tended its doctrines into Armenia, as well as into the more important region of the Lower Mesopotamia. It was not till the beginning of the seventh century that the course of events was materially disturbed by an invasion of the Persians under Chosroes, who had resolved to humble the government of Constantinople, and to check its pretensions in the East. The part of the army appointed to serve against Palestine was intrusted to Carnsia, an experienced general, who invited the Jews to join his standard. This people, ever ready to aid the cause of revolt, assembled, it is said, to the number of 24,000 men, and made preparations for an attack on Jerusalem. A sanguinary warfare had ensued even before the arrival of their allies from beyond the Euphrates; and both sides accordingly were exasperated to the highest degree of fury, and importuning Heaven to hasten the moment of revenge. The Christians within the walls massacred their enemies in cold blood; while the assailants without carried destruction to every point which their arms could reach. At length the advance of the Persians secured to the Jews the hour of triumph and retaliation, when they fully quenched their thirst for vengeance in the blood of the Nazarenes. The victors are said to have sold the miserable captives for money. But the rage of the Jews was stronger than their avarice; for not only did they not scruple to sacrifice their treasures in the purchase of these devoted bondsmen at a lavish price, but they put to death without remorse all whom they bought. It was rumoured that no fewer than ninety thousand Christians perished. Every church was demolished, including that of the Holy Sepulchre,

the greatest object of Jewish hatred. The stately building of Helena and Constantine was abandoned to the flames, and the devout offerings of three hundred years were rifled in one sacrilegious day.

But the arms of Persia did not long support the persecuting spirit of the Jews. The Emperor Heraclius, who had spent some inglorious years on the throne, was alarmed into activity by the progress of the enemy, who had threatened even the walls of Constantinople itself. The discipline of ancient Rome, which was not yet quite extinct among the legionary soldiers, maintained its wonted superiority over the less martial troops of Chosroes, and recovered in the course of a few campaigns all the provinces that the invaders had overrun. Heraclius visited Jerusalem as a pilgrim, when the wood of the true cross, which it was rumoured had been carried away to Persia, was reinstated with due solemnity. Several Christian churches, too, were restored to their former magnificence; and the law of Adrian was again put in force, which prohibited the Jews from approaching within three miles of the holy city.*

of

Palestine continued to acknowledge the power the emperor until the rise of Islamism changed the face of Western Asia. The armies of the caliphs, which wrested from Persia the dominion of the surrounding nations, conquered in succession the provinces of Arabia, Syria, and Egypt, and at length planted the Crescent on the walls of Jerusalem. The victories of Omar, in 636, decided the fate of the venerable city, and laid the foundations of a

History of the Jews, vol. iii. p. 239.

mosque on the sacred hill where the Temple of Solomon had stood. This conqueror was assassinated at Jerusalem in 643; after which the establishment of several caliphates in Arabia and Syria, the fall of the Ommiades, and the elevation of the Abassides, involved Judea in trouble for more than two hundred years. In 868, Achmet, a Turk, who from being governor had made himself sovereign of Egypt, conquered the capital of Palestine; but his son having been defeated by the caliphs of Bagdad, the holy city again returned under their dominion in the year 905 of our era. Mohammed Ikschid, another Turk, about 30 years after, having in his turn seized the throne of the Pharaohs, carried his arms into Palestine and reduced the capital. The Fatimites, again, issuing from the sands of Cyrene, expelled the Ikschidites from Egypt in 968, and conquered several towns in Judea. Ortok, towards the end of the tenth century, made himself master of the holy city, whence his children were for a time driven out by Mostali, caliph of Egypt. In 1076, Meleschah, the third of the Turkish race, took Jerusalem and ravaged the whole country. The Ortokides, who, as we have just related, were dispossessed by Mostali, returned thither, and maintained themselves in it against Redouan, prince of Aleppo. They were expelled once more by the Fatimites, who were masters of the place when the Crusaders first appeared on the confines of Syria.

Several generations passed away, during which the affairs of the Holy Land created no interest in Europe, and when Christians and Jews, who could hardly obtain the most limited toleration from their Mohammedan masters, sought an asylum among

the states of Europe. In the Travels of Benjamin of Tudela are to be found some incidental notices, which leave no doubt as to the fact that his countrymen, unable to bear the persecution directed against them, had gradually abandoned the birthplace of their fathers. Jerusalem, in the twelfth century, did not contain more than two hundred descendants of Abraham, poor, depressed, and calumniated; while at Tiberias, the seat of learning and of their sovereign Patriarch, the number did not exceed fifty, the victims of suspicion and jealousy, not less on the part of the Christians than of the Moslem, who had already begun to contend with each other for the Sepulchre of Christ.

It has often been observed, that pilgrimage to the holy places of Palestine was from a very early period regarded as at once a wholesome discipline and an acceptable reverence on the part of Christian worshippers. The Arabian caliphs were, on various accounts, inclined to favour the resort of Europeans to these shrines of their faith. They saw in it a fruitful source of revenue; while, as the progeny of Abraham, they were not disposed to take offence at the veneration lavished upon the prophetic son of David, whose tomb the fortune of war had placed in their hands. But the Seljukian Turks, those irreclaimable barbarians who had no sympathy with the believers in Christ, laid on them such burdens and vexatious restraints as were altogether intolerable. The cries of the unhappy pilgrims had long resounded throughout all Christendom; and the indignation which was universally felt against the bigoted Mussulmans was inflamed in no slight degree by the eloquence of Peter the Hermit, who

had witnessed in foreign lands the afflictions of his brethren. Yielding to the impulse of the age, Pope Urban the Second convoked a general council at Clermont in Auvergne, to whom he addressed an oration well fitted to confirm the enthusiasm which he found already kindled. He encouraged them to attack the enemies of God, and in that holy warfare to earn the reward of eternal life promised to all the faithful servants of the Redeemer; suggesting that, as a mark of their profession as well as of their Saviour's love, they should wear red crosses on their garments when fighting the battles of Christianity.

The warlike spirit of the time was roused by every motive which can touch the heart of man in a rude state of society,-the love of glory, religion, revenge, and enterprise. Many of the most illustrious princes of the Christian world took up the Cross, and were followed by persons of both sexes, and of all ages, classes, and professions. A vast army poured in from every country, under the most distinguished leaders, of whom the principal were Godfrey, duke of Brabant and Bouillon; Robert of France, the brother of King Philip; and Robert, duke of Normandy, the son of the English monarch. Bohemond too, the chief of the Normans of Apulia, and Raymond, count of Toulouse, led many renowned warriors to Syria.

The tumultuary bands who marched under the standard of the Hermit suffered hardships altogether unknown to modern war. In passing through the countries watered by the Danube, and the hilly countries which lie between that river and the Mediterranean, more than half their number fell vic