“Abstain from every thing that is wrong. Banish from your heart all pride. Remember that we all must die: to-day full of life, to-morrow in the tomb. When you are travelling on horseback, instead of allowing your mind to wander upon vain thoughts, recite your prayers, or at least repeat the best of them all: ‘O Lord! have mercy upon us.’ “Never retire at night without falling upon your knees before God in prayer. Always go to church at an early hour in the morning to offer to God the homage of your first and freshest thoughts. This was the custom of my father, and of all the pious people who surrounded him. With the first rays of the sun they praised the Lord, and exclaimed with fervor, ‘Condescend, O Lord! with thy Divine Spirit to illumine my soul.’” Near the commencement of the twelfth century, nearly all Christendom combined for the recovery of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from the Moslems. The crusades are generally regarded as among the strangest of all earthly frenzies. In the first crusade, a rabble, unorganized band of three hundred thousand persons, of all ages and both sexes, set out on an insane expedition to drive out of Syria the warlike Moslems. Though the crusaders deemed their enterprise a sacred one, their conduct was often such as could scarcely have been exceeded in wickedness by incarnate fiends. Not one of those who embarked in this first crusade ever reached Jerusalem: only a remnant of about twenty thousand, after extreme sufferings, ragged and starving, regained their homes. The well-armed and organized Turks cut down the fanatic rabble as the mower does the grass. The next year there was another campaign commenced, still more imposing in numbers, and a little more formidable in warlike character. All the steel-clad knights of Europe mounted their chargers, eager to gain and to win the favor of Heaven by the slaughter of the infidel Turk. Six hundred thousand men――as motley an assemblage as ignorance and fanaticism ever brought together――commenced their march across Europe to the Holy Land. Trusting that they should receive supernatural aid, they made but slight provision for their wants. Soon all the horses died: famine and sickness decimated their ranks. There was no discipline, no self-command; and the wildest excesses reigned. Their track was strewn with the bodies of the dead. As they drew near to Jerusalem, their numbers had dwindled to sixty thousand; but these were the boldest, the strongest, the hardiest. With energy which religions enthusiasm alone could inspire, they hurled themselves upon the defences of Jerusalem, broke open the gates, clambered the walls, and, after a scene of awful carnage, succeeded in recapturing the city. This was in July, 1099. Of the vast army which had left Europe, not ten thousand survived to return to their native land.