he
Englishmen of 1514 Henry VIII was the divine young king whose prowess
at Tournay, whose victory at Flodden seemed to his happy bride the
reward of his piety: the name of Luther was unknown: Pole was an
unconsidered child. Into their minds we cannot really enter unless we
can think away everything that has happened since and call up a mist
over the face of time.

IX

PILGRIMAGES

To go on pilgrimage is an instinct which appears in most religions and
at all ages. The idea underlying the practice seems to be that God is
more nigh in some spots than in others, the desire to seek Him in a
place where He may be found: for where God is, there men hope to win
remission of sins. So widespread is this sentiment that both in
Catholic Europe and in Asia it is not possible to travel far without
coming upon sites invested in this way with a special holiness. The
objects which draw men to peregrinate may be divided into three
classes: natural features which are in themselves remarkable; places
difficult of access, which can only be reached at cost of risk and
effort; and sites which have been rendered holy by the visitation of
God or the preservation of sacred relics. But this classification is
not always clearly defined; for the same object of pilgrimage often
falls into two categories at once.

Of striking natural features--self-created objects of veneration, as
the Hindus call them--many kinds are found. There are chasms from
which issue mysterious vapours, stimulating prophecy, such as Delphi,
or Jwala Mukhi, sacred to Hindus and Sikhs, or the Grotta del Cane,
near Naples. Caves with their dreadful gloom inspire a sense of
supernatural presence. Such are the cave of Trophonius in Boeotia, St.
Patrick's cave in Ireland, the grotto of Lourdes, Mariastein near
Basle, and the great fissure of Amarnath in Kashmir, with its icy
stalactite which is the special object of worship. Some of these add
to their sanctity by difficulty of access: St. Patrick's cave is on an
island in Lough Derg; Mariastein lies over the edge of a steep cliff;
Amarnath is hidden among lofty mountains at 17000 feet above the sea.

Enormous stones, too, are apt to acquire holiness, arousing interest
by their vast mass; as though they could hardly have been brought into
independent existence, detached from the great earth, without some
direct intervention of divine power. Such are the stone at Delphi, or
the great rock, now enshrined in a Muhammada