MACHPELAH: The name of the cave, or of the place near Hebron where the cave was situated, which Abraham bought of Ephron the Hittite for a family sepulcher. The name occurs only Gen. xxiii. 9, 17, 19, xxv. 9, xlix. 30, 1. 13; and according to these passages and their context Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Leah were buried there. The place which holds what is traditionally regarded as the cave is surrounded by a wall 194 feet long and fifty-eight feet high, constructed of huge stones, and reminding one, both in design and workmanship, of the foundation of the temple in Jerusalem. Within this enclosure is a Mohammedan mosque; and strangers, that is, non-Mohammedans, are rigidly excluded from the building. In 1862 the Prince of Wales, accompanied by Dean Stanley, visited Hebron; and, on special orders from Constantinople, the mosque was opened to them. In 1882 the same courtesy was extended during a visit paid by Princes Albert Victor and George of Wales, accompanied by Canon Dalton, Sir Charles Wilson, and Capt. Conder.

Bibliography: An indispensable account, historical in method and summarizing the accounts of travelers from the fourth century on, as well as giving exact references to collections and sources, is found in DB, iii. 197-202. Consult further: W. M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, ii. 381-388, 586, New York, 1859; A. P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, i. 535 sqq., ib. 1863; J. Ferguason, Holy Sepulchre and the Temple, London, 1885; C. Ritter, Comparative Geography of Palestine, iii. 30rr323, Edinburgh, 1866; P. Schaff, Through Bible Lands, pp. 212 sqq., New York, 1878; PEF, Memoirs, Survey of Western Palestine, iii. 305, London, 1883.

McILVAINE, CHARLES PETTIT: Protestant Episcopalian; b. at Burlington, N. J., June 18, 1799; d. at Florence, Italy, Mar. 14, 1873. He graduated at Princeton in 1816, then spent two years in the Princeton Theological Seminary. He was minister of Christ Church, Georgetown, D.C., 1820-25, chaplain to the United States senate 1822 and 1824, professor of ethics and chaplain in the United States Military Academy, West Point, 1825-1827, pastor of St. Ann's Church, Brooklyn, 1827-1832, professor of the evidences of revealed religion and sacred antiquities in New York University 1831-32, and bishop of the diocese of Ohio 1832-1873. He was also president of Kenyon College,

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Gambier, O., 1832-40, and the head of the theological seminary of his diocese. During the Civil War he was a member of the sanitary commission, and in 1861, in company with Archbishop Hughes and Thurlow Weed, he went to England on a semiofficial mission in connection with the Trent affair. He was a pronounced "Evangelical," and for years he was regarded as the leader of the Low-church party in the Protestant Episcopal Church. His principal works are, The Evidences of Christianity (New York, 1832), lectures delivered at New York University; Oxford Divinity compared with that of the Romish and Anglican Churches (Philadelphia, 1841), which was regarded as a good refutation of the Oxford school; The Holy Catholic Church (1844); and The Truth and the Life (New York, 1855), twenty-two sermons.

Bibliography: W. Carne, Memorials of Rev. C. P. Mcllvaine, New York, 1881; W. S. Perry, The Episcopate in America, p. 65, ib. 1895.