The Emancipation of Massachusetts

consists of the months which elapsed between the departure from Ramses and the arrival at Sinai. The second c

brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" Not impossibly Moses may still, at this stage of his experiences, have believed in himself, in the God he pretended to serve, and in his mission. At least he made a feint of so doing. Indeed, he had to. Not to have done so would have caused his instant downfall. He always had to do so, in every em

cause of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because

t with Israel in Rephidim."

courage; but it was here that Moses, on the contrary, flinched; as

o out, fight with Amalek: to-morrow I will stand on

ed. Notwithstanding, Joshua won a victory. But it may readily be believed that this performance of his functions as a captain, did little to strengthen the credit of Moses among the fighting men. Nor evidently was Moses satisfied with the figure that he cut, nor was he confident that Joshua approved of him, for th

amped at the mount of God: ... And Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and did obeisan

raoh and to the Egyptians for Israel's sake, and all the travail that

e Egyptians.... Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods.... And Aaron cam

e next morning Moses, as was his custom, "sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening." And whe

ause the people come un

surely wear away, both thou and this people that is with thee: for this

hall be with thee; Be thou for the people to God-

preparations for a great dramatic effect, and it is hard to see how he could have made them better. For, w

in the sight of all upon Mount Sinai. But, "Take heed to yourselves that ye go not up into th

or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live:

as it happened in the passage of the Red Sea, so it happened here. At the Red Sea he was aided by a gale of

voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled." Moses had undoubtedly sent some thoroughly tru

descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended a

d long, and waxed louder and louder, Mose

the top of the mount; and Moses went up." And the first thing that Moses did on behalf of the Lord

le cannot come up to Mount Sinai: for thou ch

up, thou, and Aaron with thee: but let not the priests and the people

unto the people, a

o the Babylonish law with which Moses was familiar, is immaterial for the present purpose. What is essential is that beside the decalogue itself there is a considerable body of law chiefly concerned with the position of servants or slaves, the diffe

n form. But as a preliminary he made ready to take Aaron and his two sons, together with seventy elders of the congregation up the mountain, to be especially impressed with a sacrifice and a

the audience of the people: and they said, All th

might have been well. But success seems to have intoxicated him, and he conceived an undue contempt for the intelligence of his

oweringly impressive in that. What he wanted was a stone tablet on which his code should be engraved, as was the famous code of H

in with him, would be a work of time and would entail his absence from the camp, and this was a very s

minister Joshua; and Moses w

d Hur are with you: and if any man have matters to do, let him come unto them. And Moses went into the m

had chosen a wonderful locality for his performance. But once he was gone the effect of what he had done evaporated and they began to value the exhibition for what it really was. As men of common sense, said they to one a

elves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for

rth his while to risk the wrath of Moses; so he answered forthwith, "Break off the golden earrings

f, such as he had been used to see in Egypt. The calf was probably made of wood and laminated with gold. Sir G. Wilkinson thinks that the calf was made to represent Mnevis, with whose worship the Israelites had been famil

nt offerings, and brought peace offerings: and the peo

ng time to engrave considering that Moses was on a bare mountainside with probably nobody to help but Joshua. Of course all that made this weary expedition worth the doing was that, as the Bible says, "the tables were" to pass for "the work of God, and

in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upo

this people unto thee, that thou ha

f my lord wax hot: thou knowest the

re us: for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up

t them break it off. So they gave it me: then I ca

had come to the feast unarmed, and without the slightest fear or suspicion of a possible attack; then Moses saw his opportunity and placed himself

rd by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and sla

the word of Moses: and there fell of the

indefensible than this wholesale murder by Moses of several thousand people who had trusted him, and whom he had entrusted to the care of

could Moses thenceforward hope to carry his adventure to a good end. Otherwise he faced certain and ignominious failure. His preliminary task, therefore, was to devise for the Levites a reward which would content

es spent another six weeks in seclusion on the mount. And as soon as he returned to the camp he proclaimed how the people should build and furnish a sanctuary in which the priesthood should perform its

. And thou shalt bring his sons, and clothe them with coats: And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they m

ng to all that the Lord

but the representative of that vested interest: as reactionary and selfish as all such representatives must be. How selfish and how reactionary may readily be estimated by glancing at Numbers XVIII, where God's directions are g

