Waggoner's take on the Crusades

 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 few survivors from such a terrible school must necessarily have learned something by their experiences. 

---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