This odious society could not fail to weigh heavily on the tender and susceptible minds of the north.  The contempt of the Hierosolymites for the Galileans rendered the separation still more complete.  In the beautiful temple which was the object of all their desires, they often only met with insult.  A verse of the pilgrim’s psalm,[1] “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God,” seemed made expressly for them.  A contemptuous priesthood laughed at their simple devotion, as formerly in Italy the clergy, familiarized with the sanctuaries, witnessed coldly and almost jestingly the fervor of the pilgrim come from afar.  The Galileans spoke a rather corrupt dialect; their pronunciation was vicious; they confounded the different aspirations of letters, which led to mistakes which were much laughed at.[2] In religion, they were considered as ignorant and somewhat heterodox;[3] the expression, “foolish Galileans,” had become proverbial.[4] It was believed (not without reason) that they were not of pure Jewish blood, and no one expected Galilee to produce a prophet.[5] Placed thus on the confines of Judaism, and almost outside of it, the poor Galileans had only one badly interpreted passage in Isaiah to build their hopes upon.[6] “Land of Zebulon, and land of Naphtali, way of the sea, Galilee of the nations!  The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light:  they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”  The reputation of the native city of Jesus was particularly bad.  It was a popular proverb, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"[7]

[Footnote 1:  Ps. lxxxiv. (Vulg. lxxxiii.) 11.]

[Footnote 2:  Matt. xxvi. 73; Mark xiv. 70; Acts ii. 7; Talm. of Bab., Erubin, 53 a, and following; Bereschith Rabba, 26 c.]

[Footnote 3:  Passage from the treatise Erubin, loc. cit.]

[Footnote 4:  Erubin, loc. cit., 53 b.]

[Footnote 5:  John vii. 52.]

[Footnote 6:  Isa. ix. 1, 2; Matt. iv. 13, and following.]

[Footnote 7:  John i. 46.]

The parched appearance of Nature in the neighborhood of Jerusalem must have added to the dislike Jesus had for the place.  The valleys are without water; the soil arid and stony.  Looking into the valley of the Dead Sea, the view is somewhat striking; elsewhere it is monotonous.  The hill of Mizpeh, around which cluster the most ancient historical remembrances of Israel, alone relieves the eye.  The city presented, at the time of Jesus, nearly the same form that it does now.  It had scarcely any ancient monuments, for, until the time of the Asmoneans, the Jews had remained strangers to all the arts.  John Hyrcanus had begun to embellish it, and Herod the Great had made it one of the most magnificent cities of the East.  The Herodian constructions, by their grand character, perfection of execution, and beauty of material,