But this was a small part of their compensation. There were beside perquisites, especially those connected with the sacrifices which the people were

r's, every meat offering of their's, and every sin offering of their's, and every trespass o

hou eat it; every male shall ea

d of the wheat, the first fruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, t

ted in Israel sh

Lord, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy daughters with thee, by a statute forever

uch as occurred at Sinai, Aaron re

a complicated system of redemption at the rate of "five

e first-born of the children of Israel took he the money; a thousand three hundred and three score and five shekels

re Christ, would have been, at the very most moderate estimate, at least ten for one, which would have amounted to between six and seven thousand dollars in hard cash for no service whatever, which, considering th

of the Levites during the massacre of the golden calf, Moses created a theocratic aristocracy headed by Aaron and his sons, and comprising the whole tribe of Levi, whose advancement in fortune could not fail to c

en who "do evil," as in the slaughter of the feasters who set up the golden calf, "that

Aaron appears to have had few or no convictions; it mattered little to him whether he worshipped Jehovah on Sinai or the golden calf at the foot of Sinai, provided he were paid at

fied with his conduct of the exodus. On the eve of departure from Sinai, just as the Israelites were breaking camp, Moses sought out Jethro and said to him; "We ar

ot go; but I will depart to min

ay thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in

s refusal and that he did accompany the congregation in its march to Kadesh, but, on the whole, the text of the Bible fails to bear out such inference, for there is no subsequent mention of Jethro in the books which treat directly of the trials of t

ccasion, the Lord selected a poor spot for the purpose, quite different from such an one as Jethro would have been expected to have pointed out; for the chil

s, and when Moses prayed unto t

e under the control of Moses op

y fond of this particular miracle. It is mentioned as having been effective here at Taberah, and it was the supposed weapon employed to suppress Korah's rebellion. Moses was indeed a powerful enchanter. His relations with all the priestcraft of central Asia were intimate, and if the Magi had secrets which were likely to

their families... and the anger of the Lord w

t thou afflicted thy servant? ... that thou

ldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth

o all this people? for they weep unto m

l this people alone, beca

y thee, out of hand, if I have found favour in

which he bid good-bye to Jethro to visit Egypt and attempt to gain control of the exodus, and the point to which all optimists must come who resolve to base a religious or a political movement on the manipulation of the supernatural. However pure and disinterested t

a watering-place. There Miriam and Aaron attacked Moses because they were jealous of his wife, whom they decried as an "Ethiopian." And they said, "Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us?" Instantly, it became evident to Moses that if this denial of his superior intimacy with God were to be permitted, his supremacy must end. Accordingly the Lord came down "in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and called Aaron and Miriam: and they both came forth

exception to the rule, only hitherto he had had no occasion to display his powers of this kind. Nevertheless, among the Hebrews of the exodus, the field for this form of miracle was large. Lepros

proved to be a probable case of leprosy, the patient was to be excluded from the camp for a week. At the end of that time the disease, if malignant, was supposed to show signs of spreading, in which

d was found to be white with leprosy after his conversation with the Lord at the burning bush. Upon this Aaron, who had been as guilty as Miriam, and was propor

Lord, saying, Heal her n

hould she not be ashamed seven days? Let her be shut out from th

liction for the congregation, since Miriam was a personage of consequence, and had to be waited for. That is to say, a million or two of people had to delay their pilgrimage until Moses had determined how much punishment Miriam deserved for her insubordination, and this was a question which lay altogether within the discretion of Moses. In that age there were at least seven varieties of eruptions which could hardly, if at all, be distinguished, i

the wilderness of Paran, which adjoined Palestine, and from whence an invasion of Canaan, if one were to be attempted, would be organized. Accordingly Moses appoin

to what, in a modern army, would be called the general-staff, were not sent to manufacture a report which they might have reason to suppose would be pleasing to Moses, but to state precisely what they saw and heard together with their conclusions thereon, that the

good land, and, in verity, flowing with milk and honey. But the people, most of them thought, were too strong to b

s, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains;

oses, and said, Let us go up at once,

d, We be not able to go up against the

hich they had searched, ... saying, ... all the p

nak, ... and we were in our own sight as gr

private and would then have acted as he thought best. Above all he would have avoided anything like a council of war by the whole congregation, for a v

hear the report of the "spies." And immediately the maj

ed up their voice, and cried;

n: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had die

er, Let us make a captain,

aces before all the assembly of the c

iously collapsed, retained his presence of mind and his energy.

