them the papacy had derived
prodigious advantages both in money and power. It was now to experience
fearful evils. It had largely promised rewards in this life, and also in
the world to come, to those who would take up the Cross; it had
deliberately pitted Christianity against Mohammedanism, and staked the
authenticity of each on the issue of the conflict. In face of the whole
world it had put forth as the true criterion the possession of the holy
places, hallowed by the life, the sufferings, the death, the
resurrection of the Redeemer. Whatever the result might be, the
circumstances under which this had been done were such that there was no
concealing, no dissembling. In all Europe there was not a family which
had not been pecuniarily involved in the Crusades, perhaps few that had
not furnished men. Was it at all to be wondered at that everywhere the
people, accustomed to the logic of trial by battle, were terror-stricken
when they saw the result? Was it to be wondered at that even still more
dreadful heresies spontaneously suggested themselves? Was it at all
extraordinary that, if there had been popes sincerely accepting that
criterion, the issue should be a pope who was a sincere misbeliever? Was
it extraordinary that there should be a loss of papal prestige? It was
the papacy which had voluntarily, for its own ends, brought things into
this evil channel, and the papacy deserved a just retribution of
discredit and ruin. It had wrought on the devout temper of religious
Europe for its own sinister purposes; it had drained the Continent of
its blood, and perhaps of what was more highly prized--its money; it had
established a false issue, an unwarrantable criterion, and now came the
time for it to reap consequences of a different kind--intellectual
revolt among the people, heresy among the clergy. Nor was the pope
without eminent comrades in his sin. [Sidenote: Apostacy of the
Templars.] The Templars, whose duty it had been to protect pilgrims on
the way to Jerusalem--who had therefore been long and thoroughly
familiar with the state of events in Palestine--had been treading in the
same path as the pope. Dark rumours had begun to circulate throughout
Europe that these, the very vanguard of Christianity, had not only
proved traitors to their banner, but had actually become Mohammedanized.
On their expulsion from the Holy Land, at the close of the Crusades,
they spread all over Europe, to disseminate by stealth their fearfu