Book Description

Since the great efforts that Britain had made between the years 500 and 1000 to bring theknowledge of the truth into the still heathen portions of the Continent, -since the days ofColumban and Gal, of Boniface and Willibrord, -there had been a cessation of missionaryenterprise. The known portions of the world were either Christian, or were in the hands ofthe Mahommedans; and no doubt much of the adventurous spirit which, united withreligious enthusiasm, forms the missionary, found vent in the Crusades, and training in themilitary orders. The temper of the age, and the hopelessness of converting aMahommedan, made the good men of the third 500 years use their swords rather thantheir tongues against the infidel; and it was only in the case of men possessing such rarenatures as those of Francis of Assisi, or Raymond Lull, that the possibility of trying to bringover a single Saracen to the faith was imagine