with
a passionate desire to deliver the Christian pilgrims of Palestine from
the oppression of Infidels! Figure to yourselves the whole force of
Europe collecting its violence, like a troubled sea, and preparing to
pour a terrific and destructive inundation over the Holy Land! Behold
the strong and the weak, the ambitious and the humble, pursuing the same
object! Behold assembled Kings and their People, Soldiers and Priests,
the servants of Earth and Heaven rushing, with equal ardour, to rescue
the Sepulchre of Christ, and to drown all the innumerable enemies of
their Faith in an universal deluge of blood! In this scene we have the
sublimest spectacle, perhaps, that was ever exhibited by mistaken piety
and misguided valour. The love of God, by which this heroic multitude
was professedly impelled, was probably in many minds as sincere as it
was ardent. The religious spirit of their enterprize can still animate
and transport us in the song of the Poet: and in the more rational page
of History, while we justly lament the errors of their devotion, we
admire the force and perseverance of their courage.

"To the sublime fortitude of these collected warriors, let us compare
the mild magnanimity of HOWARD. Let us survey him setting forth for an
expedition as perilous as theirs; not as the Soldier of Fanaticism, but
as the Pilgrim of Humanity! Attachment to GOD, and resolution which no
hardship, no danger, no difficulty can daunt, are equally conspicuous in
the sanguinary Fanatic and the compassionate Philanthropist: but how
widely different are the prime earthly objects of their pursuits! The
fierce Crusaders invaded Asia with a desire to exterminate the Infidels.
The benevolent HOWARD was led into the same quarter of the globe, and
into perils more deadly than those of war, by a wish to exterminate, or
rather to restrain, the ravages of that terrific enemy to human life,
the Plague.

"He had conceived an idea, that, as this most alarming of mortal
maladies has been often strangely neglected by the sluggish and
superstitious inhabitants of the East, it might be possible by a calm
and courageous examination of its nature and its progress, to set limits
to its rage; and particularly to secure his own country from a future
visitation of a calamity, against which the fearless and eager spirit of
Commerce appears not to have established a sufficient precaution. For
the prospect of accomplishing public good, so devoutly to be wishe