122 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. Europe which owed and owes her so much. It is true that the deathblow was given by the battle- axe of Mahomet II., and this blow was only fatal because the victim was already half dead, but it is the crusades which are responsible more than anything else for reducing her to that condi- tion." In our school-books the crusades bear indeed a very different aspect. But here is the powerful truth expressed from a Greek point of view. From the facts as given by Bikelas we learn how evil may spring from the best motives. A like illustration may be given from the life of Christo- pher Columbus, the devout Christian. He had the idea of selling the natives of the New World as slaves in order to raise money for a new crusade. Columbus and the Knights of the Cross — the latter called themselves champions of the faith and murdered priests of Christ on the ground that they were schismatics — had views of the Christian religion which appear most peculiar now. y'rhe appearance of the crusaders upon the / stage of history is the first act in the final trag- / edy of the empire. The climax was reached in I the capture and ransacking of Constantinople in
1204. From this outrage the empire never again
