able lectures upon European civilisation, successfully
combats this opinion, and offers one of his own, which is far more
satisfactory. He says, in his eighth lecture, "It has been often repeated
that Europe was tired of continually invading Asia. This expression
appears to me exceedingly incorrect. It is not possible that human beings
can be wearied with what they have not done--that the labours of their
forefathers can fatigue them. Weariness is a personal, not an inherited
feeling. The men of the thirteenth century were not fatigued by the
Crusades of the twelfth. They were influenced by another cause. A great
change had taken place in ideas, sentiments, and social conditions. The
same desires and the same wants were no longer felt. The same things were
no longer believed. The people refused to believe what their ancestors
were persuaded of."

This is, in fact, the secret of the change; and its truth becomes more
apparent as we advance in the history of the Crusades, and compare the
state of the public mind at the different periods when Godfrey of
Bouillon, Louis VII., and Richard I., were chiefs and leaders of the
movement. The Crusades themselves were the means of operating a great
change in national ideas, and advancing the civilisation of Europe. In the
time of Godfrey, the nobles were all-powerful and all-oppressive, and
equally obnoxious to kings and people. During their absence along with
that portion of the community the deepest sunk in ignorance and
superstition, both kings and people fortified themselves against the
renewal of aristocratic tyranny, and in proportion as they became free
became civilised. It was during this period that in France, the grand
centre of the crusading madness, the _communes_ began to acquire strength,
and the monarch to possess a practical and not a merely theoretic
authority. Order and comfort began to take root, and, when the second
Crusade was preached, men were in consequence much less willing to abandon
their homes than they had been during the first. Such pilgrims as had
returned from the Holy Land came back with minds more liberal and expanded
than when they set out. They had come in contact with a people more
civilised than themselves; they had seen something more of the world, and
had lost some portion, however small, of the prejudice and bigotry of
ignorance. The institution of chivalry had also exercised its humanising
influence, and coming bright and fresh through the o