The benefit expected was not to be immediately
spiritual. No earnest prayerfulness was considered necessary after
the ceremony. To these members of the Greek Christian Church it had
been handed down from father to son that washing in Jordan once
during life was efficacious towards salvation. And therefore the
journey had been made at terrible cost and terrible risk; for these
people had come from afar, and were from their habits but little
capable of long journeys. Many die under the toil; but this matters
not if they do not die before they have reached Jordan. Some few
there are, undoubtedly, more ecstatic in this great deed of their
religion. One man I especially noticed on this day. He had bound
himself to make the pilgrimage from Jerusalem to the river with one
foot bare. He was of a better class, and was even nobly dressed, as
though it were a part of his vow to show to all men that he did this
deed, wealthy and great though he was. He was a fine man, perhaps
thirty years of age, with a well-grown beard descending on his
breast, and at his girdle he carried a brace of pistols.
But never in my life had I seen bodily pain so plainly written in a
man's face.
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