dren of Israel, saying, The land which we passed

bring us into this land, and give it us;

the people of the land; for they are bread for us:

egation bade stone

d some composure. Enough, at least, to re

sponsibility as a military commander, and Moses when, not to mince matters, he acted as a quack. On the

in a number of interviews which he pretended to have had with the "Lord," and which he retailed to the

of speech, "will this people provoke me? and how long will it be e

nd disinherit them, and will make of thee

very far from the Egyptian border, the Egyptians would certainly hear of it, and in that case the Egyptian army might pursue and capture Moses. Such a contingency was not to be contemplated, and accordingly Moses began to make

as one man, then the nations which have

ople into the land which he sware unto them, th

according unto the greatness of thy mercy, and as tho

I have pardoned ac

his vexation, because his staff had not divined his wishes. Those men, though they had d

would sustain him before the people in making the campaign of invasion to which he felt himself pledged, and on the success of which his reputation depended. Of

f Moses, or, as he expressed it, of the Lord. Therefore it was the Lord's duty, as Moses saw it, to punish them. And this Moses proposed that the Lord should do in a prompt and awful manner: the lesson being pointed by the immu

nd calculated to be fatal to victory. He vented his irritation in a series of diatribes which he attributed to

ord, according t

l the earth shall be filled

cles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, have tempt

h I swear unto their fathers, neither sh

irit with him, and hath followed me fully, him w

t. He made the "Lord" go on to command: "Tomorrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of

h this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings o

live, ... as ye have spoken in

all that were numbered of you, ... from twenty yea

hall not come i

arcases, they shall fal

o returned, and made all the congregation to murmur

the evil report upon the land, d

which were of the men that went

nto all the children of Israel

: except that he had in mind some dire mischief. Accordingly, the people decided that the best thing for them was to go forward as Joshua and Caleb proposed. So, ea

f the Lord? But it shall not prosper." Notwithstanding, "they presumed to go up unto the hill

them, and discomfited them, even unto Hormah"; which was at a very considerable distance

with the report made by his officers on the advisability of an immediate offensive, committed the blunder of summoning the whole assembly of the people to listen to it, and then, in the midst of

is. The only wonder is that it had been so long delayed. Moses had had since the exodus a wonderful opportunity to test the truth of his theories. He had asserted that the universe was the expression of a single and supreme mind, which operated according to a fixed moral law. That he alone, of all men, understood this mind, and could explain

water at Kadesh, and to ask the congregation to encamp in such a spot was preposterous. Meanwhile Moses absorbed all the offices of honor and profit for his family. Aaron and his descendants monopolized the priesthood, and t

amous in the congregation, men of renown, joined themselves. "And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much

ough a Levite, excluded from the priesthood

heard it, he fel

"If the holy river makes that man to be innocent, and has saved him, he who laid the spell upon him shall be put to death. He who plunged into the holy river shall take to himself the house of him who wove the spell upon him." [Footnote: Code of Laws promulgated by Hammurabi, King of Babylon. Translated by C. H. W. Johns

least once, and probably oftener. So now Moses reproached Korah because he was jealous of Aaron; "and what is Aaron, that ye murmur against him?... This do; Take you censers, Korah, and

. But at every step of the way his incompetence became more manifest. Even there, at that very camp of Kadesh, there was no water, and all the people clamored. And, ther

and Abiram, the sons of Eliab:

and that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wild

oney, or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards: wilt thou put out the

t that the congregation believed him. It could hardly have been by pure accident that out of twelve men, the ten who had offended Moses should have died by the plague, and the other two alone should have escaped. Moses assumed to have the power of destroying whom he pleased

g that this insinuation should

Respect not thou their offering: I have not taken o

and all thy company before the Lord,

e in them, and bring ye before the Lord every

ervened and advised Moses to "separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment." And Moses did so

s admitted, for he persuaded Dathan and Abiram and their following to "depart ... from the t

