The Crusades And The Crusaders.*

genuine crusaders , and the impure lawless hordes that gathered round them , which historians have culpably neglected to draw out . The idea of a crusade first occurred in an epistle of Sylvester I ., in the year 999 . The next mention ivas by HildebrandA . D . 107-1 . Twelve years lateriu 10 SGby

, , , Victor III . ; and in 1095 , Urban II . publicly brought the matter before Christendom at the instigation of Peter the Hermit . By some , Peter the Hermit has been represented as a mere creature of the Pope ' s , acting iu the Papal interest to secure his own . This is contradicted by the dry logic of the facts . It is quite

irreconcileable with such a supposition , that Peter should at once have started off through Hungary without waiting for the formation of any regular expedition , reaping no kind of reward , and exposing himself to every kind of peril . By others , he has been represented as a blind enthusiast . But we find great difficulty in believing

this . According to William of Tyre , than whom we could not have a more trustworthy historian , he was a veryprudent man , and full of experience in the things of the world . We certainly do not feel ourselves called on to believe that to Peter ivas vouchsafed a Divine revelation . But we feel bound to credit his account of his dream ,

and to believe that to his own consciousness that dream appeared in tho light of a revelation . It was at the village of Clermont { Giants lions ) that this memorable council was field . Though on Prench territory , the unhappy King of Prance was then shut up in his own palace at this very place , under sentence of excommunication . Thither came the ambassadors from

Constantinople , with their melanchol y tale of misery and peril . The assembly were strongly moved with their story , and the ambassadors were dismissed with assurances of succour . How the Emperor treated them when they arrived at the shores of the Bosphorus , is well known to every reader of " Count Robert of Paris . " Despite the inflated panegyric of his daughterAnne

, Comnena , the character of Alexius is tolerably patent . He was weak and vain , a traitor , aud a liar . He exhibited the grossest cruelty and ingratitude towards those who had extended the limits of his empire and sheltered him from the attack's of his foes . Odo , the chroniclerrefuses to write the name of Comnenus

, , because he is sure that that name was not written in the Book of Life . And here one of the beautiful pictures , of which we get an occasional glimpse in the crusades , breaks in upon us . Tlie Council of Clermont enacted , under all those awful consequences attached to the term " excommunication , " that after sunset on the

Wednesday till sunrise on the Iriday , the truce of God should be preserved . AVhen a monarch was attacked by a hostile force—when he was at variance with his nobles—when his nobles were at variance with each other—when the vassals were oppressed by their lords —when the lords were robbed by banditti—when the

turbulent ivere trying to create disorder—when the rapacious abducted and imprisoned for the sake of ransoms—when men were hourly in peril of their lives , in peril of their fortunes , to have three days in tho week : wherein to garner in the harvest and the vintage , wherein they could eat the bread of quietness , and sleep without

fear and without danger ; this was the mi g hty boon which the great council of crusaders presented in times past , which protected the feeble , curbed the rage of the infuriated , the license of the bad , and averted from all the famine and the pestilence . Every one is acquainted with the st yle of oratory prett y uniformly adopted by the first preachers of the crusades , men marvellously gifted with a strange and

magnificent eloquence . In the highways , in public places , in the pulpits of churches , in the conclaves of princes , iu the thronged assemblies of peasants , their orations were listened to with a truly magical result . Every one has heard of those masterly appeals -to the passions ; how the state of Jerusalem was vividly

described , where the blood of Christians was most lavishl y shed , where the places most dear to Christians were most impiously profaned ; of those daring apostrophes to the heavens above them , to the armies of angels , to the glorified spirits of saints and martyrs ; how the Roek of Calvary , the Hill of Zionthe Mount of Oliveswere b

, , y turns invoked ; how , when language failed and utterance faltered , the cross was lifted up on high , an agony of tears was shed , and the breast was beat till the blood gushed forth . Tlie effect was electric . " Dieu le vent , Dieu le vent , " was echoed by gathering thousands from the Tiber to the oceanfrom the Rhine to beyond the

, Pyrenees . The people called upon God to look down on the beloved and most holy city . They volunteered their supplications , their time , their riches , their very lives . Nor did the movement flag till , on the tenth of June in the last year of the eleventh century , the crusaders gained the heights of Jerusalem . There Arnold de Robes

pointed out to them the Church of the Resurrection and the Rock of Calvary , ancl told them that Jerusalem was the place where God would pardon all their sins and bless all their victories . When the city was gained , the crown was offered to Godfrey of Bouillon , a true Bayard , sanspeur et sans reprotihe . He onlyhoweveraccepted the title of Defender

, , of the Holy Sepulchre , declaring that he could not wear a crown of gold in the city ivhere his Saviour had worn a crown of thorns . The latest attempts to revive the crusades are connected with the history of the Reformation . While funds were being slowly raisedthough orthodox

, Catholics did not go so far as to maintain that the Pope ivas not the shepherd of his flock , they insinuated that the Holy Pather sheared his sheep in a most unmerciful manner . Indulgences , it will , be remembered , were first confined to pilgrims ; secondly , to those who contributed to the support of the crusades : and laterhad a still ,

, wider extension . Albert , Archbishop of Mayencc , nominated tlie Dominican in preference to the Augustinian monks to preach the indulgences , ancl all the world knows how " Tlie ^ : ulit : irv monk I hat shook tlie world . "

—to quote aline of Mr . Robert Montgomery ' s , which has passed into universal use—preached against the indulgences . But perhaps it is not so generally known , that , at this early stage of his progress , Luther laid clown the proposition in one of his sermons , " It is a sin to resist the Turksseeing that Providence makes use of that

faith-, less nation to visit the sins of His people . " Luther ' s righteous zeal , hurried him into a memorable series of startling propositions . We are here reminded of another strange dictum of his , caused , of course , by the excessive value attached by the Romanists to patristic literature" AW the Pathers have erred in faith , and if not converted

before death , are eternally damned . " Luther afterwards saw reasons to modify his views , to the extent that the Turks mi ght be resisted by means other than tho crusades ; and thought that the crusaders might with just as much profit be turned against the Pope himself . And as the Popes would have been entirely unable to resist the full , tide of the crusades , so , when the day for them

was past , they were altogether unable to renew them . Leo X . preached , and preached in vain , a new crusade , though Vida praised aud congratulated him in very