nflicted on these pious persons
much maltreatment, being unable to comprehend the purport of their
extraordinary journey, and probably perceiving a necessity of putting
some restriction upon the influx of such countless multitudes.
[Sidenote: The Council of Clermont authorizes a crusade.] Peter the
Hermit, who had witnessed the barbarities to which his Christian
brethren were exposed, and the abominations of the holy places now in
the hands of the infidel, roused Europe, by his preaching, to a frantic
state; and Urban, at the Council of Clermont, A.D. 1095, gave authority
to the Holy War. "It is the will of God," was the unanimous shout of the
council and the populace. The periodical shower of shooting stars was
seen with remarkable brilliancy on April 25th, and mistaken by the
council for a celestial monition that the Christians must precipitate
themselves in like manner on the East. From this incident we may
perceive how little there was of inspiration in these blundering and
violent ecclesiastical assemblages; the moment that they can be brought
to a scientific test their true nature is detected. As a preliminary
exercise, a ferocious persecution of the Jews of France had burst forth,
and the blood and tortures of multitudes offered a tardy expiation for
the crimes that their ancestors had committed at the Crucifixion in
Jerusalem, more than a thousand years previously.

[Sidenote: The first crusade.] It does not fall within my plan to give a
detailed description of the Crusades. It is enough to say that, though
the clergy had promised the protection of God to every one who would
thus come to his assistance--an ample reward for their pious work in
this life, and the happiness of heaven in the next--Urban's crusade
failed not only disastrously, but hideously, so far as the ignorant
rabbles, under Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless, were
concerned. Nevertheless, under the better-organized expeditions that
soon followed, Jerusalem was captured, July 15th, A.D. 1099. The long
and ghastly line of bones whitening the road through Hungary to the East
showed how different a thing it was for a peaceable and solitary
pilgrim, with his staff, and wallet, and scallop-shell, to beg his way,
and a disorderly rabble of thousands upon thousands to rush forward
without any subordination, any organization, trusting only to the
providence of God. The van of the Crusades consisted of two hundred and
seventy-five thousand men, acc