The Protestant buildings in Nazareth are the most conspicuous, because higher placed than either the beautiful minaret of the mosque or the strong pile of the monastery. The hospital, presided over by Dr. Varten, an accomplished surgeon and a kind doctor, stands towards the north; the church, well built with a pretty garden and capable of containing five hundred persons, is to the west, tastefully decorated within, and having over the altar-table, in Arabic, the words read by the Saviour in the Synagogue of Nazareth, "the Spirit of the Lord is upon me ... to preach the Gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captivesâ (Luke iv. 18).
Highest placed of all, however, half-way up the hill, the great orphanage has been building since 1872, and is now complete, and designed to hold two hundred girls. It is built in the symbolic but very inconvenient form of a cross with the sides filled in, and is but ill designed though well executed, and externally a very fine building. From its esplanade the town is visible, spread out almost like a map on the lower slopes, with olive and fig-gardens, cactus hedges and yellow threshing-floors, backed by barren stony hills.
A volume might be written on the history and topography of Nazareth, but the present sketch is necessarily a short one. A chief feature of the place must not, however, be forgotten--the view from the summit of the hill by the little chapel of Neby S'ain, whose untranslatable name is a puzzle to the residents.
We can scarcely doubt that this scene, unchanged as it must be in its noble natural features, was one often before the eyes of Christ in childhood and manhood, and it is remarkable how much that is stirring in the history of Israel was enacted within the theatre of rolling hills which bound the view.
Here on the south the broad brown Plain of Esdraelon stretches away to the hills of Samaria. The peak of the Precipitation stands above it at the end of the plateau of Nazareth, and beyond, the top of Tabor and the cone of Jebel Duhy rise up on the left. The ridge of Gilboa appears farther south, cliff above cliff, tilted eastwards and shelving down gently to the plain on the west. Turn-to the right the eye follows the broken outline of mountains rising into the volcanic cone of Sheikh Iskander, and farther on, the whole range of Carmel, in its length of twelve miles, is stretched dark and wooded from the Peak of the Sacrifice to the Convent promontory where Haifa nestles at its feet. Over the ridge far south the gleaming sea appears; to the north is the hollow bay of Acre with its white circle of surf, the town itself not visible; behind us again on the north are the steep Galilean hills, the Safed mountains, the beautiful plain of Asochis where Kânah stands on the slope; farthest away of all is the snowy dome of Hermon.