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Page 15 text:
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C II K S T K K W A I. T K K S
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Page 14 text:
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wretchedness of their friends inthe East: how the Holy Places were desecrated and profaned: and how the Turks were continually extending their conquests: with all the power of his fiery eloquence, he urged the people to take up arms in defense of the Holy Land. The Pope then addressed the Knights of chivalry, who were always seeking pretenses for war. as no other living man would have dared to speak. Urging them to tight for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulcher and merit an eternal reward, he said. If you triumph over your enemies, the kingdoms of the East will be your heritage: if you are conquered, you will have the glory of dying in tlie very same place as Jesus Christ, and God will not forget that He shall have found you in ids holy ranks, if you must have blood bathe your hands in the blood of the intidels: Soldiers of Hell, become the soldiers of the living God. When Jesus Christ summons you to His defense, let no base alTections detain you in your homes. This sermon had its Intended effect and at its close a great shout arose. It is the will of God! Itisthewil! of God! It is the will of God,'’said the Pope. Christ has inspired the words that I have heard.” Having said this, lie raised a crucifix and told them to wear it on their shoulders and breasts, as it would be a surety of victory or a palm of martyrdom. With unequaled celerity did the enthusiasm, or more correctly the frenzy, spread among the people. Great multitudes of men and women of all ranks accepted the cross as a token of their pledge. Never before had such an enormous host, containing people from every nation in Latin Christendom, been incited to unite into one formidable body for the maintenance of one common cause. Without the support of the Pope, such a united effort could never have been made by the European nations for the recovery of Palestine. For the Pope’s authority was beginning to be uudisputed: and their infallibility was easily impressed upon the minds of the ignorant and superstitious masses. To all who would enlist under the banner of the cross, were promised the absolution of all sins and eternal life. Thus rulers and princes enlisted for the sake of honor and probable acquisition of wealth: serfs, to escape their life of misery: adventurers, in order to carry out their evil designing enterprises. Even the prisons were opened and the worst criminals were told to redeem themselves by slaughtering the intidels. The most heinous deeds of brutality and murder were associated with the Crusades. Great throngs, unwilling to wait until the time appointed for the Crusade, set out under reckless leaders, he ingdestitude of almost every thing, they contided in the generosity of the people through whose territories they passed, for susteuance. In Hungary and Bulgaria where their wants were not fully supplied, they began to take by violence what the natives refused them. They soon incurred the hatred of these people, who now continually followed them, killing stragglers and harassing them in every way possible. Only a remnant ever readied the Bosporus. The Crusades utterly failed in accomplishing the object for which they were undertaken. How could such sacrellgious expeditions succeed? Whenever an agreement had been made with the Turkish Sultan, the outrages of the Crusades upon the Mohammedans would bring the truce to a sudden end. The total destruction of the Latin power in the East was now the project of the Turks. One by one the strongholds captured by the Crusaders were retaken, until all Palestine was again in their hands. The Crusades against the Saracen Intidels ended in total failure. The way they were conducted they should have failed. When the continual disasters which befell the Crusaders are considered, one is made to wonder what motives induced the Pope to have them so repeatedly preached. Not religious motives, not the extension of Christianity was their design; but it was the api areni successful promotion of their own selfish interests which impelled them. On all the murderous expeditions, the more wicked anti iniquitous the fanatics were who conducted them, the more the results would please the Pope. The deeds of the most bloodthirsty criminals were called holy, If they had the spirit of Mediaeval Catholicism and massacred intidels and heretics. Tiie Crusades against the Saracen Infidels and the European heretics were called “Holy Wars. but they were nevertheless the most cruel and barbarous wars ever undertaken by people and nations claiming civilisation. As these expeditions were always associated with sucli barbarity, they would seem to have nothing but evil results. Rut great benefits were realized. These Unholy Wars brought Europe in contact will) the sciences and tlie literature of the East; destroyed feudalism and constituted society; promoted discovery and navigation: and gave an ardent impulse to the rising European nations: but the greatest and most profitable result was the Reformation. During the Crusades the people came in touch with Rome, and Crusading Catholicism was seen to be corrupt to the core. Pious monks, thinking Rome was a place hallowed by the presence of the Pope, were shocked, when they saw the voluptousness and skepticism there. The abuses and debasements in the Church were now more vividly realized than ever before. The Church's own officials wondered whether this could be Christianity. The Bible was now more widely read and Christianity was seen to be alien to Mediaeval Catholicism. The Word of Cod soon began to be preached and gradually the Reformation came to pass. Papal laws and decrees soon became ineffective, and the powerof the Papacy declined. The Church itself was compelled to reform, and a new era in Christianity opened. (i
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