Korah, and all their goods." But it could not have been this or anything like it, for the descendants of Korah, many generations after, were still doing service in the Temple, and at the t

Lord, and consumed the two hundred

ongregation next day were as hos

of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron

ell upon th

rs, who had renounced him, Moses showed that audacity and fertility of resource, which had hitherto enabled him, and

y to control it, and at this instant, when, apparently, he and Aaron were lying on their faces before the angry people, he conceived the idea that he would put his theurgetic powers to the proof. Suddenly he called to

t of the congregation; and, behold, the plague was begun

e dead and the living; a

urteen thousand and seven hundred, beside

ent continued, and Moses went on to m

he tabernacle. And the next day Moses examined the rods and showed the congregation how Aaron's rod had budded. And Moses decla

It had a great and terrifying effect upon the people, who were completely subdued by it. Against corporeal enemies they might hope to prevail, but they were helpless against the plague. A

ses set up a large brazen serpent on a pole, and declared that whoever would look upon the serpent should live. Also, apparently, it did produce an effect upon those who believed: which, of course, is not an unprecedented phenomenon among faith healers. But what is interesting in this historical anecdote is not that Moses performed certain faith cures by the suggestion of a serpent, but that the Israelites themselves, when out of the presence of Moses, recognized that he had perpetrated on them a vulgar fraud. For example, King Hezekiah destroyed this relic, which had be

ekiah, and tell him that he was to live fifteen years longer. And Isaiah told the attenda

iated with scorn the brazen serpent as an insult to credulity. The contrast between Moses, who hesitated not to take all risks in matters of disease with which he felt himself competent to cope, and his timidity and hesitation in matters of war, is astounding. But it is a common phenomenon with the worker of miracles and indicates the limit of faith at which the saint or prophet has always betrayed the impostor. For example: Saint Bernard, when h

the complete confidence of the congregation and th

ngregation." [Footnote: Numbers xx, 8.] Moses thereupon withdrew and, as usual, received a revelation. And the Lo

said unto them, "Hear now, ye rebels; mu

k twice: and the wate

to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye sha

had learned that he was an adventurer who must trust to himself. Hence, after Hormah he was a changed man. Nothing could induce him to lead the Jews across the Jordan to attack the peoples on the west bank, and though the congregation made a couple of campaigns against Sihon and Og, whose ruthlessness has always been a stain on Moses, the prob

ich is supposed to lie about as far to the east of Kadesh as Hormah is to the west, but there are circumstances about the

to Moses and Aaron, and explained that Aaron was to be "gathered unto his people, ... because ye rebelled ... at the water of Meribah." Therefore Moses was to "tak

aron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of

ot imminent. On the contrary, he had strength to climb Mount Hor with Moses, without aid, and there is no hint that he suffered from any ailment likely to end his life

r a complete change in the administration of affairs. Appreciating that his leadership had broken down and that the system he had created was collapsing, he had dawdled as long on the east side of the Jordan as the patience of the congregation would permit. An advance had become inevitable, but Moses recognized his own inability to lead it. The command had to be delegated to a younger man and that man was Jo

o, which is in the land of Moab

t up, and be gathered unto thy people;

at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, beca

unto the mountain of Nebo, ... And the Lord

e land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord..

years old when he died: his eye was n

igh priest Eleazar, and Joshua. At the top of the mountain he dismissed the elders, and then, as he was embracing Joshu

al to us not only because of the development of the thought dealt with in the following volumes, but

of mind must meet with when he sought to realize his visions. His theory was that the universe about him was the expression of an infinite mind which operated according to law. That this mind, or consciousness, was intelligent and capable of communicating with man. That it did, in fact, so communicate through him, as a medium, and that other men had only to receive humbly and obey i

