The hand of Providence

by J. H. Ward

When the masses were thoroughly excited, Pope Urban gave the enterprise his sanction, and promised to all who would enlist a full remission of their sins. This encouraged innumerable desperadoes to assume the badge of the cross. Fanaticism and hypocrisy, lust and avarice strangely urged their several votaries to pursue one path, and all under the sacred and now woefully profaned name of Christian zeal!

Yet the hand of Providence was in all this. Even the rage of men worked out His purpose, and, as the sequel will show, produced results which, under the controlling hand of God led to the elevation of the race.

To give a detailed description of the Crusades would alone require a volume. It is enough to say that the first Crusade failed, not only disastrously, but hideously, so far as the ignorant rabbles under Peter, the hermit, and Walter, the penniless, were concerned. The long and ghastly line of bones whitening the roadside all the way from Hungary to Judea, 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 the disorderly rabble of thousands upon thousands to rush forward without any organization, and gathering their daily supplies by robbing and killing the helpless peasants on their route. This, in their ignorance or blasphemy, they called "trusting in the providence of God."

The van of the Crusades consisted of two hundred and seventy-five thousand men. Behind these came a rabble of two hundred thousand men, women and children, preceded by a goat and a goose, into which some blasphemous lunatic had told them that the Holy Ghost had entered. When at length these animals died, a representation of them was painted on their banner.

In this vile horde no pretense was kept up of order or of decency. Driven to madness by disappointment and famine, and expecting, in their ignorance, that every town they came to must be Jerusalem, they laid hands on whatever they could in their extremity. Their track was marked by robbery, fire and bloodshed. In the first Crusade alone, more than five hundred thousand human beings perished. However, a better organized expedition soon followed, commanded by Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine. By him Jerusalem was captured July 15th, A. D. 1099. As might be expected, its siege and capture were attended by the perpetration of cruelties almost surpassing belief.

What a contrast to the conduct of the Arabs, when the Caliph Omar took Jerusalem, A. D. 637! He rode into the city by the side of the patriarch, Saphronius, conversing with him on its antiquities. When the time of evening prayer arrived, he declined to pay his devotions in the church of Constantine, fearing that his followers might wish to imitate his example, and thus render it practically useless to the Christians; but he knelt outside in the yard near the entrance gate. What a supreme act of religious toleration! When will free-born Americans learn to act thus nobly?

But in the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders the brains of young children were dashed out against the walls, infants were thrown over the battlements, men and women were tortured that they might be compelled to disclose hidden wealth, the Jews were driven into their synagogue and there burnt. A massacre of seventy thousand persons took place, and the pope's especial ambassador was seen "partaking in the triumph."

Such were the exploits of the first Crusade. The second was barren of results except the inhuman butchery of thousands of unoffending Jews. The third produced no permanent effects, but a halo of false glory is shed around it, from the exploits of Richard the Lion-heart, king of England, who was connected with it, and whose adventures have stirred to enthusiasm even the dullest of historians. With great difficulty, Pope Innocent III., succeeded in preparing the fourth Crusade, A. D. 1202. The government of Venice agreed to furnish ships to carry them to Palestine, but, actuated by a love of plunder, and a desire to gratify the bitter feeling which existed between the popes of Rome and the bishops of Constantinople, they turned aside to vent their rage on their fellow-Christians. Constantinople was taken by storm A. D. 1204. On the night of its capture more houses were burned than could be found in any three of the largest cities of France. The treasures of the churches were carried away, and even the tombs of the ancient emperors were rifled in the mad search for relics.

Thus, Crusade followed Crusade for more than one hundred and fifty years, until nine armies, comprising more than three millions of men, laid their bodies down to decay and their bones to whiten on the plains and hill-sides of the East.

Among all the enterprises, none were more wild and wicked than those which are called the "Crusades of the children." Emissaries from Rome went throughout Western Europe, preaching and declaring that God would only give the Holy Land into the hands of innocent children. Pope Innocent III. applauded their wild enthusiasm. "These children," said he, "are a reproach to us of riper age. While they hurry to Palestine, we are asleep."