' vrf Ih* ο! -ν -tv ·.· ·.·.( ,λι ..\»ΙΠΙΛ nmbaeihd -wrfif-f "··' ' to .· '.··.!:' · ·'·.ί .•.«Jas-'aii» *ίΐ Jlh sba/a «*£•:,. ο " · Γ-fu: eehtsisi.iftiroiteiqu'^âaifci .ίο7·. · ί·· Λ h i&'m ed οϊ an J ^ebuitiiâu» Vi ·• hrtJ :-ι &a-jta an g» .^aJjjialUwt* h v ; ••'•''fi . fc«i '. • '•' .;·' "-tt ::i ijtiMmw» j*-«pff Bwiev^-tf^. .'.· i un · . ιυι:·;«)Βΐ rMÎi-sitd • ·;' ·;;ι danjirfT l'usai CHAPTER Y. ir. ' .Txf *r Jtòl.aVr Ait JÌivu; . ία . . . ι··· rîH^iirï λ· THE CHRISTIAN PILGRIMS. - Dulce mihi cruciari ; Parva vis doloris est : Malo mori quam fasdari : Major vis amoris est. Hymn attributed to St. Augustine. AT what period in the history of Christianity began the practice of going on pilgrimage it is difficult to decide. Probably the first places held sacred were those of local martyrs and confessors to the faith. Every part of the civilised world had these in abundance ; there was not a village where some saint had not fallen a victim to persecution, not a town which could not boast of its roll of martyrs. When the day of persecution was over, and stories of miracles and wonderful cures at holy shrines began to grow, it was natural that the minds of a credulous age should turn to the holiest place of all, the city of Jerusalem. It had so turned even before the Invention of the Holy Cross ; for Helena herself was on a pilgrimage when she made her discovery. But the story, noised abroad, the building by Constantine of the church of the Martyrdom, and the immediate fixing, without any hesitation, of all the sacred sites recorded in the New Testament, were the causes of a vast increase in the number of pilgrims who every year flocked to Jerusalem. And then