whom the course of civilisation has so largely depended. But one great change was in fact achieved. The spirit of Mohammedanism slowly passed into Christianity, and transformed it into its image. The spectacle of an essentially military religion fascinated men who were at once very warlike and very superstitious. The panic that had palsied Europe was after a long interval succeeded by a fierce reaction of resentment. Pride and religion conspired to urge the Christian warriors against those who had so often defeated the armies and wasted the territory of Christendom, who had shorn the empire of the Cross of many of its fairest provinces, and profaned that holy city which was venerated not only for its past associations, but also for the spiritual blessings it could still bestow upon the pilgrim. The papal indulgences proved not less efficacious in stimulating the military spirit than the promises of Mohammed, and for about two centuries every pulpit in Christendom proclaimed the duty of war with the unbeliever, and represented the battle-field as the sure path to heaven. The religious orders which arose united the character of the priest with that of the warrior, and when, at the hour of sunset, the soldier knelt down to pray before his cross, that cross was the handle of his sword. It would be impossible to conceive a more complete transformation than Christianity had thus undergone, and it is melancholy to contrast with its aspect during the crusades the impression it had once most justly made upon the world, as the spirit of gentleness and of peace encountering the spirit of violence and war. Among the many curious habits of the Pagan Irish, one of the most significant was that of perpendicular burial. With a feeling something like that which induced Vespasian to declare that a Roman emperor should die standing, the Pagan warriors shrank from the notion of being prostrate even in death, and they appear to have regarded this martial burial as a special symbol of Paganism. An old Irish manuscript tells how, when Christianity had been introduced into Ireland, a king of Ulster on his deathbed charged his son never to become a Christian, but to be buried standing upright like a man in battle, with his face for ever turned to the south, defying the men of Leinster.(525) As late as the sixteenth century, it is said that in some parts of Ireland children were baptised by immersion; but the right arms of the males were carefully held above the water, in order that, not having been dipped in the sacred stream, they might strike the more deadly blow.(526)