n we come to mark the methods by which Moses obtained acceptance of his code by his contemporaries, and, above all, sought to constrain obedience to himself and to it, we find the prospect unalluring. To begin with, Moses had only begun the exodus when he learned from his practical father-in-law that the system he employed was fantastic and certain to fail: his notion being that he should sit and judge causes himself, as the mouthpiece of the infinite, and that therefore each judgment he gave would demand a separate miracle or imposture. This could not be contemplated. Therefore Moses was constrained to impose his code in writing, once for all, by one gigan

at least was harmless; or it might have been complicated combinations which suggest a deeper shade; as, for example, the outbreak of the plague, after Korah's rebellion, which bears the aspect of a successful effort at intimidation to support his own wavering credit. But the result was always the same. Moses had promised that the supernatural power he pretended to control should sustain him and give victory. Possibly, when he started on the exodus he verily believed that such a power existed, was amenable and could be constrained to intervene. He found that he had been mistaken on all these heads, and

g the predecessor of Samuel, the last of the judges. Now Eli h

lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle...." And Eli arg

us a king to judge us." "And Samuel prayed unto the Lord," though he disliked the idea. Yet the result was inevitable. The kingdom was set up, and the Mosaic society perished. Nothing was left of Mosaic optimism but the tradition. Also there was the Mosaic morality, and what that amoun

How David sent for her, took her into the palace, and murdered Uriah by sending him to Joab who commanded the army, and instructing J

anger was greatly kindled against the man; and he said to Nathan, A

d to David, Tho

h." But for all that, when assured that nothing worse was to happen to him than the loss of the son Bathsheba had borne him, David comforted Bathsheba.

h would overcome the flesh and which could cause men to move toward perfection along any other path than the least resistant. And this because man is an automaton, and can move no otherwise. In this

t in land which always moved and dominated Rome. He expressed the Roman ideal in his famous declaration in the Senate, when he gave his vote for the Third Punic War; "Delenda est Carthago," Carthage must be destroyed. And Carthage was destroyed because to a Roman to destroy Carthage was a logical competitive necessity. Subsequently, the Romans took the next step in th

cheaper and more resistant people. Therefore the Roman landowners imported this competitive population from their homes, having first seized them as slaves, and cultivated their own Italian fields with them after the eviction of the original native peasants, who could not survive on the scanty nutriment on which the eastern races throve. [Footnote: I have dealt with this subject at length in my Law of Civilization and Decay, chapter II, to which I must refer the reader. More fully still in the

as I conceive, about the time of the Antonines, through the great jurists who then flourished. If one might name a particular moment at which so vast and complex a movement culminated, one would be tempted to suggest the re

ast bureaucracy of Rome, which was the embodiment of the vested interest which was Rome itself, the adherence of Roman thought to the path of least resistance was absolute. "So far as the cravings of Stoicism found historical and political fulfilment, they did so in the sixty years of Hadrian and the Antonines, and so far again as an individual can embody the spirit of an age, its highest and most repre

y which gave effect to the Pax Romana and the Romana lex from the Euphrates to the Atlantic and from Scotland to the Tropic of Cancer. Of all men Marcus Aurelius was the most conscientious and the most sincere, and he understood, as perhaps no other man in like position ever understood, the responsibility which impinged on him, to allow no private prevention to impose an unfit emperor upon the empire But Marcus had a son Commodus, who was nineteen when his father died, and who had already developed traits

the path of least resistance in choosing a successor; or, in other words, the instinct of heredity. Moreover, this instinct and not reason is or has been, among the strongest which operate upon men, and makes them automata. It i

war. Marcus Aurelius died in 180 A.D. Substantially a century later, in 312, Constantine won the battle of the Milvian Bridge with his troops fighting under the Labarum, a standard bearing a cross with the device "In hoc signo vinces"; By this sign conquer. Prob

ayer gained steadily in power for about eight centuries, until at length it became a passion and gave birth to a school of optimi

their divine commission as did Moses. This was eminently the case with the medi?val Church. At the outset Christianity was socialistic, and its spread among the poor was apparently caused by the pressure of servile competition; for the sect only became of enough importance to be persecuted under Nero, contemporaneously with the first signs of distress which appeared through the debasement of the denarius. But socialism was only a passin

ature began to discriminate decisively against the vested interest of Western Europe. Capital had already abandoned Italy; Christi

