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 334 THE DECLINE AND FALL their general ; but the example of the hermit Peter was before his eyes ; and, while he assured the crusaders of the divine favour, he prudently declined a military command, in which failure and victory would have been almost equally disgraceful to his character.^" Yet, after the calamitous event, the abbot of Clairvaux was loudly accused as a false prophet, the author of the public and private mourning ; his enemies exulted, his friends blushed, and his apology was slow and unsatisfactoiy. He justifies his obedience to the commands of the pope ; ex- patiates on the mysterious ways of Providence ; imputes the misfortunes of the pilgrims to their own sins ; and modestly insinuates that his mission had been approved by signs and wonders. ^^ Had the fact been certain, the argument would be decisive ; and his faithful disciples, who enumerate twenty or thirty miracles in a day, appeal to the public assemblies of France and Germany, in which they were performed.^^ At the present hour such prodigies will not obtain credit beyond the precincts of Clairvaux ; but in the preternatural cures of the blind, the lame, or the sick, who were presented to the man of God, it is impossible for us to ascertain the separate shares of accident, of fancy, of imposture, and of fiction. Progress of Omnipotence itself cannot escape the murmurs of its discord- tans ant votaries ; snice the same dispensation winch was applauded as a deliverance in Europe was deplored, and perhaps ar- raigned, as a calamity in Asia. After the loss in Jerusalem the Syrian fugitives diffused their consternation and sorrow : Bag- dad mourned in the dust ; the Cadhi Zeineddin of Damascus tore his beard in the caliph's presence ; and the whole divan shed tears at his melancholy tale.*" But the commanders of the faithful could only weep ; they were themselves captives in the hands of the Turks ; some temporal power was restored to the last age of the Abbassides ; but their humble ambition was con- s Quis ego sum ut disponam [castroruin] acies, ut egrediar ante facies arma- torum, aut quid tarn remotum a professione mea, [etiam] si vires [suppeterent etiam], si peritia [non deesset], &c. epist. 256, torn. i. p. 259 [/tfif. 258]. He speaks with contempt of the hermit Peter, vir quidam, epist. 363 [p. 586 ap. Migne]. •'Sic [/e^. sed] dicunt forsitan iste, unde scinius quod a Dommo sermo egressus sit? Quae signa tu facis, ut credamus tibi ? Non est quod ad ista ipse respon- deam ; parcendum verecundiag meas ; responde tu pro me, et pro te ipso, secundum qufe vidisti et audisti [/c^. audisti et vidisti], et [/c:^. aut certe] secundum quod te [lc£: tibij inspiraverit Deus. Consolat. [De Consideratione ad Eugenium, iii. Papam] 1. ii. c. i [p. 744 ap. Migne] ; 0pp. torn. ii. p. 421-423. ^"See the testimonies in Vita ima, 1. iv. c. 5, 6. Opp. torn. vi. p. 1238-1261, 1. vi. c. 1-17, p. 1287-1314. « Abulmahasen apud de Guignes, Hist, des Huns, torn. ii. p. ii. p. 99.