viz.: stone edifices raised above the level of the ground. Sometimes these assumed the form of a lofty pillar, as in the case of Rachel's tomb :- "Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave, that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day" (Gen. xxxv. 19, 20). The building now called Rachel's tomb occupies

in all probability the site of the old pillar, but has no pretension to great antiquity. It is merely an ordinary Muslim Wely, or tomb of a holy person; a small square building of stone with a dome, and within it a tomb in the ordinary Mohammedan form; the whole plastered over with mortar. Of course the building is not ancient; in the seventh century there

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was here only a pyramid of stones." ROBINSON'S Researches, i. 218. "The Muslims keep the tomb in order; and those of Bethlehem were formerly accustomed to bury around it" (i. 469).

Our Lord refers to the custom of building tombs or monuments in honour of illustrious people, when He says to the Pharisees "Woe unto you! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them (Luke xi. 47). We must not however suppose that the buildings now named after Absalom, Zacharias, and others, were really monuments erected after the death of these men: the style of their architecture shows that they were of a later date, probably at the time of, or shortly subsequent to, the Christian era.

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WHITED SEPULCHRES.

All graves were regarded by the Jews as unclean, and communicated legal uncleanness to any one who came in contact with them. It was usual therefore to

make them conspicuous by painting them white. Hence our Saviour's remarks: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness" (Matt. xxiii. 27). "Ye are as graves which appear not (i. e. are not made conspicuous), and the men that walk over them are not aware of them (Luke xi. 44). For the same reason burial-places always lay outside the walls of towns, as implied in the narrative of the miracle at Nain :- "Now when He came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out" (Luke vii. 12); and again in

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the case of Lazarus :- "Now Jesus was not yet come into the town" (John xi. 30). Such was the position of the cemetery in which the idolaters were buried "And as Josiah turned himself, he spied the sepulchres that were there in the mount; and sent, and took the bones out of the sepulchres, and burned them.. Then he said, What title is that that I see? And the men of the city told him, It is the sepulchre of the man of God, which came from Judah. . . . And he said, Let him alone; let no man move his bones (2 Kings xxiii. 16-18); and such was also the portion of the potter's field, which the chief priests purchased with the money given to Judas in order that they might bury strangers in it (Matt. xxvii. 7).

The same customs still prevail in oriental countries. Dr. Shaw thus describes the Moorish places of burial:

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If we except a few persons, who are buried within the precincts of some sanctuary, the rest are carried out at a small distance from their cities and villages, where a great extent of ground is allotted for that purpose. Each family has a particular portion of it, walled in like a garden, where the bones of their ancestors have remained undisturbed for many generations. For in these enclosures the graves are all distinct and separate, having each of them a stone placed upright, both at the head and feet, inscribed with the name of the person who lies interred there; whilst the intermediate space is either planted with flowers, bordered round with stone, or paved all over with tiles. The graves of the principal citizens are further distinguished by some square chambers or cupolas that are built over them. Now as all these different sorts of tombs and sepulchres, with the very walls likewise of the enclosures, are constantly kept clean, whitewashed, and beautified, they continue to this day to be an excellent comment upon that expression of our Saviour, where He mentions the garnish

ing of the sepulchres; and again, where He compares the Scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, to whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and all uncleanness. For the space of two or three months after any person is interred, the female relations go once a week to weep over the grave."-Dr. SHAW's Travels, i. 395, 396.

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When travelling from Asdoud, the ancient Ashdod, or Azotus, to Joppa, Captains Irby and Mangles saw, on a small eminence, Sheikh Rubin's tomb, surrounded by a square wall, with some trees enclosed. There are in Syria and Egypt numbers of these tombs, which the Arabs erect to the memory of any man who they think has led a holy life; for the title of Sheikh is not only given to their chiefs, but also to their saints. These tombs are generally placed in some conspicuous spot, frequently on the top of some mount.

-The sepulchre consists of a small apartment, with a cupola over it, whitewashed externally; within are deposited a mat, and a jar of water for the ablution of such as retire there for devotion."-Travels, pp. 183, 184.