Tribute to the Pilgrim

"Let us spare a thought for those who century after century, took the pilgrim's staff, whether they were pagan or Christian, and set out by roads which were hardly tracks, across rivers that were hardly fordable, though forests where the wolf hunted in packs, through marshes of shifting mud in which poisonous water snakes lurked; subjected to rain, wind storms, sharp hail, sunstruck or frozen, at night the only shelter a flap of their tuncic pulled over the head; all this having left home and family not knowing if they would see them again, in order to reach at least once in their lives a place where divinity dwelt".
-Louis Charpentier, The Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral