ADDRESSES 245 



seeking a refuge within the pale of the Church. Kings laid 

 down their sceptres and lands were left untilled. Famine 

 and pestilence added their horrors to the universal despair. 

 Human flesh was openly consumed and the graves of the 

 dead were rifled to furnish sustenance to the living. Night 

 after night, at any unusual disturbance of the elements, 

 whole families, nay, the inhabitants of whole villages, left 

 their beds and watched the livelong night, shivering, upon 

 the bleak hillsides, or in the gateways of the churches. 

 The fear of death was upon all, — God and the judgment- 

 bar an ever-present reality. The terrors of an unknown 

 world stared them in the face. Hell opened wide the por- 

 tals of its gates, and the cries and torments of the damned 

 seemed to rise up, upon the excited ear. "Help, Lord, for 

 we perish! Save, Lord, from thy wrath!" was the wail of 

 a despairing world. 



Can we wonder that, in such circumstances as these, 

 surrounded by such an atmosphere as this, the Church 

 should gain a predominating influence, and that as a me- 

 dium between God and man it should stretch forth its arm 

 and be recognized as all-powerful and efficient? And when 

 the last night of suspense was over and the sun had risen 

 again, and men breathed freer and felt that the crisis was 

 past, would they not have a feeling of gratitude that ex- 

 pressed itself in gifts to those whom they had learned to 

 look upon as intercessors? 



The fourth and last period is that of the Crusades, when 

 all Europe, stirred by one single impulse, leaps into vigorous 

 life, and hurries, men, women, and children, to the rescue of 

 the Holy Land. Of the universality of this movement, the 

 last impulse of the migratory instinct among these tribes so 



