in the hands of infidels, as the followers of Mohammed were called, he was indignant. Christians were allowed to visit the place only because the infidels made money out of them.

3. When Peter returned home he was greatly excited about the manner in which the Christians were treated at Jerusalem. The people to whom he talked thought the Eastern countries very delightful places, almost like Paradise, and their imaginations very soon began to picture the charms of life among the palms and olives in the most brilliant colors.

4. The East was the land of the rising sun; a place of ease and luxury; and each was sure that some of the wealth of which he dreamed would fall to him if he could but get to the enchanted land.

5. From talking, Peter went to preaching, and at last set out to travel all over central Europe, exciting the people to rise up and march against the infidels. He had a peculiar intelligence and fire in his eyes, and a powerful eloquence.

6. As he went forth on his mission he rode upon a mule, wearing a brown mantle that fell to his heels and left his arms and feet bare. He ate little or no bread, and lived on fish and wine. He was one of the most extraordinary men that Europe ever produced. Everywhere his voice acted like

magic. The people who crowded about him were charmed by his glowing words and readily consented to follow him to Palestine.

7. Peter was made commander of the enterprise, and the watchword that he gave them was "God wills it." He ordered all his followers to wear on their breasts a cross made of red stuff, from which they were called Crusaders.

8. No less than a million people joined in the crusade under Peter the Hermit. They made themselves temporarily masters of Jerusalem and of the greater part of the country, but it was chiefly by the management of another leader, Godfrey of France. Five more times all Europe was excited, and thousands upon thousands perished in the pilgrimages and wars; yet all the efforts finally failed, and Jerusalem was never permanently conquered.

9. But the Crusades were, notwithstanding, a great benefit to Europe. Men's ideas were enlarged, and trade was vastly increased by the constant traveling of so many thousands of people. Those, too, who returned home, were more enlightened and polished and better informed. Thus for one hundred and ninety-six years Europe was undergoing this process of civilization and education.

10. Beside these six special crusades, there were two or three minor ones. It is said that, in the year 1212, ninety thousand children set out for Palestine under the command of a child. They

knew so little of geography that they expected to go all the way by land, and were much surprised when they came to the Mediterranean Sea. Not knowing what to do they scattered, and few ever returned to their homes. Thousands starved to death in their wanderings amid strange lands, thousands were shipwrecked, and thousands more were seized and sold as slaves.

1. Pilgrimage, infidels, brilliant, enchanted, magic, eloquence, enterprise, crusaders, temporarily, enlightened, Mediterranean, conquered, shipwrecked.

2. When were "the dark ages"? Who was Mohammed? What was the object of the Crusades? What benefit was derived from them? Who rules Jerusalem now? Could one go all the way by land from France to Palestine? How did the children know which direction to take to go to Palestine?

LXXII. THE BORROWED UMBRELLA.

I'm very

1. "That's the the third umbrella gone since Christmas! What were you to do? Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. certain there was nothing about him that could spoil. Take cold, indeed! He doesn't look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he'd have better taken cold than take our only umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear the rain? Do you hear it against the windows?

Well,

2. "Nonsense: you don't impose upon me. You can't be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say ? Oh! you do hear it! that's a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don't think me a fool, Mr. Caudle. Don't insult me. He return the umbrella! Anybody would think you were born yesterday. As if anybody ever did return an umbrella!

3. "There! do you hear it? Worse and worse! Cats and dogs, and for six weeks-always six weeks. And no umbrella! I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow? They sha'n't go through such weather, I'm determined. No; they shall stop at home and never learn anything (the blessed creatures!) sooner than go and get wet. And when they grow up, I won