ly, must have been saintly centipedes: of making new
limbs there was no end, and, as their numbers increased, reverence
waned, till hey!--the bubble of credulity burst at last, as did the
frog!

But if the heavenly profitability was cut off by this collapse of
superstition, or eclipse of faith--call it which you will--the habit of
pleasurable moving remained; stronger by the force of repeated custom
throughout all past times: we keep the shell, but we cunningly
substitute a new kernel in the place of the exploded core of heretofore.

We go a pilgrimage still, but your modern spirit is now the pilgrim of
Health, Pleasure, Science, Art, and such-like--all high-sounding names
to conjure by; and the world, that old time-server, ever seeking to
accommodate itself to the new ways of its inhabitants, is ever supplying
us with a new Spa, a new "old master," or masterpiece, a newly dug-up
ruin, or hieroglyph, or Dark Continent, or--for even the humblest
"tripper" is not forgotten--a new Mudport-on-Sea.

The shrines of our forefathers' worship have crept back into favour by
hiding themselves in the voluminous draperies of History or Art. Our
appetite for shows is omnivorous, and we don't object to a shrine if it
has a Gothic moulding sufficiently "cute," or a Byzantine roof, or some
other attraction--are we not pilgrims of _Art_?--though if called upon
to define our roof or moulding many of us might be considerably
nonplussed, taking refuge in describing one as a "thing with a round
top," and the other as "a sort of stone trimming, don't you know."

I remember once reading a child's tale--I have forgotten where, for it
was many years ago--but the drift of the story was too good to forget.
It was about a small pig who lived with his mother in a stye which
possessed but a limited front yard. Piggy had the pilgrim spirit, and
sighed to escape to pastures new, to see what lay beyond his little
wall. One day his chance came--he escaped somehow, and made a pilgrimage
round the farmyard, where the strange things he saw either frightened
him dreadfully, or were utterly unintelligible to his piggish mind. He
was so frightened by the roaring of a bull that he fled with great
precipitation home, where he gave a glowing account of his travels to
his mother.

[Illustration: "PILGRIMS OF ART."]

"Yes," he said, "I have seen the world. It is square, and it has a wall
all round it, to keep the pigs from falling off, of course. I saw some