This part of the work some over-pious and fastidious critics have condemned because, as they urge, of its levity. We cannot find anything so very irreverent in his account. ... We recognize as legitimate humor the grave statement that the party “looked everywhere as we passed along, but never saw grain or crystal of Lot’s wife,” although to some this sentence might seem somewhat irreverent. Here and there we find passages which might have been left out without injury to the work. The author, however, evidently has no respect for tradition—not even for Bible tradition. After swallowing all the free-thinking and rationalistic emanations of the day, we shall not strain over a few paragraphs, which, if not marked by austere piety, need not, necessarily, be regarded as sacrilege. If the Holy Land did not inspire the author with enthusiastic emotions, we have no doubt it was because the Holy Land has been persistently lied about by nearly all other authors. (“Literature,” 8)