Thus wars, contemplated in a philosophical aspect, in spite of their repulsiveness are invested with dignity, and really indicate great moral and intellectual movements, as well as the personal ambition or vanity of conquerors. They are the ultimate solutions of great questions, not to be solved in any other way,--unfortunately, I grant,--on account of human wickedness. And Iknow of no great wars, much as I loathe and detest them, and severely and justly as they may he reprobated, which have not been overruled for the ultimate welfare of society. The wars of Alexander led to the introduction of Grecian civilization into Asia and Egypt; those of the Romans, to the pacification of the world and the reign of law and order; those of barbarians, to the colonization of the worn-out provinces of the Roman Empire by hardier and more energetic nations; those of Charlemagne, to the ultimate suppression of barbaric invasions; those of the Saracens, to the acknowledgment of One God; those of Charles V., to the recognized necessity of a balance of power; those which grew out of the Reformation, to religious liberty. The Huguenots' contest undermined the ascendency of Roman priests in France; the Seven Years' War developed the naval power of England, and gave to her a prominent place among the nations, and exposed the weakness of Austria, so long the terror of Europe; the wars of Louis XIV. sowed the seeds of the French Revolution; those of Napoleon vindicated its great ideas; those of England in India introduced the civilization of a Christian nation; those of the Americans secured liberty and the unity of their vast nation. The majesty of the Governor of the universe is seen in nothing more impressively than in the direction which the wrath of man is made to take.
Now these remarks apply to the Crusades. They represent prevailing ideas. Their origin was a universal hatred of Mohammedans. Like all the institutions of the Middle Ages, they were a great contradiction,--debasement in glory, and glory in debasement. With all the fierceness and superstition and intolerance of feudal barons, we see in the Crusades the exercise of gallantry, personal heroism, tenderness, Christian courtesy,--the virtues of chivalry, unselfishness, and magnanimity; but they ended in giving a new impulse to civilization, which will be more minutely pointed out before I close my lecture.
Thus the Crusades are really worthy to be chronicled by historians above anything else which took place in the Middle Ages, since they gave birth to mighty agencies, which still are vital forces in society,--even as everything in American history pales before that awful war which arrayed, in our times, the North against the South in desperate and deadly contest; the history of which remains to be written, but cannot be written till the animosities which provoked it have passed away. What a small matter to future historians is rapid colonization and development of material resources, in comparison with the sentiments which provoked that war! What will future philosophers care how many bushels of wheat are raised in Minnesota, or car-loads of corn brought from Illinois, or hogs slaughtered in Chicago, or yards of cloth woven in Lowell, or cases of goods packed in New York, or bales of carpets manufactured in Philadelphia, or pounds of cotton exported from New Orleans, or meetings of railway presidents at Cincinnati to pool the profits of their monopolies, or women's-rights conventions held in Boston, or schemes of speculators ventilated in the lobbies of Washington; or stock-jobbing and gambling operations take place in every large city of the country,--compared with the mighty marshalling of forces on the banks of the Potomac, at the call of patriotism, to preserve the life of the republic? You cannot divest war of dignity and interest when the grandest results, which affect the permanent welfare of nations, are made to appear.
The Crusades, as they were historically developed, are mixed up with the religious ideas of the Middle Ages, with the domination of popes, with the feudal system, with chivalry, with monastic life, with the central power of kings, with the birth of mercantile States, with the fears and interests of England, France, Germany, and Italy, for two hundred years,--yea, with the architecture, commerce, geographical science, and all the arts then known. All these principalities and powers and institutions and enterprises were affected by them, so that at their termination a new era in civilization began. Grasp the Crusades, and you comprehend one of the forces which undermined the institutions of the Middle Ages.
It is not a little remarkable that the earliest cause of the Crusades, so far as I am able to trace, was the adoption by the European nations of some of the principles of Eastern theogonies which pertained to self-expiation. An Asiatic theological idea prepared the way for the war between Europe and Asia. The European pietist embraced the religious tenets of the Asiatic monk, which centred in the propitiation of the Deity by works of penance. One of the approved and popular forms of penance was a pilgrimage to sacred places,--seen equally among degenerate Christian sects in Asia Minor, and among the Mohammedans of Arabia. What place so sacred as Jerusalem, the scene of the passion and resurrection of our Lord? Ever since the Empress Helena had built a church at Jerusalem, it had been thronged with pious pilgrims. A pilgrimage to old Jerusalem would open the doors of the New Jerusalem, whose streets were of gold, and whose palaces were of pearls.