own. Even churches, usually so well maintained,
shared the general neglect. Knights, citizens, and serfs, travelled
eastwards in company, taking with them their wives and children, singing
psalms as they went, and looking with fearful eyes upon the sky, which
they expected each minute to open, to let the Son of God descend in his
glory.

During the thousandth year the number of pilgrims increased. Most of them
were smitten with terror as with a plague. Every phenomenon of nature
filled them with alarm. A thunder-storm sent them all upon their knees in
mid-march. It was the opinion that thunder was the voice of God,
announcing the day of judgment. Numbers expected the earth to open, and
give up its dead at the sound. Every meteor in the sky seen at Jerusalem
brought the whole Christian population into the streets to weep and pray.
The pilgrims on the road were in the same alarm:

"Lorsque, pendant la nuit, un globe de lumiere
S'echappa quelquefois de la voute de cieux,
Et traca dans sa chute un long sillon de feux,
La troupe suspendit sa marche solitaire."[52]

[52] _Charlemagne: Poeme epique par Lucien Buonaparte._

Fanatic preachers kept up the flame of terror. Every shooting star
furnished occasion for a sermon, in which the sublimity of the approaching
judgment was the principal topic.

The appearance of comets has been often thought to foretell the speedy
dissolution of this world. Part of this belief still exists; but the comet
is no longer looked upon as the sign, but the agent of destruction. So
lately as in the year 1832 the greatest alarm spread over the continent of
Europe, especially in Germany, lest the comet, whose appearance was then
foretold by astronomers, should destroy the earth. The danger of our globe
was gravely discussed. Many persons refrained from undertaking or
concluding any business during that year, in consequence solely of their
apprehension that this terrible comet would dash us and our world to
atoms.

During seasons of great pestilence, men have often believed the prophecies
of crazed fanatics, that the end of the world was come. Credulity is
always greatest in times of calamity. During the great plague, which
ravaged all Europe between the years 1345 and 1350, it was generally
considered that the end of the world was at hand. Pretended prophets were
to be found in all the principal cities of Germany, France, and Italy,
predicting that within ten years the tr