Another American no less renowned, Mark Twain, the “New Pilgrim,” as he styled himself, has felt on his own physical self the blessings of clerical hospitality in Palestine, the land of ecclesiastic foundations, which he celebrates as follows in his “Innocents Abroad”: “I have been educated to enmity toward all that is Catholic, and sometimes, in consequence of this, I find it much easier to discover Catholic faults than Catholic merits. But there is one thing I feel no disposition to overlook, and no disposition to forget: and that is, the honest gratitude I and all pilgrims owe to the Convent Fathers in Palestine. Their doors are always open, and there is always a welcome for any worthy man who comes, whether he comes in rags or clad in purple.... A pilgrim without money, whether he be a Protestant or a Catholic, can travel the length and breadth of Palestine, and in the midst of her desert wastes find wholesome food and a clean bed every night, in these buildings.... Our party, pilgrims and all, will always be ready and always willing to touch glasses and drink health, prosperity, and long life to the Convent Fathers in Palestine.” We may well believe that private individuals then as now bid for the patronage of pilgrims. Shakespeare tells us of a case in point, in his “All’s Well that Ends Well” (Act III, Sc. V). Helena appears in Florence in search of her husband gone to the wars, “clad in the dress of a pilgrim,” and inquires where the palmers lodge. A kindly widow tells her “at the Franciscans here near the port”; but knows how to win the fair pilgrim by her words:-- “I will conduct you where you shall be lodged The rather, for, I think, I know your hostess As ample as myself.” If, on the other hand, we consider how pilgrims made their long journey more toilsome yet, as related by Helena herself,-- “Barefoot plod I the cold ground upon With sainted vow my faults to have amended,”-- we shall appreciate how gratefully the proffer of the good widow must have been accepted. The hospitality of the monks was not always lavish; on the contrary, it proved scant and poor, as Germany’s greatest troubadour, Walter von der Vogelweide, to his sorrow experienced. Once he turned aside more than four miles from his road in order to visit the far-famed convent of Tegernsee. The learned monks, whose library forms to-day one of the treasures of the State Library in Munich, may have been too deeply engrossed in the transcription of a classic author, or in elaborate miniature paintings; at any rate, they did not realize what noble guest sat at their board and brought him--not the choice vintage which the thirsty poet expected but simply water:-- “Ich schalt sie nicht, doch genade Gott uns beiden, Ich nahm das Wasser, also nasser Musst ich von des Mönches Tische scheiden.”