Note 52 — Chapter III · THE FIRST GOLDEN AGE
Reading edition
“Two great interests then moved the hearts of Christians, led them from their homes, and threw them into the midst of the difficulties, perils, and tediousness, now incomprehensible, of a journey to the East. They would kiss the footsteps of the Lord Jesus upon the very soil where He encountered life and death for our salvation; they would also survey and see with their own eyes those deserts, caverns, and rocks where still lived the men who seemed to reach nearest to Christ by their supernatural austerity, and their brave obedience to the most difficult precepts of the Saviour” (Montalembert).