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.