“Do they not say among the pagans, where is their God? Nor is it wonderful. The sons of the Church, who are known by the name of Christians, are laid low in the desert, destroyed by the sword, or consumed by famine. The Lord hath poured contempt upon princes, and hath caused them to wander in the wilderness, where there is no way. Grief and misfortune have followed their steps, fear and confusion have been in the palaces of the kings themselves. How have the feet strayed of those promising peace and blessings. We have said peace and there is no peace, we have promised good fortune and behold tribulation, as if we had acted in this matter with rashness and levity.... Yet if one of two things must be, I prefer to have men murmur against me rather than God. It is good if I am worthy to be used as a shield. I take willingly the slanders of detractors, and the poisoned stings of blasphemers, that they may not reach him. I do not shrink from loss of glory that his may not be attacked, who gives it to me to be glorified in the words of the Psalmist: ‘Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.’”[121] According to the account of William of Tyre, both sides felt the end to be near. After the failure of Louis the Pious, Prince Raymond was the first to go down before the storm he had too late seen gathering. Nour-ed-Din fell upon his country with fire and sword, defeated him, cut off his head and right arm, and sent them to Bagdad as trophies. The wretched Joscelin died in a dungeon at Aleppo, while Nour-ed-Din entered Damascus, and thus consolidated the Syrian cities of the plain. Thenceforward the decentralized Franks lay helpless in the grasp of their compact adversary, and all that was imaginative in the Middle Ages received its death-wound at Tiberias. That action was the beginning of the decay of fetish-worship. The crusaders believed they had found the cross on which Christ died at Jerusalem. They venerated it as a charm no less powerful than the Sepulchre itself, and having this advantage over the tomb, that it was portable. They thought it invincible, and used it not only as a weapon against living enemies, but as a means of controlling nature. A remarkable example of the magical properties of this relic was given in the retreat from Bosra.