d revelations. From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an
accomplished fanatic; but as he excelled in the popular madness of the
times, Pope Urban the Second received him as a prophet, applauded
his glorious design, promised to support it in a general council, and
encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land. Invigorated
by the approbation of the pontiff, his zealous missionary traversed.
with speed and success, the provinces of Italy and France. His diet was
abstemious, his prayers long and fervent, and the alms which he received
with one hand, he distributed with the other: his head was bare, his
feet naked, his meagre body was wrapped in a coarse garment; he bore
and displayed a weighty crucifix; and the ass on which he rode was
sanctified, in the public eye, by the service of the man of God. He
preached to innumerable crowds in the churches, the streets, and the
highways: the hermit entered with equal confidence the palace and the
cottage; and the people (for all was people) was impetuously moved by
his call to repentance and arms. When he painted the sufferings of the
natives and pilgrims of Palestine, every heart was melted to compassion;
every breast glowed with indignation, when he challenged the warriors of
the age to defend their brethren, and rescue their Savior: his
ignorance of art and language was compensated by sighs, and tears, and
ejaculations; and Peter supplied the deficiency of reason by loud and
frequent appeals to Christ and his mother, to the saints and angels of
paradise, with whom he had personally conversed. The most perfect orator
of Athens might have envied the success of his eloquence; the rustic
enthusiast inspired the passions which he felt, and Christendom expected
with impatience the counsels and decrees of the supreme pontiff.

The magnanimous spirit of Gregory the Seventh had already embraced the
design of arming Europe against Asia; the ardor of his zeal and ambition
still breathes in his epistles: from either side of the Alps, fifty
thousand Catholics had enlisted under the banner of St. Peter; and his
successor reveals his intention of marching at their head against the
impious sectaries of Mahomet. But the glory or reproach of executing,
though not in person, this holy enterprise, was reserved for Urban the
Second, the most faithful of his disciples. He undertook the conquest of
the East, whilst the larger portion of Rome was possessed and fortified
by his rival Guibert o