Such conduct merits the deepest execration that moralist or statesman may be pleased to pour upon it. We are nevertheless convinced that, in the peculiar circumstances of the Christian world when Peter the Hermit called its chiefs to arms, a united war against the Mohammedan states of Syria was dictated by the soundest political wisdom. The subjects of Omar had already conquered an establishment in Sicily and Spain, and attempted the subjugation of France. Their views were directed towards universal dominion in the West, as well as in the East; they hoped to witness the triumph of the crescent in Europe not less certainly than in Asia, and to be able to impose a tribute on the worshippers of Christ, or compel them to relinquish their creed on the remotest shores of the Atlantic. Those, therefore, who perceive in the Crusades nothing but a mob of armed pilgrims running to rescue a tomb in Palestine must take a very limited view of history. The point in question was not merely the recovery of that sacred building from the hands of infidels, but rather to decide which of the two religions, the Christian or Mohammedan, should predominate in the world; the one hostile to civilization, and only favourable to ignorance, despotism, and slavery; the other friendly to improvement, learning, and freedom in all ranks and conditions of society. It is asserted by Chateaubriand, that whoever reads the address of Pope Urban to the council of Clermont must be convinced that the leaders in these military enterprises were not actuated by the petty views which have been ascribed to them; but, on the contrary, that they aspired to save the Western World from a new inundation of barbarians. The spirit of Islamism is conquest and persecution; the gospel, on the contrary, inculcates only toleration and peace. The Christians, moreover, had endured for several centuries all the oppressions which the fanaticism of the Saracens impelled them to exercise. They had merely endeavoured to interest Charlemagne in their favour; for neither the conquest of Spain, the invasion of France, the pillage of Greece and the Two Sicilies, nor the entire subjugation of Africa, could for nearly six hundred years rouse the Christians to arms. If at last the cries of numberless victims slaughtered in the East, if the progress of the barbarians, who had already reached the gates of Constantinople, awakened Christendom, and impelled it to rise in its own defence, who can say that the cause of the Holy Wars was unjust? Contemplate Greece, if you would know the fate of a people subjected to the Mussulman yoke. Would those who at this day so loudly exult in the progress of knowledge wish to live under a religion that burned the Alexandrian library, which makes a merit of trampling mankind under foot, and holding literature and the arts in sovereign contempt? The Crusades, by weakening the Moslem hordes in the very centre of Asia,