But father, interrupted I, was the christian religion established by that strange mixture of meekness and severity?

Not at all, my child, answered the Friar; the christian religion owes its standing and glory to the piety and meekness, and to the pure and exemplary life of Christ, his disciples, and the first christians. In early times the church was too weak to join rigor to persuasion: her chiefs were ignorant of the art of politics, and her credit was not extensive ; but above all they had not yet acquired that holy audaciousness which so nobly distinguished her in subsequent ages; for as soon as the christians felt strong enough, by their number, the courage of their bishops, and the protection of earthly potentates; they soon displayed the energy of that zeal which they had before evinced amidst the torture and under the rack; and soon convinced the world that they were not deficient in point of courage,when the opportunity offered, to avenge the blood of their brothers, or to propagate the gospel with fire and sword as well as by preaching.

The third age was hardly elapsed, when thro' the most laudable and holiest reprisals, they put to the sword in Syria and Palestine, those magistrates who had been instrumental in persecuting them. They drowned the wife and daughter of the Emperor Maximin and tortured to death his sons and all his relations.

Some time after St. Syrille supported that step by his sermons and his conduct. He drove away by his own authority the Norvatians, robbed their bishop of his revenues, and at the head

of an enraged multitude attacked the Jews in their synagogues, expelled them from Alexandria, and gave up the effects to the plunder of his christian mob," because, says St. Augustine, all belongs to the faithful; the wicked possess noth ing in their own right."

This intrepid patriarch did not stop here; he maintained warmly that the civil authority was subject to the ecclesiastical, and in order to prove the assertion, five hundred monks surrounded governor Orestes, who did not sufficiently respect the holy man; wounded him with a stone, and would have murdered him instantly, if his guards had not opposed them, and checked their zeal. It is true, that one of the good monks lost his life in the attempt, but he was beautified on the spot and in order to appease the manes of that martyr of Christ,nothing answered short of the blood of the celebrated Hypachia, the daughter of Orestes, whom the christians tore to pieces at the foot of their altars.

What you have already heard is sufficient, my dear, to convince you that nothing is more lawful; nay more necessary than to use every means for the propagation of the christian faith, for the extirpation of heresy, and also for the support of the power, the greatness and the majesty of God's ministers. But I will condescend to shew you that the zeal of the primitive church was but a spark when compared to the blaze which electerized the faithful of the following ages.

Making only a cursory mention of the happy omens to the establishment of truth, at the

epocha when the emperors, newly converted to the christian faith, began to harrass their sub. jects, by issuing severe edicts against the Donatists, Priscilianists, Manichians, &c. when the people murdered one another in Asia, and in other quarters, for the coNSUBSTANTIALI TY of the word? whilst at Rome the Vicary of Christ employed the whole of their policy and inspiration from above, to render more firm the authority which God hath given them over the kingdoms and princes of the globe; passing slightly the period when by a divine and private order Charlemagne went personally to butcher the inhabitants of Erisburgh, overthrew the temple of Irmenseul, and sacrificed its priests on the scattered limbs of their wooden idols: penetrating as far as the Vezer, and putting to the sword all who dared resist him, he left to the people missionaries to convert, and soldiers to rule them, and put to death four thousand five hundred prisoners, for attempting to recover that liberty of which he had deprived them ; sacrificing more victims to his holy ambition than all the heathen which he had subdued would have sacrificed to their idols to the day of judgment: passing finally the glorious epocha when the empress Theodora piously extirpated the Paulitians, in the very heart of Armenia; destroying more than an hundred thousand of them to avenge religion, and fill her coffers with the spoils of those abominable heretics, I come to the happy time which gave birth to the crusades.

Towards the end of the 11th century, Eus: rope's population was immense. The emigra tion of the barbarians, like so many torrents, : had inundated France, Spain, Italy, and Ger many. The greatest part of the monasteries were so destitute of funds, that the monks were obliged to work for their living; the people were plunged in horrid disorders; and the hos ly land was in the hands of the infidels. In order to thin the population, enrich the monks, reform the morals, and recover Jerusalem, God sent forth a glorious Hermit, whose name was Peter, who preached the crusade in God's name, and enjoined it on all the faithful, promising in the name of the Pope, a full indulgence of all sins, to any who would aid the sacred undertaking with their lives or fortunes.

Two such powerful motives could not fail in producing their effect. Upwards of eighty thousand croises leave France and Germany, under the care of the Hermit. The van guard, commanded by Gautier Sans-argent, i. e. Gautier Pennyless, displayed their courage on their route, by massacreing in cool blood full one half the nation of the Bulgars. The general follows his Lieutenant,and on his being refused provisions for his army in Hungary, he takes Mallavilla by storm, and put its citizens to the sword: a severity justly inflicted on that obdurate people who refused to co-operate in the holy expedition !

Fifteen thousand Germans, headed by the famous preacher Godeschal, follow the Hermit's army; but at the approach of the new apostles,

the Hungarians are alarmed, and fearing new disasters, they fall on the preacher and exterminate his fifteen thousand men.. Two hundred thousand croises. soon follow that handful, put to the sword every Jew. they can take, and drive the rest to such stress of despair, that having ripped open their wives and children they put an end to their deplorable existence.. Such. christian like actions,are soon rewarded with the crown of martyrdom, which they share, with three quarters of those who had preceded them, being slaughtered to a man..

The Hermit and Gautier arrive before Con, stantinople with the rest of their troops; and to convince the incredulous, that God often makes use of the unworthy, and even of the wicked to accomplish his unfathomable purposes, a troop of banditti join themselves to the soldiers of Christ; they plunder together the country near the town, cross the Bosophorus; every thing gives away before them; but the devil, jealous of their exploits, awakes the tyrant of Bithinia who routs them entirely.

Seven hundred thousand more croises penetrate into Asia, their chief repairs the Hermit's fortunes; he takes Nice, Antioche, Edesse, Jerusalem; and makes such massacre of the heathen, that the most obdurate soldiers, in his army, would have beheld the carnage with hor-. ror, had it not been made for God's greatest glory.

The glorious news had no sooner reached the European shores than two hundred thousand recruits assemble to prosecute the grand design