We tramped to the river Jordan, and all in our death shrouds at Bethabara, waded into the stream and were baptized.  In symbolic act the priest baptizing us was veritably John, but in second symbolism it was Jesus.  As we stepped down into the water it was John, but when we stepped up again it was Jesus receiving us into light.  We made a picture of the past, but we had also in our hearts a presentment of the far future.  As we stood there on the banks all in our white robes it seemed like a rehearsal of the final resurrection morning.  These shrouds in which the pilgrims are baptized they preserve to their death day, in order that they may be buried in them.  They believe that on the Last Day not only will their bodies of this day be raised up, but the Jordan-washed garments will be restored as well.

We followed the course of the river down to the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth, and thence walked across the wilderness to the Mountain of Temptation, where in innumerable caves had lived thousands of hermits and saints.  In a great caravan we journeyed to the Lake of Galilee, where the Twelve were called.  We camped upon the mountain where the five thousand had been fed, and scattered bread there.  We dwelt in the little town of Nazareth and saw the well where Mary had drawn water.  We heard of all the dearnesses which the priests and monks had imagined as likely in the boyhood of Jesus.  We stood and wondered at the place where Mary and Joseph are supposed to have stopped and missed their twelve-year-old son who had gone to the Temple to teach.  We stood where Jesus had conversed with the woman of Samaria.  We visited the cottage where the water was changed into wine.  At Bethany we prayed at Lazarus’ grave.

We lived with the life of Jesus as the story has been told.  It was a second pilgrimage, an underlining of the essentials of the first.  We finished the first pilgrimage at the Church of the Tomb on the day after our arrival in Jerusalem; we should finish the second on the last day of Holy Week, at the triumphant Easter morning.

On the Friday before Palm Sunday we went out to Bethany and slept in the monastery which is built “where Martha served.”  Next day we returned to Jerusalem with olive branches, palms and wild flowers, scattering blossoms as we walked.  On Saturday evening and in the morning of Palm Sunday we filled the churches with our branches.  Two aged pilgrims who had died were buried on Palm Sunday.  They lay in open coffins in church dressed in the shrouds they had worn at Jordan, covered with olive branches and little blue wild flowers (Jacob’s ladder), which the pilgrims had picked for them at Bethany.  On their faces was perfect peace.  The pilgrims thought them happy to die in the Holy Land and be buried there.