he flourishing
cities on the banks of the Rhine. The Jews acknowledge the Christian
intervention of St. Bernard. See the curious extract from the History of
Joseph ben Meir. Wilken, vol. iii. p. 1. and p. 63.--M.]

[Footnote 32: Mandastis et obedivi.... multiplicati sunt super
numerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et _pene_ jam non inveniunt
quem apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique viduae vivis
remanent viris. Bernard. Epist. p. 247. We must be careful not to
construe _pene_ as a substantive.]

[Footnote 33: Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante facies
armatorum, aut quid tam remotum a professione mea, si vires, si peritia,
&c. Epist. 256, tom. i. p. 259. He speaks with contempt of the hermit
Peter, vir quidam, Epist. 363.]

[Footnote 34: Sic dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quod a Domino sermo
egressus sit? Quae signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est quod ad ista
ipse respondeam; parcendum verecundiae meae, responde tu pro me, et pro te
ipso, secundum quae vidisti et audisti, et secundum quod te inspiraverit
Deus. Consolat. l. ii. c. 1. Opp. tom. ii. p. 421--423.]

[Footnote 35: See the testimonies in Vita ima, l. iv. c. 5, 6. Opp. tom.
vi. p. 1258--1261, l. vi. c. 1--17, p. 1286--1314.]

Omnipotence itself cannot escape the murmurs of its discordant votaries;
since the same dispensation which was applauded as a deliverance in
Europe, was deplored, and perhaps arraigned, as a calamity in Asia.
After the loss of Jerusalem, the Syrian fugitives diffused their
consternation and sorrow; Bagdad mourned in the dust; the cadhi
Zeineddin of Damascus tore his beard in the caliph's presence; and the
whole divan shed tears at his melancholy tale. [36] But the commanders of
the faithful could only weep; they were themselves captives in the hands
of the Turks: some temporal power was restored to the last age of the
Abbassides; but their humble ambition was confined to Bagdad and the
adjacent province. Their tyrants, the Seljukian sultans, had followed
the common law of the Asiatic dynasties, the unceasing round of valor,
greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay; their spirit and power were
unequal to the defence of religion; and, in his distant realm of Persia,
the Christians were strangers to the name and the arms of Sangiar, the
last hero of his race. [37] While the sultans were involved in the silken
web of the harem, the pious task was undertaken by their slaves, the
Atabeks, [38] a Turkish