Christian nations, if actuated by the altruism which they are constantly preaching, if guided by the same law of charity which is binding on individuals, need not such help or such defenders of their prestige or national honor. No, what is now needed more than ever before is a complete change of attitude of the West towards the East. If we are to make the brotherhood of man anything more than an idle phrase; if we are to bring together in amity and comity the peoples of the Orient and the Occident; if we are to heal the wounds which the followers of Mohammed have suffered from centuries of cruel calumny and still crueler wars; if we are to lead Islam to a knowledge of Christianity and to an eventual acceptance of the Gospel of peace and love; we, the followers of the Crucified, cannot too soon abjure our accursed theory that might makes right nor can we too soon control that abiding lust of conquest which has plunged the weak and the innocent into such untold suffering and which has tended to perpetuate the deep hostility and the fatal misunderstandings which for long centuries have separated the God-created souls of the East from the God-created souls of the West. The time has come for a new Crusade but a Crusade in which fire and sword shall, in the words of good old Padre Marracci, be replaced by _lingua et calamo_--by the voice of the evangelist and the pen of the expositor of Christian teaching. It must be a Crusade which shall be inspired by the ardent love of a Francis of Assisi; by the flaming intelligence of a Raymond Lully; by the wisely tempered zeal of a Peter the Venerable.[262] It must be a Crusade to win souls for Christ, our Savior, and to make all men children of the same heavenly Father. And that which in the Crusades of old was the war cry should, in the new Crusade, be the peace cry--_Deus lo volt_--God wills it. CHAPTER XI ALONG THE TRADE ROUTES OF THE NEAR EAST _Beautiful old stories,_ _Tales of angels, fairy legends,_ _Stilly histories of martyrs,_ _Festal songs and words of wisdom;_ _Hyperboles, most quaint it may be,_ _Yet replete with strength, and fire,_ _And faith--how they gleam,_ _And glow and glitter!_ HEINE. Apart from its imposing monuments of the storied past, few things in the Near East are of greater interest or suggest more subjects for reflection to the serious traveler than do its trade routes which, for the most part, follow the same course as they did when Abraham fared forth from Ur of the Chaldees into the land of Canaan and when the messengers of the Great King sped along the Royal Road from Susa to Sardis.