ABSTRACT
THE custom of making pilgrimage to the Holy Places in Palestine was of primitive Christian observance, and was not seriously interfered with by the Mohammedan conquest of Palestine. To go on pilgrimage was the wish of every pious and every guilty heart. Nowhere could pardon be so certainly or so easily gained as at the innumerable shrines of Christendom. Poorer pilgrims had to be contented with visiting national or local sanctuaries; but rich and poor alike longed to visit the Holy Land. We must not blame the priests who encouraged pilgrimage, and imagine that the only use of pilgrimage was to enrich the Church. Much of the treasure poured into the hand!! of the clergy was spent in ornamenting the shrines and the churches, as may be judged from the vast sums seized and dissipated by Henry VIII. Clergy and laity believed that where miracles were wrought, there it was good for wor-
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shippers to congregate. Many careless Christians might be won to religion by the associations of such a shrine as those of Westminster and Canterbury; dull imaginations were stirred, and vows were taken and paid which would never have been made in the ordinary conditions of town or country life. The dergy, no doubt, gained influence by encouraging pilgrimage: but it is the duty of clergy to seek for influence, if they believe in their mission. Above all, those religious vagabonds, the hermits and friars, like the Mullahs of the Eas~, urged the faithful to visit the tombs of the Apostles at Rome, and the still more sacred sanctuaries of Palestine.
