d in the
beautiful marble forms in which Greek genius enshrined her divinities.
From Greece the stream reached Italy in Magna Graecia, and later by the
adoption through Roman assimilation of the gods of the Greek Pantheon.
The worship of Isis and Osiris came from Egypt to Rome, and became an
influential cult there, as witness the abounding symbols of that worship
still preserved in the Capitoline Museum.

[Sidenote: _The Charm of Judea to Christians_]

To the Christian no land could be so full of religious suggestions,
remembrances, and associations as Judea. France, Spain, Italy, Britain
were no sooner Christianized in any degree than pilgrims began to set
out for the Jordan, for Bethlehem, for Jerusalem with its Gethsemane,
its Calvary, and its Holy Sepulcher. Those who were taught that blessing
came "by the work wrought," especially when the years prophesied a brief
space of life left, eagerly sought to wash sin away in Jordan or to die
near the hill of the atonement.

[Sidenote: _Greater Number of Pilgrims_]

[Sidenote: _Buildings by Constantine and Helena_]

When Christianity became imperial by alliance with the State, and
corrupt by the ascendency of Constantine in its Councils, the number of
pilgrims greatly increased. Ambitions as well as devotions drew men to
Palestine. Constantine had evoked Jerusalem again as a name and as a
city from the ruins of the preceding three centuries. The liberality of
Constantine and Helena had identified the holy places sufficiently for
the credulous faith of the time, and has decorated them with churches
and colonnades. Michaud says: "An obscure cavern had become a marble
temple paved with precious stones. To the east of the Holy Sepulcher
appeared the Church of the Resurrection, where the riches of Asia
mingled with the arts of Greece and Rome."[2]

[Sidenote: _Security in Pilgrimages_]

The attraction of such buildings, however, was not so great a stimulus
to pilgrimages as the security which the pilgrim might have, both on his
journey and after his arrival, through the extended and effective
authority of the Roman emperor. The pilgrim could now journey without
fighting his way, could be housed without secrecy after his arrival, and
could worship without stripes at any one of the many shrines which
attracted his piety.

[Sidenote: _Dangers of the Earlier Journeys_]

It is doubtful if any pilgrims traveled so far at first in such numbers
through unsympathetic and unfr