270 Epidemics. 



fession, all tend to show the rising of an independent and 

 thinking people, while those in authority were feeling that, 

 by this craft we live and all opposition must be suppressed, 

 for fear that our craft should fail. 



The third, or great and awfully destructive crusade, 

 occurred at the early part of this epidemic era, or in 1188 to 

 1190 A.D., and many smaller ones after it ; but the blind 

 foolery which led such hosts to leave home and fight, more 

 with the elements and hunger than with the avowed enemy, 

 seemed to act as a leaven upon the popular mind; and 

 many of the leaders began to reflect, and to refuse a blind 

 obedience to the entreaties and exhortations of one man, 

 who in his wisdom had taught them the folly of obeying his 

 mandates, equally indicate a better tone of mind, and 

 more correct appeciation of the merits and demerits of the 

 teachers. 



But, before this period, failures and badly concerted plans 

 neither led them to see the folly of their labours, nor the 

 utter heedlessness with which the lives of thousands upon 

 thousands were sacrificed to the whim and caprice of mere 

 vainglory, if such a designation is not giving to these 

 undertakings a more honourable motive than really belonged 

 to them. But now the tide of reflection had set in, and 

 before 100 years were over the name of crusades was the 

 watchword for resistance and indifference. 



In our own land the first grasp at true and substantial 

 liberty took its rise within this period, in the grant of the 

 Magna Charta, 1215 A.D. 



Having said thus much for the first hundred years, amidst 

 all the feuds, wars, bloodshed, and chivalry, which rather 

 disgraced than honoured humanity, no very great advance 

 took place from this time till 1438 to 1471, when the art of 

 printing began to be fairly established. 



But the craving desire for learning had set in before the 



