The people of the North Sea Islands and of America and the rest of
the Christian world have these good things in their life because
there came to save our forefathers heroic missionaries like Wilfrid,
Columba, and Augustine. There are to-day men of the South Sea Islands,
who are even more helpless than our Saxon grandfathers.
To get without giving is mean. To take the torch and not to pass it on
is to fail to play the game. We must hand on to the others the light
that has come to us.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: The chief authority for the story of Wilfrid is Bede.]
CHAPTER III
THE KNIGHT OF A NEW CRUSADE
_Raymund Lull_
(Dates, b. 1234, d. 1315)
I
A little old man, barefooted and bareheaded, and riding upon an ass,
went through the cities and towns and villages of Europe, in the
eleventh century, carrying--not a lance, but a crucifix. When he came
near a town the word ran like a forest fire, "It is Peter the Hermit."
All the people rushed out. Their hearts burned as they heard him tell
how the tomb of Jesus Christ was in the hand of the Moslem Turk, of
how Christians going to worship at His Tomb in Jerusalem were thrown
into prison and scourged and slain. Knights sold lands and houses to
buy horses and lances. Peasants threw down the axe and the spade for
the pike and bow and arrows. Led by knights, on whose armour a red
Cross was emblazoned, the people poured out in their millions for the
first Crusade. It is said that in the spring of 1096 an "expeditionary
force" of six million people was heading toward Palestine.
The Crusades were caused partly by the cruelty of the followers of
Mohammed, the Moslem Turks, who believed that they could earn entrance
into Paradise by slaying infidel Christians. The Moslems every day and
five times a day turn their faces to Mecca in Arabia, saying "There is
no God but God; Mohammed is the Prophet of God." Allah (they believe)
is wise and merciful to His own, but not holy, nor our Father,
nor loving and forgiving, nor desiring pure lives. On earth and in
Paradise women have no place save to serve men.
The first Crusade ended in the capture of Jerusalem (July 15, 1099),
and Godfrey de Bouillon became King of Jerusalem. But Godfrey refused
to put a crown upon his head. For, he said, "I will not wear a crown
of gold in the city where Our Lord Jesus Christ wore a crown of
thorns."
The fortunes of Christian and Moslem ebbed and flowed for nearly
two hundred years, during which time there were seven Crusades
ending at the fall of Acre into the hands of the Turks in 1291.
The way of the sword had failed, though indeed the Crusades had
probably been the means of preventing all Europe from being
overrun by the Moslems. At the time when the last Crusade had
begun a man was planning a new kind of Crusade, different in
method but calling for just as much bravery as the old kind.
We are going to hear his story now.
II
_The Young Knight's Vision_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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