Iditarod pioneer., 1914-11-14
HOW PETER THE HERMIT
 INSTtGATED THE CRUSADES

He was also a dwarf, misshapen of form and thick bearded of face He had 8 gift of cloqucncc that lifted men out of them selves and stirred them to q mad zeal,
 Sitting astrGc a donkey in the central square of a French city one day in the eleventh century, and waving great cru cihx above his head, Peter preached to the surrounding throng sermon that awoke in his hearers hearts a mighty nm pulse This impulse was fed by later ser mons and exhortatIons from the dwarf ora tor until it blazed forth at last into a holy war-a war which did not die out for hun Cleds of years.
 Peter, in his impassioned sermon, re minded the crowd that the holy selulcher and the other sacred landmarks and shrlnes or Palestine were in the hands of Moham medan4 to mutilate or destroy at will and that Christians could make pilgrimages to the Holy Land only at great peril and by permission of the countrys Moslem mas tCrs.
 Euronc was ripe for religious revival. And the revival, quickened into life by Peters fiery eloquence, took the form Of ( mighty resolve to free Jerusalem from the clutch of the unbeIlevers. The movement spread with incredible force and speed.
 A host of men from all stations in life dropped their work, left their homes and followed Peter the Hermit across Hungary and to Constantnople on their way to Pal cstine.
 They were but a small fraction of the full tide of humanity that surged eastward OF the first If the several efforts to cap ture Jerusalem The cry, Deus NuIt" l"God wills it. .') was raised, The pope and nearly every other civilized monarch urged on the enterprise The badges cf the sol dicrs who marched to the holy war were ill the form of a cross. From this the movement was known as the "Crusade,' a term that still survives to denote many an enterprise which is in no way connected with religion
 Godfrey de BouiIIon, Duke of Lorraine, led a host to the Holy Land in l03l His army included natives of many countries. l. comprised princes and paupers, friars and foIons, seers and peasants.
 Godfrey won q continuous line of vic tories, thrashing every Mohammedan army sent against him. He captured Jerusalem after a short siege, and after taking the Haly City, the Crusaders wantonIy butch cred thousands of Moslem women and chil- dren staining with horrible barbarity their oHncdition's sacred purpose, Godfrey was chosen king of Jerusalam. But hl9 reign was short
 A second crusade centereI around an cf- fort to carture Dam4scuS It was a izzle. After the Christians had occupied Jcrusa- lem for cightyeight years they lost their hold on the place The MosIsms recap tured the Holy City and they have held it ever since.
 A third and even more pretentious cru sade was instituted in 1l9O to rcca>ture Jerusalem King Richard I of England l"Lion Heart'D was its prime mover. From the start its leaders >nariod and quarroled among themselves. Petty jeaIousics were rife One chief-thc king of France de serted his fellows and went home in huH. A few minor triumphs that led to nothing marked the course of the third crusade But on the whole it was gha>tIy and ridiculous failure, The squabbIas of the leaders at last broke up the army and sent it struggling back to Europe with noth- ing accomplished.
 After this there were other crusades, some big, some little; none of them achieving any measure of success. PitifuIly tragic among these was the Children's Crusade perhaps the most pathetic in history.
 About 50,000 children, in 1912, set out for Palestine All were little Some were scarcely more than babies People had grown to feel that the failure of other crusades had been due to the wickedness of the men engaged in them. The crazy idea was advanced that through the pure hands of children alone would heaven grant the restoration of the Holy Land
 The children went forth, by their parents orders, on what was intended as miracu- lous conquest. They believed what they were told. The poor little people died by the thousands from illness or exposure or starvation. Most of the survivors were seized and sold as slaves. Scarcely any of the 50,000 lived to Cone home again-Al- bert PaysoD Ierhune.
 Emperor William of Germany, who is member of the Prussian state church, is