CHAP. II.] ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. 93

one else would have done as well. It was a momenttoo when adventurers, and idlers, and vagabonds,were unusually numerous, in consequence of therecent civil wars and discharged armies; and bandsof robbers and famishing soldiery were rovingeverywhere at discretion. When all at once, as ifat the wave of some conjurer’s wand, crimes andall illegal proceedings ceased, and merged into thecrusade; and Europe enjoyed, during some months,a peace she had not known for a long time. Almosteverything virtuous and everything vicious took thesame direction. Not one plunderer, robber,murderer was any more to be found within theprecincts of all Europe. One only thought anddeed pervaded every community. Nothing elsewas worth alluding to.

Great and little, poor and rich, literate and il-literate, folly and wisdom, males and females,parents and children, sovereign and subjects, priestsand people—all had no other grave concern. Soonwas there nothing but mutual encouragement, andwho at first had blamed it as madness, became atlast fully as mad as the rest. Impatient all to selltheir property, and none to purchase but what wasportable. What could not be carried was destroyed,and in like manner much provisions, which pro-duced a famine. Kings were shelved for awhile,