A Story from the Crusades

Let me very briefly tell you a story, a memorable one, which may be new to a few of you, but which never leaves one’s memory when once it has gained a lodgement there. The story comes from the strange period of the Crusades, in which there was so strange a mixture of good and evil. You know how the Crusaders, after manifold difficulties and delays, at last succeeded in capturing the Holy City, and then proceeded to set up there in Jerusalem the Christian kingdom.

They elected a king, and chose the chivalrous, the stainless, the peerless Godfrey of Bouillon. They offered him the crown; but he set it aside, saying he could not wear the crown of gold in the city where his Master had worn the crown of thorns.

Brethren, let those of us who would be real Christians look around in the world. It is still the world of that great city where our Lord was crucified. If we are disposed to hug ourselves in selfish ease away from the struggle and the troubles of mankind, then look steadily at that figure of Christ, and swear, in the inmost recesses of your moral being, where you swear those great oaths which through all weakness and failure really determine the courses of men’s lives, that you will not wear a crown of gold in the city where your Master wore the crown of thorns.