Pilgrims, too, are good newsmongers. They supply you with tidings from Italy, Germany, Spain, or even the Holy Land. They will carry letters also to foreign parts and transmit verbal messages to kinsmen. They do not always travel alone, but by twos, fives, or even tens. Recently at Dunkirk, where the peasants revolted, the bishop laid upon twenty-five of their leaders the penance that they should spend a year going about in a body to different holy places and joining in religious processions "in twenty-six churches," wearing no clothing save their trousers, going barefoot, and carrying the rods with which they had been disciplined. Innumerable are the shrines where sinners can profit their souls by a visit. Every important abbey claims to be a pilgrimage resort, and the monks will tell of remarkable miracles wrought by all the saints whose relics they chance to treasure. Probably there are more than a thousand such places whose claims have been somewhat recognized by the Church. Many of these shrines have some famous image of the Madonna, frequently brought from the East by Crusaders, but often very old and, to carnal thinking, ugly, perhaps only a "black virgin," a clumsy doll carved of wood. This matters not, provided it is holy and efficacious. "Our Lady of the Fountain" at Samour, "Our Lady of the Osier" near Grenoble, "Our Lady of Good Hope" at Valenciennes, Our Lady of Chartres, of Liesse, of Rocamadour, of Auray, of Puy--these are merely examples. [Sidenote: Favorite Pilgrim Shrines] The greater the distance the pilgrim must go, the greater his merit ordinarily. Happy the pilgrim who can venerate the bones of an actual apostle, as at Rome. Happiest of all is he who can go to Jerusalem and pray at the Holy Sepulcher. Nevertheless, God has provided very efficacious shrines nearer home. Right at Paris there are the seats of St. Génevieve and the great St. Denis. You can pay your devout homage at Tours to the puissant St. Martin, the ideal of pious warriors. In Normandy, where Mont St. Michel looks across the sands to the tumbling ocean, one can pray best to the mighty archangel nearest to God. It avails much, also, to visit St. Martial of Limoges, St. Sernin of Toulouse, and more still to visit Spain and at Compostella beseech the intercession of St. James the Apostle. [Illustration: A SHRINE IN THE FORM OF AN ALTAR (THIRTEENTH CENTURY) IN THE CATHEDRAL AT RHEIMS]