Gregory was impatient to accomplish his designs, and proclaim the laws of the Church in the rich countries of the East; and, to employ the time till warriors could be gathered together, he sent several missionaries across the sea, armed with the sword and the word, to endeavour to convert the infidels of Syria and Egypt. The sovereign pontiff was so persuaded of the success of this pacific crusade, that he wrote to the caliph of Bagdad, the sultan of Damascus, and the principal Mussulman chiefs, to exhort them to embrace Christianity.[240] History does not say what the fate was of these mendicant preachers in the East; but the caliph of Bagdad and the Mussulman princes did not cease to be inveterate enemies to the Christians. Gregory IX. was better inspired and more fortunate when he sent sacred orators into several of the provinces of the West, to appease the troubles and civil wars that were so injurious to the cause of religion, and diverted the minds of the people from the great enterprise of the holy wars. The disciples of St. Dominick and St. Francis of Assisi, charged with a mission worthy of the Gospel, pervaded cities and countries, preaching peace and concord. Among the preachers thus sent to pacify states, Brother John of Vicentia made himself conspicuous by the miracles effected by his eloquence.[241] In all the countries he visited, the nobles, the peasants, the citizens, and the warriors flocked to listen to him, and swore to pardon all injuries and terminate all quarrels. After having re-established peace in several cities troubled by the spirit of jealousy, and animated by the stormy passions of undefined, ill-understood liberty, he announced that he should preach in the plain of Peschiera, on the banks of the Adige. All the inhabitants of the neighbouring cities, headed by their clergy and their magistrates, repaired to the place appointed, to listen to the _Angel of Concord_[242] and the orator of public peace. In the presence of more than four hundred thousand auditors, Brother John mounted a pulpit elevated in the centre of the plain of Peschiera; a profound silence prevailed throughout the assembly; every eye was fixed upon the holy preacher; his words seemed to descend from heaven. He took for his text these words of the Scripture: “I give you my peace, I leave you my peace.” After having drawn a frightful picture of the evils of war and the effects of discord, he ordered the Lombard cities to renounce their enmities, and dictated to them, in the name of the Church, a treaty of universal pacification. At no period had the middle ages presented a more sublime and touching spectacle; the historian of that time, who has nothing but troubles and wars to describe, ought to be delighted at an opportunity to tell of such an imposing and solemn scene, wherein religion recalled assembled nations to a sense of all that her maxims contain that is most consoling and salutary. The discourse of Brother