led him to believe that he was truly God's anointed, even before he had been visited by Christ. It may well be asked here how a lad scarcely over twelve years of age and born of the peasant class, could have suddenly become so eloquent--so capable of appealing to audiences, and the answer is not easy to give unless one thoroughly understands the spirit of that age in which Stephen lived--an age in which there was much high-coloured and stirring language used by the priests, language which appealed so strongly to an impressionable lad like Stephen, that he unconsciously took it for his own and made use of it; being often carried on the tide of his emotion, far beyond his own understanding of the words and thoughts he was uttering. Immediately, he became the Saint of the day, and the martyr's bones were deserted by those who preferred to listen to the lad's stirring appeals. It is even reported that he worked miracles to support his own divine claim, and the enthusiasm to join his army grew daily more intense. As pilgrims went back to their homes they carried news of Stephen's Crusade to their children, who, filled with excitement, in turn passed the news on to their friends. And so the interest spread like a contagion throughout all parts of France, through Brittany, where the English ruled, through Normandy, recently added to Philip's domain, to Aquitaine and Provence, to Toulouse and peaceful Gascony. Whatever feuds their parents were engaged in, the children did not care, and were not interested in the wars for power. So while their elders were prevented from unity of action by the strife and political divisions of the land, the young were one in feeling and in desire, and joined gleefully in Stephen's stirring cry: "Long enough have you knights and warriors, so boastful and so honoured, been making your fruitless attempts to rescue the tomb of Christ! God can wait no longer! He is tired of your vain puny efforts. Stand back and let us, whom you despise, carry out his commission! He who calls can insure the victory, and we will show you what the children can do!" Among the children who listened to Stephen's appeals, the more enterprising returned home determined to play a part in the Crusade only second to that of the Prophet, as Stephen was now called. Everywhere in France, they went through their home districts, begging their companions to join the Crusade, and it is probable that these children had much help from priests who sought in every way to inflame the youthful host, and to lead them on to concerted action.