MacPhilpin 1880, Google Books scan of Harvard copy

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

## The Multitudes who come to visit Knock.

And first as to the multitudes. A vast gathering of people from all the border towns within a circuit of twenty miles assembled those few weeks past at this unpretending little village; some of the pilgrim travellers started before day, guided by the light of the stars alone, and urged onward by the fervour of their own faith. Some were seen wending their way on foot, others on horseback, while whole families of peasants proceeded on their pilgrimage, journeying on the ordinary country vehicle known as a cart; the better class indulged in the luxury of side-cars, or, as they are known in Dublin by the name, "outsiders;" not a few families from the different towns cut a dash by a tandem drive with the highest available vehicle in these parts, known by the unpretending and not agreeably-sounding name of "drag;" a "hansom" would be quite a novel vehicle in that district. The gathering had, certainly, been enormous, exhibiting, at the same time, an agreeable diversity in the mixed character of the crowd assembled.

## The diversity and variety of the Multitudes.

The variety of individual character was co-extensive with the greatness of the numbers that composed the gathering. There, one could behold the blind, the lame, the crippled, the deformed, the deaf, the paralytic—all seeking to be cured, like those whom the Redeemer found at the Pool of Bethsaida, in Jerusalem. Accounts without number have come to our ears of cures effected before Christmas last, and, above all, since that period; and on last Thursday week it is stated that two remarkable miracles were performed on two persons who for years had, from the result of accidental