ter resistance
gallant and desperate as the assault, the Crusaders burst into the city,
massacred the whole of the defenders and inhabitants, calculated at
seventy thousand in number, and so became masters of the holy sepulcher.

"The Sultan of Egypt was meanwhile advancing to the assistance of the
Mohammedans of Syria; but Godfrey, with twenty thousand of his best men,
advanced to meet the vast host, and scattered them as if they had been
sheep. Godfrey was now chosen King of Jerusalem, and the rest of his
army--save three hundred knights and two hundred soldiers, who agreed to
remain with him--returned to their home. The news of the victory led
other armies of Crusaders to follow the example of that of Godfrey; but
as these were almost as completely without organization or leadership as
those of Peter the Hermit, they suffered miserably on their way, and few
indeed ever reached the Holy Land. Godfrey died in 1100, and his brother
Baldwin succeeded him.

"The history of the last hundred years has been full of fresh efforts to
crush the Moslem power, but hitherto it cannot be said that fortune has
attended the efforts of the Christians. Had it not been indeed for the
devotion of the Knights of St. John and of the Templars, two great
companies formed of men who devoted their lives to the holding of the
sepulcher against the infidel, our hold of the Holy Land would have been
lost.

"Gradually the Saracens have wrested post after post from our hands.
Edessa was taken in 1144, and the news of this event created an intense
excitement. The holy St. Bernard stirred up all France, and Louis VII.
himself took the vow and headed a noble army. The ways of God are not
our ways, and although the army of Germany joined that of France, but
little results came of this great effort.

"The Emperor Conrad, with the Germans, was attacked by the Turk Saladin
of Iconium, and was defeated with a loss of sixty thousand men. The King
of France, with his army, was also attacked with fury, and a large
portion of his force were slaughtered. Nothing more came of this great
effort, and while the first Crusade seemed to show that the men-at-arms
of Europe were irresistible, the second on the contrary gave proof that
the Turks were equal to the Christian knights. Gradually the Christian
hold of the Holy Land was shaken. In 1187, although fighting with
extraordinary bravery, the small army of Christian Knights of the Temple
and of St. John were ann