Properties
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- 1004
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-26T19:09:24.706Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 979
- text
- 674 # "SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME"
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678 N this beautiful autumn of 1892 American children have observed a great many people going on a pilgrimage. Not that anybody spoke of it as a pilgrimage when father came in, all eager and bright and bustling, to tell mother that she and the children must be ready very soon, spick and span, to go off with him to New York or Chicago, to see the great parades, the banners flying, the drums beating, and all the world celebrating the thing Columbus did in 1492.
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680 But it was a pilgrimage, even if it was not called so, and whole villages and towns went on it, having a very merry, happy time. In other lands and in other periods pilgrimages of one sort or another have been common; and back in the his-
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683 tory of the Hebrew race we find that several times a year they had great feasts which gathered the nation up, and swept it on, in a progressive march to Jerusalem, their capital city. The greatest feast was that of the Passover, which came once a year, when whole families from all over Palestine left their homes and went to worship in the Holy City, where the Temple stood, and the sacrifices were offered, and choirs of white-robed priests chanted the praises of Jehovah.
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685 Now, in modern times, when we go on a journey we step into a railway car at the station, take a comfortable seat, and go rushing like the wind to our journey’s end nineteenth-century fashion.
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687 In the old days it was quite different. Then the strong men and boys walked all day long. The women and children rode on donkeys or on camels, or perhaps in a cart drawn by bullocks. At night the companies of neighbors pitched their tents on a hill-side, cooked the evening meal, and then went peacefully to sleep,
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690 with fires blazing here and there on the outside rim of the encampment to frighten away wild beasts. It was an out-door picnic, lasting nearly a month altogether.
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692 At the yearly festival of the Passover it has been estimated by historians that in our Saviour's time the whole land for weeks was a succession of moving caravans, as many as two millions of people, from old men to tiny babies, going up to celebrate the great feast of the nation. Going *up*, for Jerusalem was enthroned among lofty hills, and her Temple could be seen a long way off, shining far over the landscape, and looking in the eyes of the coming host like a great glittering mountain of snow, all pure white and gleaming gold.
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694 As they had no telegraphs or newspapers at the beginning of the Christian era, tidings went from one to another by word of mouth, and people talked together of what was happening in the country. And once it came to pass that there were wonderful things to talk about around the
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