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“The Christians could rather….”

“The Christians are misguided, and their doctrine is folly. They believe the Messiah has come, although the world is like a hell, and men resemble devils! And it ever gets worse….”

Then the door was flung open, and on the threshold appeared a little man, emaciated as a skeleton, with burning eyes. He was clothed in rags, carried a cross in his hand, and bore a red cross-shaped sign on his shoulder.

“Are you Christians?” he asked, “since you drink of the cup and eat the bread, as our Lord Jesus Christ did on the night of his betrayal?”

“No,” answered Eleazar, “we are of Israel.”

“Then you have eaten and drunk your own damnation, and misused the Holy Sacrament for purposes of witchcraft! Out with you!–down to the lake and be baptized, or you will die the death!”

Then Eleazar turned to the Hermit, and cried “No! I and my house will serve the Lord, as we have done this holy evening according to the law of our fathers. We suffer for our sins, that is true, but you, godless, cursed man, pride not yourself on your power, for you have not yet escaped the judgment of Almighty God. I will give my life and shed my blood for the law of my fathers, but God’s justice will punish you, as your pride has deserved.”

The Hermit had gone out to his followers. Those within the house closed the window-shutters and the door.

There was a cry without: “Fire the house!”

“Let us bless God, and die!” said Eleazar, and none of them hesitated.

All fell on their knees. Eleazar spoke: “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He will stand at the latter day upon the earth. And when I am free from my flesh, I shall see God. Him shall I see and not another, and for that my soul and my heart cry out.”

The mother had taken the youngest son in her arms, as though she wished to protect him against the fire which now seized on the wall.

Then Eleazar began the Song of the Three Children in the fire, and when they came to the words,

“O Thank the Lord, for He is good,
And His mercy endureth for ever,”

their voices were choked, and they ended their days like the Maccabees.

On 16th July 1069, Peter the Hermit entered Jerusalem through the same Jaffa Gate before which he had sat as a beggar. When Godfrey of Bouillon became King of Jerusalem, Peter was appointed Governor. After he had seen his dream fulfilled, he returned to his own country, entered the convent Neufmoustier, near Luttich, and remained there till his death.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem soon came to an end. The Muhammedans re-occupied it, and remain there to this day.

The remarkable thing about these predatory expeditions–the Crusades–was that they were led by the Normans, and were curiously like the raids of the Vikings. The indirect results of the Crusades are still treated of in students’ essays, which generally close with the moral, “there is nothing evil which does not bring some good with it.” Voltaire and Hume, on the other hand, regard the Crusades as the enterprises of lunatics. It is a difficult matter to decide!