volume one

HISTOET OF THE CRUSADES. 377
Lord lias fallen even upon princes ; Grod liaa left them to
wander in unkno^Yn ways, and all sorts of pains and afflic-
tions have been strevred upon their paths." So many evils
resulting from a holy war, from a war undertaken in the
name of Grod, confounded the Christians who had most
applauded the crusade, and St, Bernard himself was astonished
that God had been willing to judge the universe before
the time, and without remembrance of his mercy. " What
a disgrace is it for us," said he in an apology addressed to
the pope, " for us who went everywhere announcing peace
and happiness ! Have we conducted oiu-selves rashly ?
Have our courses been adopted from fantasy ? Have we
not followed the orders of the head of the Church and those
of the Lord ? AVhy has not Grod regarded our fasts ? Why
has he appeared to know nothing of our humiliations ? With
what patience is he now listening to the sacrilegious and
blasphemous voices of the nations of Arabia, who accuse
him of having led his people into the desert that they might
perish! All the world knows," added he, " that the judgments
of the Lord are just ; but this is so profound an
abyss, that he may be called happy who is not disgraced by
it." St. Bernard was so thoroughly persuaded that the
unfortunate issue of the crusade would furnish the wicked
with an excuse for iusulting the Heity, that he congratulated
himself that so many of the maledictions of men fell upon
him, making him as a buckler to the living Grod. In liis
apology, he attributes the want of success in the holy war
to the disorders and crimes of the Christians ; he compares
the Crusaders to the Hebrews, to whom Moses had promised,
in the name of Heaven, a land of blessedness, and
who all perished on their journey, because they had done a
thousand things against Grod.
St. Bernard might have been answered that he ought to
have foreseen the excesses and disorders of an undisciplined
multitude, and that the brigands called upon to take up the
cross were not the people of Grod. It appears to us, at the
present time, that the partisans of the abbot of Clairvaux
might have found better reasons for the justification of the
holy war. The second crusade, although unfortunate, procured
several advantages for Europe. The peace which
reigned in the West, caused states to flomish, and repaired,
in some sort, the disasters of a distant war. It was held