ture deliberation the Council of Valens granted the prayer, and some five hundred thousand Germans were cantoned in Moesia. The intention of the government was to scatter this multitude through the provinces as coloni, or to draft them into the legions; but the detachment detailed to hand

sometimes led bands of marauders on his own account, but was always in difficulty about his pay. Finally, in the revolution in which Stilicho was murdered, a

ecause the sacred class instinctively loved the barbarians whom they could overawe, whereas they could make little impression on the materialistic intellect of the old centralized society. Under the empire the priests, like al

pe. As late as the ninth century the pope prostrated himself before Charlemagne, an

h at the mercy of the laity, who invaded and debauched them. Abbots, like bishops, were often soldiers, who lived within the walls with their wives and children, t

, Recueil des Chartes de l'Abbaye de Cluny, I, 124.] which, so far as possible, provided for the complete independence of his new corporation. There was no episcopal visitation, and no interference with the election of the abbot. The monks were put directly under the protection of the pope, who

s so great, and its buildings so vast, that in 1245 Innocent IV, the Emperor Baldwin, and Saint Louis were all lo

rtioned to their strength. They intuitively sought autocratic power, and during the centuries when nature favored them, they passed from triumph to triumph. They first seized upon the papacy

upon the seat of the vicar of Christ by force, and accepted the holy office from the sacrilegious hand of a layman. He exhorted Bruno to cast away his pomp, and to cross the Alps humbly as a pilgrim, assuring him that the priests and people of Rome would recognize him as their bishop, and elect him according to canonical forms. Then he would taste the joys of a pure conscience, having entered the

uary 2, 1049, he was enthroned as Leo IX. His

s II, the theocracy made itself self-perpetuating through the assumption of the election of the pope by the colleg

granted by a layman, and that princes guilty of conferring investiture should be excommunicated. The Council of the next year, which excommunicated t

hority, I forbid the government of the German and Italian kingdoms, to King Henry, the son of the Emperor Henry, who, with unheard-of arrogance, has rebelled against you

ege. To his soldiers the world was a vast space, peopled by those fantastic beings which are still seen on Gothic towers. Th

carnal weapons, for when the emperor reached the Alps he was almost alone. The

mendicant, and for five long years his body lay at the

hypnotism, and catalepsy which are as mysterious now as they were then, but whose effect was then to create an overpowering demand for miracle-working substances. The sale of these substances gradually drew the larger portion of the wealth of the community into the hands o

he medi?val mind resembled any antecedent mind, but the middle age, though superficial

working of the Harz silver had brought with it some semblance of order, an intense yearning possessed both men and women to ameliorate their lot. If relics could give protection against oppression, disease, famine, and death, then relics must be obtained, and, if the cross and the tomb were the most effective relics, then the cross and the tomb must be conquered at any cost. In the north of Europe especially, misery was so acute that the people gladly

world was nyghe, by the signes that our lord sayth in the gospell, ffor pestylences and famynes were grete on therthe, ferdful

in greuous tormentis, for to take fro them suche as they had, in suche qyse that the chyldren of them that had ben riche men, men myght see them goo fro dore to dore, for to begge and get

grims to Jerusalem, and there, wrought upon by what he saw, he sought the patriarch. Peter asked the patriarch if nothing could be done to protect the pilgrims, and to retrieve the Holy Places. The patriarch replied, "Nothing, unless God will touch the heart of the western princes, and will send them to succor the Holy City." The patriarch did not propose meddling himself, nor did it occur to him that the pope should intervene. He took a rationalistic view of the Moslem military power. Peter, on the contrary, was logical, arguing from eleventh-century premises. If he could but receive a divine mandate, he would raise an invincible army. He prayed. His prayer was answered. One day while prostrated before the sepulchre he heard Christ charge him to announce in Europe that the appointed hour had come. Furnished with letters from the patriarch, Peter straightway embarked for Rome to obtain Urban's sanction for his design. Urban listened and gave a consent which he could not prudently have withheld, but he abstained from participating in the propaganda. In March, 1095, Urban called a Council at Piacenza, nominally to consider the deliverance of Jerusalem, and this Council was attended by thirty thousand impatient laymen, only

