CHAP. II.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

191

morning of Saturday, the 4th of the grand Rama-dan. Of all to whom you confided the guard anddefence of that city, not one of them but we slew, notone of them but possessed something worth taking.At present there is not one of ours but shows some-thing taken from them. Ah, had you seen how cruellyyour knights were trampled under our horses’ feet—how your beautiful Antioch was given up to pillage,victim to the violence of a rude licentious soldiery,unhappy prey of every description of ruffians, felons,outlaws, who tossed about and divided your trea-sures by the hundredweight—and each bought anyfour of your chief ladies for a single gold piece, or atwhatever viler price he liked—if you had seen thechurches and crosses overturned, the leaves of thesacred Gospel dispersed, or most irreverently tornand thrown away, the sepulchres of your saints andtheir holy bones profanely trod upon—if you hadseen your enemy, the Mussulman, marching up thealtar, and breaking open the tabernacle, and monk,deacon, priest, patriarch in his pontifical robes, allbutchered on its consecrated steps—ah! the patri-archate itself abolished for ever and ever—andthose who had been men in power, in the power ofothers—had you seen your palaces given to theflames, and those devoured by fire in this worldbefore their being so in the next—your castles and