ON TUESDAY 240 pilgrims left London to visit the Holy Land. We know a good deal about the spirit in which such pilgrimages were enterprised in former days, and there is every ground for feeling that that in which the Anglo-Catholic pilgrims have set out is the right one. They go, as of old, stirred by the impulse to tread the places hallowed by the earthly ministry of God made Man, and to receive thereby an increase of zeal in the cause of our holy religion. The fact that they travel by train and steamboat has seemed to some shallow minds a reason for suggesting that the pilgrimage is no more than a conducted tour. The pilgrims are travelling in no great luxury, but are making use, as pilgrims in every preceding age have done, of the best available means of transport within their means. The criticism that the money spent on travelling were better devoted to some other charitable cause inevitably reminds one of the murmurs against the woman who poured the contents of her alabaster box on her Saviour’s head. None can tell what good may not come of the pilgrimage. We wish it Godspeed and a safe return.
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