st commanding him to proclaim the sorrows of
Christ's land and of Christ's people. The best account of this vision
and commission is that of the Historia Belli Sacri: "One evening as
Peter went to rest the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him in a vision,
saying, 'Peter, stand up. Go back quickly into the West. Betake thyself
to Pope Urban with this commission from Me that he get all My brothers
as quickly as possible to hasten to Jerusalem, in order to purge the
city of unbelievers. All who do this from love to Me, to them stand open
the doors of the kingdom of heaven.'" This became to him a daily
commission from on high. Bearing letters from Simeon, he went to Italy
by sea, and sought the presence and aid of Urban II, then pope.

[Sidenote: _Pope Urban_]

Urban felt that this call, recognized by his predecessors, was more
fully and loudly given to him.

The refusal of Hagenmeyer to credit this vision and its influence on
Pope Urban seems to be the result of an ultra critical spirit. When a
pope speaks, after argument and urging, he is not likely to think it
consonant with his dignity to give credit in allocution or bull to those
who urged him. Holding that all men are properly servants of the Holy
See, he speaks as if he was the original source of knowledge and
impulse. Urban does not, in his famous speech at the Council of
Clermont, give Peter's vision or Peter's urgency as a ground for his
utterance or action. But he followed Peter on that occasion, and it may
well be that if Peter mentioned his vision as the inspiration of his
mission, the pope would not speak of its influence on himself.

[Sidenote: _Urban's Emotions_]

The Roman pontiffs, whatever their own ability or lack of it, have
always been distinguished for the wise use of enthusiasm. If not able to
make the wise direction of it themselves, some one of the Curia has
always been at their service to value the force and direct it into
channels of wider influence for the Church. There can be little doubt
that Urban was moved by a true and generous feeling. It would have been
almost impossible for any one to have simulated the grief he manifested
at the Council of Clermont.

[Sidenote: _Mixed Motives_]

But there can be as little doubt that, as the proposed movement must
inevitably aggrandize Roman Catholicity and make her the leader of the
Christian world, Urban was happier and stronger by the coincidence and
collaboration of both forces. There was a riva