THE PILGRIMS. 311 



necessity was continued as a part of the monastic dis- 

 cipline. There were also begging friars, who jour- 

 neyed from land to land. These were the first tra- 

 vellers in Europe. Their sacred character preserved 

 their lives from all robbers, whether noble or plebeian, 

 and the same exemption was accorded to those who 

 put on the pilgrim's garb. The smaller pilgrimage was 

 that to Rome ; the greater that to the Holy Land, by 

 which the palmers obtained remission of their sins, and 

 also were shown by the monks of Egypt, Sinai, and 

 Palestine, many interesting relics, and vestiges of super- 

 natural events. They were shown the barns which 

 Joseph had built, vulgarly called the Pyramids ; the 

 bush which had burnt before Moses and was not con- 

 sumed, and the cleft out of which he peeped at the 

 " back parts " of Jehovah ; the pillar of salt which was 

 once Lot's wife, and which, though the sheep continu- 

 ally licked it out of shape, was continually restored to 

 its pristine form ; the ruins of the temple which 

 Samson overthrew ; the well where Jesus used to draw 

 water for his mother when he was a little boy, and 

 where she used to wash his clothes; the manger in 

 which he was born, and the table on which he "was 

 circumcised ; the caves in which his disciples concealed 

 themselves during the crucifixion, and the cracks in 

 the ground produced by the earthquake, produced by 

 that event ; the tree on which Judas hanged himself, 

 and the house in which he resided, which was sur- 

 rounded by the Jews with a wall that it might not 

 be injured by the Christians. 



It was not only the rich who undertook this pil- 

 grimage; many a poor man begged his way .to the 

 Holy Land. When such a person was ready to de- 

 part, the village pastor clad him in a cloak of coarse 



