Impure Accretions
No pious movement has ever long existed without drawing to itself some of impure and selfish motive. The rich had no surer way of advertising their generosity than by making the journey and
aiding in the comfort of their poorer brethren. Some made the pilgrimage as many times as planet pilgrims now visit Europe. Yet to the credit of the pilgrim it must be said that no act of violence is recorded against any one who really made the whole journey. It is recorded of a Mussulman governor that he said of such, "They are not away from home with bad intent, but to keep their law."
Confusion of Moral Sense
Confusing to the moral sense as we possess it, and destructive of true morality as we must hold it to be, we must further admit with astonishment that pilgrimage was held to be a cure for the most dreadful sin.
A Brittany lord who murdered his brother and his uncle was ordered to make the journey twice with humiliating conditions, and returned, after three years on Mount Sinai, to be received as a saint and to dignify a monastery by his narrations and his residence.
A Journey Condones Murder
One journey was enough to free from further penalty a Roman prefect who had dragged a pope from his altar. Foulque-Nerra, Count of Anjou, pursued by the ghosts of those he had murdered, sought to quiet them through three unavailing journeys.
For such reasons and for many others, some of
which can hardly be brought within religious motives, thousands made the journey. Three thousand, beginning with the Bishop of Cambrai, were nearly all starved or murdered in Bulgaria, and the few who went on as far as Laodicea turned back or died there, while their leader went back to his diocese.