h were now growing, although they did not come
to a head until afterwards, one was an excess of reverence for saints,
which led to the practices of making addresses to them, and of paying
superstitious honours to their dead bodies. Another corruption was the
improper use of paintings or images, which even in St. Augustine's time
had gone so far that, as he owns with sorrow, many of the ignorant were
"worshippers of pictures." Another was the fashion of going on
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in which Constantine's mother, Helena, set
an example which was soon followed by thousands, who not only fancied
that the sight of the places hallowed by the great events of Scripture
would kindle or heighten their devotion, but that prayers would be
especially pleasing to God if they were offered up in such places. And
thus great numbers flocked to Palestine from all quarters, and even from
Britain, among other countries; and on their return they carried back
with them water from the Jordan, earth from the Redeemer's sepulchre, or
what they believed to be chips of the true cross, which was supposed to
have been found during Helena's visit to Jerusalem. The mischiefs of
this fashion soon showed themselves. St. Basil's brother, Gregory of
Nyssa, wrote a little book expressly for the purpose of persuading
people not to go on pilgrimage. He said that he himself had been neither
better nor worse for a visit which he had paid to the Holy Land; but
that such a pilgrimage might even be dangerous for others, because the
inhabitants of the country were so vicious that there was more
likelihood of getting harm from them than good from the sight of the
holy places. "We should rather try," he said, "to go out of the body
than to drag it about from place to place." Another very learned man of
the same time, St. Jerome, although he had taken up his own abode at
Bethlehem, saw so much of the evils which arose from pilgrimages that he
gave very earnest warnings against them. "It is no praise," he says, "to
have been at Jerusalem, but to have lived religiously at Jerusalem. The
sight of the places where our Lord died and rose again are profitable to
those who bear their own cross and daily rise again with Him. But for
those who say, 'The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord'
(_Jerem._ vii. 4), let them hear the Apostle's words, '_Ye_ are the
temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you' (1 _Cor._ iii.
16). The court of heaven is open to ap