"The sea," they said, "the Great Sea."
"How will you cross it? And what is beyond?"
"We know not," they said, with bitter tears. "But we are a doomed race of Wanderers—onwards, onwards; we may not stay!"
Then first I perceived that, among these multitudes of aimless Wanderers, there was one band who kept close together, and moved with a freedom and a purpose, as if they journeyed on not from a blind, irresistible impulse, but from choice. Their looks were seldom turned regretfully behind them, or only on the dark mountains. They looked to something higher.
I asked them—"Why are you thus hastening on?"
"We are Pilgrims," they replied; "we would not linger here."
"Whither are you going?" I inquired.
"Home!" they answered joyfully—"to a Holy City which is our Home."
"But how do you know the way?" I asked; for no barriers seemed to limit their path, so that any of the Wanderers might join it at any point.
"We know it by two marks," they answered;—"by the footsteps of One who trod it once, and left indelible footprints wherever He stepped; and we know it also by the goal to which it tends!"