[56] It may be objected that 'La Bible Guyot' was a satire on the times. But this curious book is, so far as it deals with the Church, a querulous complaint of certain indignities and privations suffered by the author, chiefly in the way of eating and drinking. 'The Abbot,' he says, 'gets the meat and the clear wine; the monks get beans and muddy wine. And they are obliged to be "roaring and bellowing" all night long, so that they can get no sleep.' A monk, whose chief complaint is the frequency of church services and the rigorous mortification of the flesh, can hardly be called a satirist.
[57] It was, among others, the cause of that most singular movement, the Crusade of Children. Friar Nicholas preached that by reason of the rapacity and lust of the soldiers, the Holy Land would never be conquered, but that, were the children to invade it, the arms of the infidels would drop powerless from their hands. Acting on this belief, hundreds of children started from Germany and France, in the belief that the Mediterranean would be dried up for them to pass. Seven shiploads were kidnapped and sold for slaves in Alexandria, several thousands perished; only a few found their way back. The story is told by M. Capefigue in a note to Michault's 'Histoire des Crusades.'
[58] 'Mark Boyd's Reminiscences of Fifty Years.'
[59] Disraeli.
[60] Mathias.
[61] Rogers.
[62] Tytler's 'England under Edward VI. and Mary,' 1839, vol. i., p. 48.
[63] 'But the time will, before long, come when it will be thought wonderful that naturalists, who were well acquainted with the comparative structure and development of man and other mammals, should have believed that each was the work of a separate act of creation.'—Vol. i. page 33.
[64] An evolutionist who reads these lines may, perhaps, exclaim, 'What, then, do you maintain that the frog, toad, newt, and green tree-frog, were each the work of a separate creative act?' To which question we reply, 'By no means; but, nevertheless, the minute structure of the tissues does not permit the inference that these creatures have community of descent.' It is very curious that Mr. Darwin and many of his supporters seem to think that all men who do not support evolution must believe in separate creations.
[65] 'Proceedings of the Royal Society,' vol. xv., p. 433 (Philosophical Magazine, vol. xxxiv., 1867, p. 144); Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, vol. ix., 1869, pp. 43 and 358; Monthly Microscopical Journal, vol. iii., 1870, p. 299; Quarterly Journal of Science, new ser., vol. i., 1870, p. 64.