Even in this point of view the narrative of those early pilgrimages must possess no ordinary degree of interest, and it gives us no little insight into the history of the march of intellectual improvement to accompany these early travellers in their wanderings, as they have themselves described them to us, and to watch their feelings and hear their opinions. The human mind is one of those important objects of study that we can never look upon from too many standing-places. But there is another point of view in which the narratives of the early pilgrims, of which so many have been preserved, are perhaps still more interesting. That favoured land to which they relate, the scene of so many events of deep import to our happiness in this world and in the future, has never lost its attractions, and more steps, as well as more eyes, are now turned towards it, than in those so-called ages of faith, when every mile on the road was believed to count in heaven for so much towards the redemption of the past crimes and offences, however great, of the traveller. Pilgrims innumerable still visit the holy places, with a purer faith and a less prejudiced understanding, yet with the desire of knowing what others in past ages saw, which is now not to be seen, or which is seen under different circumstances; to know what they thought of objects which still offer themselves to view; and to trace in their successive observations and reflections the gradual development of a thirst for discovery and knowledge which has at length given them the power of being so much wiser than their forefathers. It was the interest created by the objects these pilgrims visited personally, and the curiosity excited by the vague information obtained from intercourse with men who came from parts still more distant, that laid the first foundation of geographical science, and that first gave the impulse to geographical discovery. A comparison of the numerous narratives to which we allude, places before our eyes the most distinct view we can possibly have of the various changes which have swept over the land of Palestine since it was snatched from the power of the Roman emperors. The more ancient are, of course, the most interesting, because they relate to a period when a far greater number of monuments of still earlier antiquity remained in existence than it has been the lot of any modern pilgrims to visit, and the traditions of the locality were then much more deserving of attention, because they were so much nearer to the time of the events to which they related. It can hardly be supposed that the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem and its neighbourhood, under the Romans, did not preserve some authentic traditions concerning the localities of the more important events of Gospel history.