About all the good result the Church obtained from the wars of the Crusades was a vast quantity of old bones of reputed saints, and other relics. The inhabitants of Palestine and Syria were aware of the passion of the crusaders for these articles, and they strove to make the gullibility of the Christians as large a source of profit as possible to themselves. Those who lived to return from Palestine brought with them vast numbers of pretended relics which they had purchased at high prices from the cunning Greeks and Syrians, and which were regarded as the noblest spoils that could crown any expedition. These relics were either committed to the custody of the clergy in the churches and monasteries, or most carefully preserved in their families from generation to generation. Among others of these relics, Matthew Paris relates that the Dominican friars brought a white stone in which, they asserted, Jesus Christ had left the impression of his feet. A handkerchief, said to have been Christ's, is worshiped at Besançon, which was brought by the crusaders from the Holy Land. Wood enough to build a large sized mansion, said to have been a part of the cross upon which Jesus was crucified, was brought from Palestine, or was procured after the return to Europe. The Genoese pretend to have received from Baldwin, second king of Jerusalem, the very dish in which the paschal lamb was served up to Christ and his disciples at the last supper, though this famous dish excites the laughter of even Father Labat in his travels in Spain and Italy. The Greeks and Syrians, whose avarice and fraud were excessive, imposed upon the credulity of the ignorant and simple Latins, and often sold them fictitious relics at enormous prices. The sacred treasures of musty bones and rags which the Christians of Europe preserved with so much care and pomposity, "even in our own times, with such pious ostentation," says Mosheim (ii. 441), "are certainly not more ancient than these holy wars, but were then purchased at a high rate from these cunning traders in superstition."

It cannot be denied that some good results grew out of the

Crusades; conspicuous was the improvement to European civilization by engrafting upon it the literature and scientific acquisitions of the eastern nations; but, in the grand summing up, the evils of those ill-timed campaigns greatly preponderate over all the good that can be set down on the credit side.

If but a partial estimate is made of the immense sums of treasure that were squandered in fitting out and prosecuting the nine different expeditions called the Crusades, it will be found that they amount to many millions of dol lars. The treasure and the blood that were thus worse than thrown away to sustain and defend a system of superstition called the Christian religion against another equally erroneous system is truly appalling. Had the money and the life thus squandered been devoted to some worthy pur pose calculated to benefit humanity, to improve the condition of the world, or to do service to some particular nation, a far greater good would have been secured; and at this time the world would not look back to those ill-starred enterprises and regret the destructive religious policy that ruled. Religion and superstition, in life and treasure, have cost the world a thousand times more than all its science, its learning, and its arts of peace.

BONIFACE VIII.

PETER DE MOURON was born in 1213, in the province of Apulia. His parents were poor agriculturists. From his earliest youth he manifested so decided a love for prayer and meditation that his mother determined to teach him to read and even to give him some knowledge of the Scriptures. Having arrived at manhood, Peter retired to a hermitage situated on the side of a mountain. Afterwards, not finding this asylum sufficiently solitary, he climbed the summit of the rocks, which formed the crest of the mountain, and dug himself out a cell, which was a real burrow; for it was so small that he could scarcely stand upright in it, or stretch himself out to sleep. He remained three years in this cave, living on the alms of the peasants who came to solicit the aid of his prayers. As very many pious persons interested themselves in having him ordained priest, he went to Rome, where, notwithstanding his ignorance, he received orders. He then retired to another cave, called the cave of Magella, which had a very spacious grotto, where he reared an altar and gathered around him several anchorites, his disciples.

Here he passed whole weeks in fasting and maceration, which produced ecstatic fevers, insane reveries, and all kinds of delusions, visions, and hallucinations. Those around him regarded these ecstacies as revelations, and respected as proph ecies his incoherent ravings. Ignorance aiding superstition, he obtained a wide reputation for sanctity. His multitude of visitors loaded him and his disciples with valuable presents, which were finally converted into a monastery, founded on papal authority.

Peter now redoubled his austerities. He ate but very little,

and that was only bread and water. He slept on the bare ground without straw or hay, and with a stone for his pillow; he wore a girdle of iron chains, and a coat of mail for a shirt. No wonder that at length there exhaled from the cell and the body of the filthy fanatic an odor so infected that no one could approach him, without being suffocated! But such was the man whom-as Celestin V.-the cardinals elevated to the papacy, through selfish dread of the consequences of a further prolongation of the distracting vacancy in the holy see, which had now been going on for about a year. Soon, however, on account of his ignorance and over-simplicity, his attempts to impose this ignorance and over-simplicity on all around, and, in fact, his servile inefficiency in general, a conspiracy was formed by these same cardinals to hurl him from the throne. The ambitious Benedict Gaëtan (afterwards Boniface VIII.) placed himself at the head of the conspirators.

They used the following trick to determine Celestin to abandon the pontificate: It seems the pope was in the habit of shutting himself up in a secret chapel, for the sake of fasting and prayer, as he used to do in his mountain cell. Bene. dict caused the wall to be pierced behind the place occupied by the crucifix, and introduced into the opening a speakingtrumpet, which communicated with a chamber of the upper story; then, during the silence of the night, when the pontiff had retired to his chapel to pray, he called out to him in a loud and terrible voice, "Celestin! Celestin! cast aside the burden of the papacy; it is a charge beyond thy strength !"

As the poor old pope saw that, notwithstanding his efforts, the disorders of the clergy increased, his imagination, already much weakened, received this warning as an order from heaven, and he promised God to return to his hermitage. But he still hesitated, fearing, in the first place, that it was the devil that had spoken, and in the second, that it was not canonical for him to renounce his dignity. And as he dared not consult any one on the subject, he continued for weeks in a state of great perplexity. At length, one night, the same voice was heard, even more threatening than on the first

occasion. Celestin burst into tears, and besought God to show him the way clearly. "In accordance with the maxims of the popes," he said, "I can do all, and am infallible; how is it that from all sides complaints arise against me? Am I not obliged, myself, to admit the impossibility of preventing the misconduct, debauchery, exactions, and divisions of my ecclesiastics? Would it not be better for me to trample the tiara under foot, and avoid this impure Babylon which is called the Church; to devote myself as before, entirely to thee, Lord, in an inaccessible solitude? Have you, then, condemned me to bear this cross until my last hour?" Benedict replied through his speaking-trumpet: "Abdicate the papacy, Celestin; abdicate the papacy." A few days after this, the poor old man sent for some of the cardinals to his palace. He related to them how he had passed his life in repose and poverty; how he had been borne away from this contemplative life; and he added, shedding a flood of tears, "My great age [he was then about seventy-two years], my rustic manners, the simplicity of my language and morals, the ignorance of my mind, and my small experience in ecclesiastical intrigues make me fear lest I shall fall into an abyss. I believe that it is impossible to shun eternal damnation if I remain pope, and I come to ask from you authority to yield this dignity to one more worthy than I am." The cardinals feigned a great repugnance to reply, and counseled the pontiff to order public prayers and processions, in order to obtain from God a manifesto of his will for the greater good of the Church.

The upshot of it all was, that notwithstanding the king of Sicily, the bishops, cardinals, lords, the Celestin and other monks, and all the clergy came in procession to beseech him not to abdicate, he finally, on the festival of St. Luke, rose before the college of cardinals, and unrolling a paper, read from it: "I, Celestin, fifth of that name, declare that it is impossible for me to insure my salvation on the throne of St. Peter. Desiring, then, to lead a better life, and find again the repose and consolation of my past existence, I renounce the