The Crusaders looked upon the Saracens as
infidels, whereas the children of the desert bore a much nearer affinity
to the sacred corpse that had, for a brief space, consecrated the Holy
Sepulchre, than any of the invading host of Europe. The same blood
flowed in their veins, and they recognised the divine missions both
of Moses and of his great successor. In an age so deficient in
physiological learning as the twelfth century, the mysteries of race
were unknown. Jerusalem, it cannot be doubted, will ever remain the
appanage either of Israel or of Ishmael; and if, in the course of those
great vicissitudes which are no doubt impending for the East, there be
any attempt to place upon the throne of David a prince of the House of
Coburg or Deuxponts, the same fate will doubtless await him as, with all
their brilliant qualities and all the sympathy of Europe, was the final
doom of the Godfreys, the Baldwins, and the Lusignans.
Like them, the ancestor of the kneeling pilgrim had come to Jerusalem
with his tall lance and his burnished armour; but his descendant, though
not less daring and not less full of faith, could profit by the splendid
but fruitless achievements of the first Tancred de Montacute. Our hero
came on this new crusade with an humble and contrite spirit, to pour
forth his perplexities and sorrows on the tomb of his Redeemer, and to
ask counsel of the sacred scenes which the presence of that Redeemer and
his great predecessors had consecrated.
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