The Knights Templars,

¦ be erected in the heavens , and the books of the recording angel opened . Day passed on to day , week to week , year to year , and still the Kedron san g down its pebbly bed , Olivet put off and on her leaves , the sun rose and sank , the moon filled

and waned , still the world came not to an end . Tet was not the idea of the Judgment driven away , nor the delusion dissipated . Pilgrims still flocked from afar , running on to reach the Holy City , and to be present at Jehoshaphat on the last day .

Every day fresh bands arrived at Jerusalem , till , from their numbers , they were called , " The Armies of the Lord , " all eager for redemption and remission of their sins before the final judgment . In 1064 the Holy Sepulchre was visited by a

band of seven thousand religion-mad * pilgrims . The following year the Holy City was captured by the fierce Turcomans , when three thousand of the

¦ inhabitants were put to the sword . The Arabians , who conquered the Holy Land in 637 , had dealt gently with the Christians , conduct followed hy the Caliphs of Egypt , their successors in power . But all this was changed . The Holy Land was

overrun by the fierce Turcomans , and Jerusalem left in charge of the savage Emir Ortok . The churches were closed , or when divine service was performed , the worshippers were ridiculed , and their devotions interrupted . The faithful were

¦ often brutally maltreated , virgins deflowered , children circumcised , and on one occasion the patriarch was dragged by the hair of the head over the sacred pavement of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre , then cast into a dungeon , from

which he was released only upon the payment of a heavy ransom , wrung from the sympathies of of his flock , t

While the Holy City was thus a prey to the cruelty and rapacity of the brutal barbarians , Palestine was also dangerous to the pilgrim , who met , in his pious wanderings , robbery and evil treatment ; oftentimes death . The Arabs infesting the highways made the pilgrim ' s journey a veritable via crucis . His life was one of constant

peril from the moment be landed on the shore of the Holy Land till the hour he quitted it . Dangers hovered round him on the banks of the Jordan , and death concealed himself among the groves of palms at Jericho , whether he went to p luck the consecrated branch . Even when the pilgrim

reached Jerusalem , as we have seen , little security for purse or person was found there . A piece of gold was demanded from each visitor to the Holy Sepulchre , and those who could not pay this sum were driven away from the doors by the swords of

the guards , and many were forced to quit the city , without viewing the sacred object of their weary pilgrimage , returning home in sorrow and anguish of spirit , to tell the sad tale to Europe . Men became filled with a pious rage as they listened—¦

a rage breaking forth into a flame of fury when fanned by Peter the Hermit's preachings . This strange being strode over the land , calling upon nations to rise and [ protect their faithful brethren from these perils ; and Pope Urban II ., moved by his entreaties , held a council at Clermont , where a

Crusade , the first and most glorious of them all , was resolved upon . No sooner was this resolution known , than thousands rushed to join the sacred standard , and , by fighting in the holy cause , obtain a share of grace and the remission of their

sins . The quaint old chronicler , William of Malmesbury , writes : — " Immediately the fame of this great ev ' ent being spread through the universe , penetrated the minds of Christians with its mild breath , and wherever it blew there was no nation ,

however distant or obscure it might be , that did not send some of its people . This zeal not only animated the provinces bordering on the Mediterranean , but all who had ever even heard of the name of a Christian in the most remote isles , and among barbarous nations . Then the Welshman

abandoned his forests and neglected his hunting ; the Scotsman deserted the fleas with which he is so familiar ; the Dane ceased to swallow his intoxicating draughts ; and the Norwegian turned his back upon his raw fish . The fields were left

by the cultivators , and the houses by their inhabitants ; all the cities were deserted . People were restrained neither by the ties of blood nor the love of country ; they saw nothing but God in the enterprise . All that was in the granaries , or

destined for food , was left under the guardianship of the greedy agriculturalist . The voyage to Jerusalem was the only thing hoped for or thought of . Joy animated the hearts of all who set out ; grief dwelt in the hearts of all who remained .

Why do I say of those who remained ? You might have seen the husband setting forth with his wife , with all his family ; you would have laughed to see all the pennies put in motion and loaded upon cars . The road was too narrow for