that His help will never fail you; wear it as the pledge of a vow which can never be recalled." Thus was inaugurated that great movement which several predecessors of Urbannotably Gregory VII.-had desired, but for which they had not yet found the time propitious, and which they had therefore not been able to organize.

In the remaining years of Urban's pontificate, Henry IV. was finally driven out of Italy. Another event of importance was the holding of a council at Bari in 1098, attended by many Greek bishops.

Urban's connection with the Crusade must be regarded as the most important episode in his pontificate; it marks an epoch in the history of Latin Christianity, resulting in the strengthening of the papal power. Urban died when not yet sixty years of age, on the 29th of July, 1099, fourteen days after the capture of Jerusalem, but, of course, before the news of that great victory had reached Italy.

THE COUNCIL OF CLERMONT.

By the eloquent soul-stirring preaching of Peter the Hermit, Western Christendom, particularly France, was prepared for the outburst of militant religion. Nothing was wanting but a plan, leaders, and organization. Such was the state of things when Pope Urban presented himself to the Council of Clermont, in Auvergne.

Where all the motives which stir the mind and heart, the most impulsive passion and the profoundest policy, conspire together, it is impossible to discover which has the dominant influence in guiding to a certain course of action. Urban, no doubt, with his strong religiousness of character, was not superior to the enthusiasm of his times; to him the Crusade was the cause of God. This is manifest from the earnest simplicity of his memorable speech in the council. No one not fully possessed by the frenzy could have communicated it. At the same time, no event could be more favorable or more opportune for the advancement of the acknowledged supremacy over Latin Christendom, or for the elevation of Urban himself over the rival Pope and the temporal sovereigns, his enemies.... The author of the Crusades was too holy a per

son, too manifest a vicegerent of Christ Himself, for men either to question his title or circumscribe his authority.

Never, perhaps, did a single speech of man work such extraordinary and lasting results as that of Urban II. at the Council of Clermont. He dwelt on the sanctity, on the wonders of the land of promise; the land chosen of God, to whom all the earth belonged as His own inheritance; the land of which the history has been recorded both in the Old and New Testament; of this land the foul infidels were now the lords: of the Holy City itself, hallowed by the life and death of the Saviour. Whose soul melted not within? Whose bowels were not stirred with shame and sorrow? The Holy Temple has become not only a den of thieves, but the dwelling-place of devils. The churches, even that of the Holy Sepulchre itself, had become stalls for cattle, and Christian men were massacred... within the holy precincts. The heavenly fire had ceased to descend; the Lord would not visit His defiled sanctuary. While Christians were shedding Christian blood, they were sinfully abandoning this sacred field for their valor, and yielding up their brethren in Christ to the yoke, to the sword of the Unbeliever; they were warring on each other, when they ought to be soldiers of Christ. He assured them that the Saviour Himself, the God of armies, would be their leader and their guide in battle. There was no passion which he left unstirred. "The wealth of your enemies shall be yours; ye shall plunder their treasures. Ye serve a Commander who will not permit His soldiers to want bread, or a just reward for their services." He offered absolution for all sins (there was no crime-murder, adultery, robbery, arsonwhich might not be redeemed by this act of obedience to God), absolution without penance to all who would take up arms in this sacred cause. It is better to fall in battle than not to march to the aid of the Brethren: he promised eternal life to all who should suffer the glorious calamity of death in the Holy Land, or even on the way to it. The Crusader passed at once into Paradise. For himself, he must remain aloof; but, like a second Moses, while they were slaughtering the Amalekites, he would be perpetually engaged in fervent and prevailing prayer for their success.

The Pontiff could scarcely conclude his speech; he was interrupted by ill-suppressed murmurs of grief and indignation. At its close one loud and simultaneous cry broke forth, "It is the will of God! It is the will of God !" All ranks, all classes, were seized with the contagious passion; the assembly declared itself the army of God. Not content with his immediate success, the Pope enjoined on all the bishops to preach instantly, unremittingly, in every diocese, the imperative duty of taking up arms to redeem the Holy Sepulchre. The epidemic madness spread with a rapidity inconceivable, except from the knowledge how fully the mind and heart of man were prepared to imbibe the infection. France, including both its Frank and Norman population, took the lead; Germany, of colder temperament, and distracted by its own civil contentions-the imperialist faction, from hatred of the Pope -moved more tardily and reluctantly; in Italy it was chiefly the adventurous Normans who crowded to the war; in England the Normans were too much occupied in securing their vast possessions, the Anglo-Saxon population too much depressed to send large numbers of soldiers. All Europe, however, including the northern nations, except Spain, occupied with her own crusade in her own realm, sent their contingent either to the wild multitudes who swarmed forth under Walter the Pennyless, or the more regular army under Godfrey of Boulogne. The Crusade was no national war of Italy, France, or Germany against the Egyptian empire of the Fatimites, or the Seljukian Sultan of Iconium: it was a war of Christendom against Mahommedanism. No government

hired the soldiers, unless so far as the feudal chief summoned his vassals to accompany him; nor provided transports and the artillery and implements of war, or organized a commissariat, or nominated to the chief command. Each was a volunteer, and brought his own horse, arms, accoutrements, provisions. In the first disastrous expeditions, under Peter the Hermit and Walter the Pennyless, the leaders were designated by popular acclamation or by bold and confident self-election. The general deference and respect for his admired character and qualifications invested Godf:ey of Boulogne with the command of the first regular army.

It was fortunate, perhaps, that none of the great sovereigns of Europe joined the first Crusade. The Emperor and the King of France were under excommunication; Conrad, King of Italy, too necessary to the Pope to be spared from Italy; in William Rufus was wanting the great impulse, religious faith. The ill success of the later Crusades undertaken by Emperors and Kings, their frequent want of ability for supreme command when alone, their jealousies when allied, show that a league of princes of the second rank, though not without their intrigues and separate interests, was better suited by this kind of expedition.

Urban II. lived to hear hardly more than the disasters and miseries of his own work. His faith had the severe trial of receiving the sad intelligence of the total destruction of the myriads who marched into Hungary and perished on the way, by what was unjustly considered the cruelty of the Hungarians and treachery of the Greeks; hardly one of these ever reached the borders of the Holy Land. His depression may have been allayed by the successes of the army under Godfrey of Boulogne: he heard of the capture of Antioch, but died before the tidings of the capture of Jerusalem, on the 15th of July, 1099. could reach Rome.-H. H. MILMAN.

PETER THE HERMIT is known to posterity through the single great effort of his life the preaching of the Crusade. Born at Amiens in Picardy, about 1050, he had laid aside the accoutrements of war to strive for perfection in the solitude of a hermit's life. Like others, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and was stirred to wrath at sight of the indignities suffered by the pilgrims and the Christian inhabitants of the city at the hands of the infidels. When he visited Simeon, the Greek Patriarch of the Holy City, that venerable man who had suffered from the persecutions of the Turks, deplored the weakness of the Byzantine Empire, which prevented it from protecting the Christians in Syria. Peter rebuked his despondency, and promised him the aid of Western Christendom. Then entering the Temple, he heard, as he believed, the voice of the Lord: "Rise, Peter, go forth to make known the tribulations of my people. The hour is come for the delivery of my servants, for the recovery of the Holy Places."

Peter returned to Europe, fully persuaded of his divine commission, and devoted with self-sacrificing enthusiasm to the task of delivering the Holy City from the hateful and oppressive rule of the Mohammedans. He gained an interview