were formed, and Godfrey continued in power about fifty years.  In 1144 two European armies, aggregating one million two hundred thousand men, started on the second crusade, which was a total failure.  Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, conquered Jerusalem in 1187, and the third crusade was inaugurated, which resulted in securing the right to make pilgrimages to Jerusalem free from taxes.  The power of the Crusaders was now broken.  Another band assembled at Venice in 1203 to undertake the fourth crusade, but they never entered Palestine.  The fifth effort was made, and Frederick, Emperor of Germany, crowned himself king of Jerusalem in 1229, and returned to his native land the next year.  The Turks conquered Palestine in 1244 and burned Jerusalem.  Louis IX. of France led the seventh crusade, another failure, in 1248.  He undertook it again in 1270, but went to Africa, and Prince Edward of England entered Palestine in 1271 and accepted a truce for ten years, which was offered by the Sultan of Egypt.  This, the eighth and last crusade, ended in 1272 by the return of Edward to England.  In 1280 Palestine was invaded by the Mamelukes, and in 1291 the war of the Crusaders ended with the fall of Acre, “the last Christian possession in Palestine.”  Besides these efforts there were children’s crusades for the conversion or conquest of the Moslems.  The first, in 1212, was composed of thirty thousand boys.  Two ship loads were drowned and the third was sold as slaves to the Mohammedans.

In 1517 the country passed to the control of the Ottoman Empire, and so remained until 1832, when it fell back to Egypt for eight years.  The present walls around Jerusalem, which inclose two hundred and ten acres of ground, were built by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1542.  In 1840 Palestine again became Turkish territory, and so continues to this day.  The really scientific exploration of the land began with the journey of Edward Robinson, an American, in 1838.  In 1856 the United States Consulate was established in Jerusalem, and twelve governments are now represented by consulates.  Sir Charles Wilson created an interest in the geography of Palestine by his survey of Jerusalem and his travels in the Holy Land from 1864 to 1868.  Palestine was surveyed from Dan to Beer-sheba and from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the years from 1872 to 1877.  The Siloam inscription, the “only known relic of the writing * * * of Hezekiah’s days,” was discovered in 1880.  The railroad from Jaffa to Jerusalem was opened in 1892.  Within the last ten years several carriage roads have been built.  Protestant schools and missions have been established at many important places.  The population of the city is now about fifty-five thousand souls, but they do not all live inside of the walls.  What the future of Palestine may be is an interesting subject for thought.

CHAPTER X.

CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN GREAT BRITAIN.