Punch (67.1874)

108

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[September 12, 1874.

“argumentum AD HOMINEM ! ”

Dealer. “ I know you don’t like his ’Ead, and I allow he ain’t got a purty ’Ead ; but Lor’—now look at Gladstone,

THE CLEVEREST MAN IN ALL ENGLAND !—AND LOOK AT ’iS ’EAD ” ! ! !

PILGRIMS, NOW AND THEN!

In the days when of yore Pilgrims took up their staves
To ask intercession of Saints in their graves,

When they sailed the salt seas with no steamers to aid,

And walked the rough roadS, before railways were laid ;

When Holy Land journeys were made without Cooks,

When mankind had no Murrays and hands had no books,
When the robber kept highway instead of hotel,

And his prey bled in purse, and in person as well;

When a Pilgrim who forth to The Sepulchre fared,

Ten to one, on the way found his own grave prepared;

When he faced thirst and hunger with scant scrip and cruise,
And for hard walking need put no peas in his shoes ;

For the pious to go on a pilgrimage meant

More than rattling by railway through Sussex or Kent,

To Newhaven or Dover pier-gangway, and then
Their accounts with old Neptune arranging like men ;

Then a scramble ashore, run to Paris by rail,

Through buffet-extortionists, out of Church pale,

With six in a carriage, and noddles that swim

’Twixt sea-sickness and sentiment, guide-book and hymn.

All this, and the squeeze at the Station du Nord—

For Pilgrims’ “ bagages" must be searched, though a bore—
And the bother for bed-rooms, and struggling for chairs,

In Not’ Dame Des Yictoires, for before-breakfast prayers;

Then more rail to St. Florentin, and that hot drag
A la fin to Pontigny, with banner and. flag,

And the pealing of chaunts, hymns, and litanies long—

(For the weaker our ranks the more need to sing strong)—

All this makes a hardish excursion, I see—

But a pilgrimage—such as the thing used to be !

Allow for sea-sickness, hotel-bills and all,

And gammon and spinach the business I call.

And just as your pilgrimage, smoothly railed o’er,

To that which the Pilgrim encountered of yore,

Is the faith that prompts you, to the faith that urged him :

His as child-like and clear, as yours doubtful and din

If blindly he followed the best guides he knew,

There was no one to show him his guides were blind too :

He did not from light turn, delib’rate, away,

Nor read Reason’s guide-post, and then go astray.

He believed Priests could pardon, and Popes could condemn ;
That Rome’s Keys hung from Heaven, and that Crowns hung
■from Oxsyix *

That the Church kept the toll-gate betwixt God and Man—
Which without the Pope’s ticket let those clear that can !

So a Pilgrim he went where the Church bade him go,

To buy the indulgence the Church could bestow,

By payment of money, and masses, and toil,

To wash moral blackamoors white of their soil.

But you—is it kinder or harsher to deem
Your belief a belief, or the dream of a dream ?

’Tis a sore task for Charity’s self to conceive
That what you profess to believe you believe.

Yet Charity holds ’tis in earnest you call
On all who ’d be saved to your fetish to fall;

That some of you go to the Pontigny grave
In good faith that its bones have some magic to save ;

Strange as it may seem, in these days you hold true
That a dead man’s good works can, in some way, help you,

That the savour diffused by their prayers that are gone
Breathes up in a blessing from shrine and from stone!

Well—in days when faith scarce goes beyond gold and beef,

’Tis cruel to quarrel with too much belief—

In all things well intended some good there may be—

In a pilgrimage even, St. Edmund, to thee !