In 1093, on the death of Malek-Shah, the Turkish power was weakened by divisions; this gave Christendom heart. The statesmen at the Vatican saw the opportunity, and Pope Urban’s appeal for the crusades met the quick response both of the powers and the people. One of the divisions of Malek-Shah’s empire was that of Solyman, Sultan of Roum, or Iconium. From this power sprang the Ottomans, who for eight hundred years have held an unbroken dynasty, and for four hundred years have occupied the city of Constantine for their capital. CHAPTER VIII. PILGRIMAGES—ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CUSTOM—EXTENT. Old Testament religion made much of sacred places. In the early occupancy of Palestine, Hebron, Bethel, Shiloh, and Shechem were the resorts of the faithful; in later ages Jerusalem became the shrine “whither the tribes went up” by divine command. For this localized devotion there was an evident reason in the purpose of Providence to localize a “peculiar people” for religious training, such as they could not obtain if scattered among the nations. The sacredness was not in the site, but in its living associations, as the rendezvous of wise and holy men. Christianity had no such necessity, and reversed this narrower policy with our Lord’s command, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Therefore, in the ruling of Providence, the places most closely associated with the life of the Son of God were either unknown, as the spot of the temptation in the wilderness and the mountain where He retired for prayer; or these spots were left unmarked by the first disciples, as “a high mountain” on which He was transfigured, the room of the Last Supper, the site of the crucifixion and of the tomb which witnessed His resurrection. This was a commentary of Providence on Jesus’ words, “The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father; ... when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.” This relic of the Jewish custom, together with the universal pagan practice of venerating shrines and consulting local oracles, became an ever-pressing temptation to the early Christian church. It was difficult for either Jewish or heathen converts not to regard the land trodden by the feet of Jesus as peculiarly a holy land, and not to imagine that the celestial interest that once centred upon the scenes of His death and resurrection made “heaven always to hang lowest” over these spots. There was nothing in the teaching or practice of the apostles and early fathers of the church to suggest or approve these notions. They were willing exiles from the home of the faith; unlike the patriarch Joseph, they gave no “commandment concerning their bones” being interred in the dust of Palestine.