"The trouble is," the Doctor answered, "the religious sects are so jealous of each other that they prevent the repair and preservation of the church. No two of the three sects—Greek, Latin, and Armenian—will consent that the third shall have the honor of repairing it, and they will not agree upon an architect to whom the work can be intrusted without interference from any of them.
"The church and the grotto of the Nativity, directly beneath it, are parcelled out among the three sects. Each has its own altars where services are performed, and there are other altars which are common to all, but at different hours. Several times there have been fights in the sacred grotto between these rival monks. A few years ago one of the sects set fire to some decorations that had been placed in the grotto by another, and the whole place was filled with smoke, and the walls were disfigured."
One of the boys asked if there was any bloodshed in this affair.
"Yes," was the reply; "I believe two or three of the monks were killed, and others severely wounded. It was necessary to call in the Turkish soldiers to suppress the disturbance, and the hostility among the Christians is so great that a guard is kept there constantly to preserve order.
"It is said that the Crimean War owed its origin, in part, to a quarrel about the possession of the Church of the Nativity, and on several occasions the peace of Europe has been threatened by disputes for a few square inches of the floor of the sacred grotto!"
INTERIOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE NATIVITY.
During the above conversation the party had been walking through the church, admiring the beauty of the columns that support the roof, and listening to the chanting of the service at one of the altars in the side aisles. Pilgrims were kneeling at the shrines, or seated near the columns, and several monks were moving among them, or guiding strangers around the building. The Latin monks were easily distinguished from the others by their shaven heads, which contrasted in a marked degree with the tall hats of the Greeks and Armenians; and the boys observed that none of the rival sects said a word to either of the others. Evidently there was a bitter hatred between them, and although they were all to be considered devout Christians, they did not follow the injunction of their Master to love one another.