That which is crooked cannot be made straight: Ecclesiastes 1:14
"Out of the millions who undertook the desperate journey to Palestine, men, women, and children, but a few thousand returned,
strewing pestilence, plague, and leprosy
along their homeward way—bringing everywhere destruction alike upon themselves, their foes, and their friends.
---The barbarian churl and semi-civilized knight brought back to hut and castle a bitterly earned knowledge of men and the world.
This, by the kindness of an over-ruling providence, has since proved profitable, but at what a cost was this knowledge gained!
The plain truth about the Crusades is that they, and all that they stand
for, are no more worthy of celebration than
---the slaughter and persecutions of the Inquisition,
---or the cruelties of the religious wars of Mohammed,
---or the massacres of Armenians in Turkey today.
Although masquerading under different names, they are all the same spirit."
E.J. Waggoner
