I08 THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS
judgment upon themselves by their immorality, and tales
were repeated of the enormities committed by the Christians
in the Holy Land. But whatever the reason for the calamity,
Christendom insisted that the Holy City should be won back
from Saladin, however great the difficulty. The Pope
imposed a penance on all Christians and ordered services
to be conducted daily in every church in Christendom. €< On
learning of the severe and trcmondous judgment inflicted
upon the land of Jerusalem by the hand of God ", the Pope
wrote to the princes, " both we and our brethren were so
overwhelmed with terror and overcome with sorrow that we
did not know what we could do, or even what we should
try to do. To our minds came only the word of the Psalmist
when he laments and says, * O God, the heathen are come
into thine inheritance: the holy temple have they defiled,
they have laid Jerusalem in heaps. The dead bodies of thy
servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of
heaven, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth *.
Taking advantage of the quarrels which had arisen through-
out the earth, by the wickedness of men and the machinations
of the devil, Saladin came with u host of soldiers, and, being
met by the king, the bishops, the Templars, the Hospitallers,
earls and barons, with the people of the land, together with
the cross of our Lord * . . many of our people were then
slain, the cross of our Lord captured, the bishops slaughtered,
the king made prisoner, and nearly all slain with the sword
or taken by the enemy, so that it is said very few survived
Though we now say with the Prophet, * O that my head were
waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep
night and day for the slain of my people *, yet we ought not
to be so utterly cast down as to lose all hope* We ought
not to think that God is so angered with His people that
what He, in His wrath, had allowed to be done on account
of our sins, He will not, when appeased by our repentance,
alleviate in His compassion j nor must we doubt that after