detected and denounced him before all Europe. The heroic Pontiff, St. Gregory the Seventh, was 10 then upon the throne of the Apostle; and though he was engaged in one of the severest conflicts which Pope has ever sustained, not only against the secular power, but against bad bishops and priests, yet at a time when his very life was not 15 his own, and present responsibilities so urged him, that one would fancy he had time for no other thought, Gregory was able to turn his mind to the consideration of a contingent danger in the almost fabulous East. In a letter written during 20 the reign of Malek Shah, he suggested the idea of a crusade against the misbeliever, which later popes carried out. He assures the Emperor of Germany, whom he was addressing, that he had 50,000 troops ready for the holy war, whom he 25 would fain have led in person. This was in the year 1074. In truth, the most melancholy accounts were brought to Europe of the state of things in the Holy Land. A rude Turcoman ruled in 30 Jerusalem; his people insulted there the clergy of every profession; they dragged the patriarch by the hair along the pavement, and cast him into a dungeon, in hopes of a ransom; and disturbed from time to time the Latin Mass and office in the Church of the Resurrection. As to the pilgrims, 5 Asia Minor, the country through which they had to travel in an age when the sea was not yet safe to the voyager, was a scene of foreign incursion and internal distraction. They arrived at Jerusalem exhausted by their sufferings, and 10 sometimes terminated them by death, before they were permitted to kiss the Holy Sepulchre. * * * * *