e of intellectual attitude may be detected almost contemporaneously with the fall of the Latin kingdom in Palestine. It is doubtless true that the thirteenth century was the century in which imaginative thought reached its highest brilliancy, when Albertus Magnus and Saint Thomas Aquinas taught, when Saint Francis and Saint Clara lived, and when Thomas of Celano wrote the Dies Ir?. It was then that Gothic architecture t

ad been spread far enough to goad the Church to general and systematic repression, while the

act sciences. In the thirteenth century a young man like Bacon could hardly stand alone, and Bacon joined the Franciscans, but before many years elapsed he embroiled himself with his superiors. His friend, Grosseteste, died in 1253, the year after Innocent IV issued the bull Ad extirpanda establishing the Inquisition, and Bacon felt the consequences. The general of his order, Saint Bonaventura, withdrew him from Oxford where he was prominent, and immured him i

es Linguas et Mathematicam et Perspectivam, nunc volo revolvere radices a parte Scientiae Experimentalis, quia sine experientia nihil sufficienter scire protest. Duo enim simt modi cognoscendi, scilicet per argumentum et experimentum. Argumentum concludit et facit nos concedere conclusionem, sed non certifi

o even indirectly attacked the vested interests of the Church. After the middle of the thirteenth century the danger was real enough to account for any degree of secretiveness, and a striking case of this timidity is related by Bacon himself. No one knows even the name of the man to whom Bacon referred as "Master Peter," but according to Bacon, "Master Peter" was the greatest and most original genius of the age, only he shunned publicity. The "Dominus experimentorum," as Bacon called him, lived in a safe retreat and devoted himself to mathematics, chemistry, and the mechanical arts with such success that, Bacon insisted, he could by his inventions have aided Sa

ensible object was a crusade. The risk was very great, the cost enormous, and the responsibility the king assumed of the most serious kind. Nothing that he could do was left undone to ensure success. In 1249 he captured Damietta, and then stood in need of every pound of money and of every man that Christendom could raise; yet at this crisis the Church thought chiefly of making what it could in cash

hey bestowed that symbol on people of every age, sex and rank, whatever their property or worth, and even on sick men and women, and those who were deprived of strength by sickness or old age; and on the next day, or even directly afterwards, receiving it back from them, they absolved them from their vow of pilgrimage, for whatever sum they could obtain for the favour. What seemed unsuitable and abs

perpera, which Gibbon conjectures to have been besants. Baldwin was notified of the pledge and urged to arrange for its redemption. He met with no difficulty. He confidently addressed himself to Saint Louis and Queen Blanche, and "Although the king felt keen displeasure at the deplorable condition of Constantinople, he was well ple

oker. Baldwin was so well contented with this sale which he closed in 1239, that a couple of years later he sent to Paris all the contents of his private chapel which had any value. Part of the treasure was a fragment of wh

erfect specimen of mediaeval religious architecture. [Footnote: On this whole subject of the inter-relation of medi?val theology with architecture and philosophy the re

adoration of them had culminated with the collapse of the Second Crusade, and in another century and a half the market had decisively broken and the Reformation had already

impossible to ordinary men, but with Louis IX the penitential life had already lost its attractions and men like Arnold rapidly brought religion and religious thought into contempt. The famous Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, born, probably, in 1175, died in 125

morsel of bread which a priest held in his hand. The pretension of the priests to make the flesh of Christ was, according to Wycliffe, an impudent fraud, and their pretension to possess this power was only an excuse by which they enforced their claim to collect fees, and what amounted to extortionate taxes, from the people. [Footnote: Nowhere, perhaps, does Wycliffe express himself more strongly on this subject than in a little tract called The Wicket, written in English, which he issued for popular consumption about this time.] But, in the main, no dogma, however incomprehensible, ever troubled Protestants, as a class. They easily accepted the Trinity, the double procession, or the Holy Ghost itself, though no one had the slightest notion what the Holy Ghost might be. Wycliffe roundly declared in the first paragraph of his confession [Footnote: Fasciculi Zizaniorum, 115.] that the body of Christ which was crucified was truly and really in the consecrated host, and Huss, who inherited the Wycliffian traditio