Supposing this to be the case,
I felt that there would be some interest in knowing how the events
of the Gospel history were regarded by the Israelites of modern
Jerusalem. The result of my inquiry upon this subject was, so far
as it went, entirely favourable to the truth of Christianity. I
understood that THE PERFORMANCE OF THE MIRACLES WAS NOT DOUBTED BY
ANY OF THE JEWS IN THE PLACE. All of them concurred in attributing
the works of our Lord to the influence of magic, but they were
divided as to the species of enchantment from which the power
proceeded. The great mass of the Jewish people believe, I fancy,
that the miracles had been wrought by aid of the powers of
darkness, but many, and those the more enlightened, would call
Jesus "the good Magician." To Europeans repudiating the notion of
all magic, good or bad, the opinion of the Jews as to the agency by
which the miracles were worked is a matter of no importance; but
the circumstance of their admitting that those miracles WERE IN
FACT PERFORMED, is certainly curious, and perhaps not quite
immaterial.
If you stay in the Holy City long enough to fall into anything like
regular habits of amusement and occupation, and to become, in
short, for the time "a man about town" at Jerusalem, you will
necessarily lose the enthusiasm which you may have felt when you
trod the sacred soil for the first time, and it will then seem
almost strange to you to find yourself so entirely surrounded in
all your daily pursuits by the designs and sounds of religion.
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