192 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book II.

their dependencies annihilated, the Cathedral of St.Paul destroyed from the very foundations — hadyou seen such monstrous defilements! ah! had notthis been your exclamation, Would to God I hadbeen dust? Would to God I had never received thispaper , which brings me such sad tidings l Your soulwould be exhausted with sighing ; your tears wouldbe abundant enough to seem to extinguish whatburns and devours you; but it would be only inseeming, for in reality it would be quite impossible.Had you but seen the place once so rich, and nowfallen into such an extreme of misery, poverty themost squalid having there its lasting residence—ifyou had seen the port Seleucia and its shipping—how your vessels were at war with each other—alas! then you would have known that beyondquestion, the same God who had given you Antiochhad now taken it from you; that the Master hadwholly withdrawn his gift, and effaced it from thesurface of the earth. You then certainly could notbut have felt that the Divine grace was now assist-ing Islam to regain the edifices of Avhich your an-cestors had robbed them. AVe have chased all ofyou from these countries. AVe have dragged theGiaours by the hair of the head, and thrown themhere and there ; and many to a great distance.There is no other rebel but the Orontes, whose