder on. It is a long, rough-lookin’ structure with a round ruff on the highest end on’t. Christian, Jew and Moslem all agree that this is Rachel’s tomb. It wuz right here that little Benoni wuz born and his ma named him while her soul wuz departing, for she died.