The second Euphratean angel power did not immediately follow the first. At the close of the eleventh century, and not more than forty years from the inauguration of Togrul, Constantinople and its empire were on the verge of ruin by the power of the Seljukian kingdom of Roum; and nothing less than a superhuman intervention seemed capable of averting it. To have permitted "the killing of the third of the men" "worshipping the daemonials and idols" at that epoch, would have falsified the vision. They were to be killed, not by bows and arrows, but "by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the sulphur bursting forth out of the mouths of the horses." This was a power of destruction, not in operation in the days of Soliman, the Seljukian king of Roum. An intervention, therefore, was a divine necessity, that the word of the Deity might be established. Nor was the necessity unprovided for. The daemonial superstition of the pope’s barbarians of western Europe finding vent in the "crusades," though ultimately ineffective in Syria, was made the instrument of so crippling the Seljukian power, as for two hundred years to aid in upholding against it the Greek empire, which tottered on the verge of destruction. In the age of the crusades, the catholic idolators of the east and west, insisted upon their peculiar title to the Holy Land, then as now in the possession of the Turks; and that this title, which was inalienable, had been sealed by the blood of their divine saviour. On this assumption, they affirmed that it was their right and duty to rescue their inheritance from the Mohammedans, its unjust possessors, who profaned his sepulchre, and oppressed the pilgrimage of his disciples.

But in this argument, which overwhelmed Asia and depopulated Europe, there were fatal errors; first, in the assumption that they, these worshippers of daemonial ghosts, relics, and images, were christians; and secondly, that it is the right and duty of christians to possess themselves of the Holy Land. It is indeed true, that the true believers have an inalienable title to the land; and that that title was sealed by the blood of Christ, when by his death he brought the Abrahamic covenant into force; so that the land becomes their inheritance; but it is not true, that it is the right and duty of these heirs to become crusaders to wrest their inheritance from the enemy. They are heirs, indeed; but they are also "joint-heirs with Christ," and have therefore no right, and consequently it is not their duty, to take possession of it in his absence, even if they were able. He must first return from the far country in which he has resided so long; and return, too, with power and authority from the Father-Deity to take possession jointly with his fellow-heirs of their inalienable inheritance.

But what a monster evil the idolators of "Christendom" brought upon themselves by the false assumptions of the argument, by which they sought to justify their mad enterprises for the deliverance of the land and sepulchre of Christ. Their ignorance and fanaticism were made the means of the destruction of myriads. In the council of Clermont, Urban II proclaimed a plenary indulgence to those who should enlist under the banner of the cross; the absolution of all their sins, and a full receipt for all that might be due of canonical penance. At the voice of the pope, the robber, the incendiary, the homicide, arose by thousands to redeem their souls, by repeating on the Moslems the same deeds they had practised against their papal brethren; and the terms of atonement were eagerly embraced by offenders of every rank and denomination. They set out for Asia, A.D. 1096, early in the spring, under Peter the Hermit and Walter the Pennyless, a herd of nearly three hundred thousand of the most stupid and savage refuse of the people, who mingled with their devotion to the cross a brutal licence of rapine, prostitution, and drunkenness; while their genuine leaders were a goose and a goat, who were carried in the front, and "to whom," says Gibbon, "these worthy christians ascribed an infusion of the divine spirit." In their march along the Rhine, they pillaged and massacred many thousands of the Jews, numbers of whom, with their families and wealth, perished in the rivers or the flames. As they advanced their numbers increased; but in Hungary and Asia Minor, unrelenting vengeance retaliated upon them the punishment of their crimes. In the plain of Nice, they were overwhelmed by the Turkish arrows. Of these first crusaders 300,000 had already perished before a single city was taken from the kingdom of Roum; and a pyramid of bones became the memorial of their defeat.

This herd of savages was followed by the chivalry of the nations. Their principal force consisted in cavalry; and when mustered in the plains of Bithynia, the knights and their martial attendants on horse-back amounted to one hundred thousand fighting men, completely armed with the helmet and coat of mail. Besides these, the promiscuous crowd was lost in its own disorder. The Greeks were astonished at the overwhelming inundation; and the Princess Anne, the daughter of the Emperor Alexius, exclaims, "That Europe was loosened from its foundations, and hurled against Asia." Provoked by the loss of his capital, Soliman collected the Turkman hordes against them to the number of three hundred and sixty thousand horse. But the battle went against him, and he found it necessary to evacuate the kingdom of Roum. The crusaders at length obtained possession of Antioch, but with the annihilation of their splendid cavalry; and the loss of many thousands of every rank by famine, sickness, and desertion. In the month of May, A.D. 1099, the relics of their mighty host laid siege to Jerusalem, which they entered July 15. The capture of the city was followed by the foundation of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Latins now reigned beyond the Euphrates; and the four cities of Hems, Hamah, Damascus, and Aleppo, were the only relics of the Mohammedan conquests.

The Latin Kingdom was conquered by Saladin, A.D. 1187; but the expulsion of the Latins from Syria was delayed till A.D. 1295; when the Sultan of Egypt, at the head of sixty thousand horse, and a hundred and forty thousand foot, closed the age of the crusades with the capture of Acre, the expulsion of these forces from the Holy Land, and the death or slavery of sixty thousand worshippers of the daemonials and idols of the catholic aerial.