CHAP. II.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

115

more than a million leaving Nice, only about sixtythousand now remained to set out for Jerusalem.

These were the ages of great things. Matters werealways on a vast scale. For a few days we wandernow all over a large city, or entire province, or asfar as a newspaper goes; but then a father wentwandering over whole continents; a great armywas not of two hundred thousand men, but of fiveor six millions ; nor of one, or of a few, but ofalmost all nations. A peasant now thinks it a greatthing to go to a neighbouring shire, even with theaid of the railroad; but then, without any aid atall, a peasant with his entire family considered it alittle undertaking to set out from the Vistula, orEngland, or the north of France, for Jerusalem.

Yet thesixty-thousand men that left Antioch werea far stronger body than the confused multitudesfrom which they were chosen; for they were everyone of them excellent. After such rigid purifica-tions—labours, diseases, battles, that along withsome valuable lives, carried olf almost all the use-less and refuse, those that remained were veteransof rare merit. When find again a corps selectedout from several millions? Nor by a fortuitouschoice, but by a series of all sorts of experiments,without any danger of partiality or prejudice; foreach was free to change masters, and as often as

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