conquered home, they cast off the bonds of their gloomy superstition, they entered the Church, and under her guidance they became the founders of the nations and the authors of the mediaeval and modern literature of Europe. The Church moulded with the same skilful hand the sternness and energy of the north, and the more soft and imaginative races of the south, and united the fierce worshippers of Thor with the followers of the giddy Genii of the east, in one grand struggle for the glory of their common creed. She summoned the spirit of chivalry, then in its youthful vigour; she excited a glow of religious enthusiasm that set Europe in a flame; she appealed to the spirit of warlike enterprise, and gathered round her standard that group, who, quitting home, country, and friends, arose at the call of Urban, and put on the badge of the crusader. Yes, the crusades are a great fact in the history of modern civilization; they stilled the voice of domestic strife, which had been productive of so much evil; they united, elevated, and consecrated the chivalry of Europe, and exhibited to the world the power and the glory of religion. These were days of great excitement and of rapid progress; this was the age of the growth and ascendancy of the scholastic philosophy. The Arabic empire of Spain was in its meridian glory. It was in this age Peter preached, and the Cross was raised at Clermont, and Godfrey and Boemond rushed to the liberation of the sacred city. It was in this age the glorious Hildebrand laboured so successfully to eject feudal influence from the sanctuary, to abolish the baneful right of lay investiture, and to give to the Church ministers worthy of their sublime duties. It was in these days the Italian cities were fostered by the protection of the Papal power, and the leagued towns of Germany under their bishops; and the municipal councils were breaking down feudal tyranny, and opening to the peasant mind the path to political and literary distinction, which they have since so nobly trod. In the ninth century Hamburg was the stronghold of tyranny; in the eleventh and twelfth centuries this same city was the nucleus of a great confederation which for centuries influenced the destinies of Europe. In the thirteenth century the spirit of Bernard and Hildebrand was again revived. The genius, the sanctity, the learning, and the courage of Innocent III. guided the destinies of the Church. Rodolph, with the Cross for his sceptre, ruled in Germany; St. Louis governed France; Spain gloried in Alphonso and Ferdinand, and in the victories of Seville and Tolosa; and England, under a Cardinal of the Roman Church, wrung from her king the charter of her rights. This was the age of St. Francis and St. Dominick; of Albertus and St. Thomas, of Bacon and Bonaventure. In these days Oxford boasted of her thirty thousand students; twenty-five thousand trod the halls of Paris; and ten thousand read law at Bologna. Never was there an age more glorious