, the Christian world was
in a more melancholy state than it had ever been either before or since.
The sins of nations were accumulating that heavy judgment which fell
upon them in the Ottoman conquests and the Reformation. There were great
scandals among Bishops and Priests, as well as heresy and
insubordination. As to the Pontiffs who filled the Holy See during that
period, I will say no more than this, that it did not please the good
Providence of God to raise up for His Church such heroic men as St.
Leo, of the fifth, and St. Gregory, of the eleventh century. For a time
the Popes removed from Italy to France; then, when they returned to
Rome, there was a schism in the Papacy for nearly forty years, during
which time the populations of Europe were perplexed to find the real
successor of St. Peter, or even took the pretended Pope for the true
one.

5.

Such was the condition of Christendom, thus destitute of resources, thus
weakened by internal quarrels, thus bribed and retained (so to speak) by
the temptations of the world, at the very time when the Ottomans were
pressing on its outposts. One moment occurred, and just one, in their
history, when they might have been resisted with success. You will
recollect that the Seljukians were broken, not simply by the Crusaders,
but also, though not so early, by the terrible Zingis. What Zingis was
to the Seljukians, such, and more than such, was Timour to the Ottomans.
It was in their full career of victory, and when everything seemed in
their power, when they had gained the whole province of Roumelia, which
is round about Constantinople, that a terrible reverse befell them. The
Sultan then on the throne was Bajazet, surnamed Ilderim, or the
Lightning, from the rapidity of his movements. He had extended his
empire, or his sensible influence, from the Carpathians to the
Euphrates; he had destroyed the remains of rival dynasties in Asia
Minor, had carried his arms down to the Morea, and utterly routed an
allied Christian army in Hungary. Elated with these successes, he put no
bounds to his pride and ambition. He vaunted that he would subdue, not
Hungary only, but Germany and Italy besides; and that he would feed his
horse with a bushel of oats on the altar of St. Peter's, at Rome. The
Apostle heard the blasphemy; and this mighty conqueror was not suffered
to leave this world for his eternal habitation without Divine infliction
in evidence that He who made him, could unmake h