nvents where
the elect were granted visions after long prayer and fasting. The nun
knelt on the bare stone floor of her cell, awaiting the ecstasy that
would descend on her. When it had gone again she was nigh to death,
faint and weary, yet compelled to struggle onward till her earthly life
came to an end.

The Crusades, or Wars of the Cross, had roused Europe from a state of
most distressful bondage. Ignorance and barbarism were shot with
gleams of spiritual light even after the vast armies were sent forth to
wrest the possession of Jerusalem from the infidels. Shameful stories
of the treatment of pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre had moved the hearts
of kings and princes to a passionate indignation. Valour became the
highest, and all men were eager to be ranked with Crusaders--those
soldiers of heroic courage whose cause was Christianity and its
defence. At the close of the tenth century there were innumerable
pilgrims travelling {12} toward the Holy Land, for it had been
prophesied that in the year A.D. 1000 the end of the world would come,
when it would be well for those within Jerusalem, the City of the
Saviour. The inhuman conduct of the Turk was resented violently,
because it would keep many a sinner from salvation; and the dangerous
journey to the East was held to atone for the gravest crimes.

After the first disasters in which so many Crusaders fell before they
reached their destination, Italy especially began to benefit by these
wars. It was considered safer to reach Jerusalem by sea, boarding the
vessels in Italian ports, which were owned and equipped by Italian
merchants. Venice, Pisa, and Genoa gradually assumed the trade of
ancient Constantinople, once without rival on the southern sea.
Constantinople was a city of wonder to the ignorant fighting men from
other lands, who had never dreamed of a civilization so complete as
that which she possessed. Awed by elegance and luxury, they returned
to their homes with a sense of inferiority. They had met and fought
side by side with warriors of such polished manners that they felt
ashamed of their own brutal ways. They had seen strange costumes and
listened to strange tongues. Henceforth no nation of Europe could be
entirely indifferent to the fact that there was a world without.

The widowed and desolate were not comforted by the knowledge which the
returned Crusader delighted to impart. They had been sacrificed to the
pride which led husbands and f