One of the most picturesque and significant movements of the middle ages was the crusades. They were picturesque because they were connected with the chivalry and piety of medieval Christianity. They were significant because they helped the west to respect the east, and the east to understand the west. The children's crusade was a wave of enthusiasm and piety which extended even to the younger people of the time. Their object was to rescue the holy sepulcher from unbelievers, and the failure of the whole movement was commensurate with its futility, for if the object and methods of the crusaders had been right, the right surely would have prevailed.
In our day we are living in the midst of a crusade more picturesque and more significant than those of Richard Cœur de Lion and Frederick Barbarossa. It is picturesque in spite of its lack of trappings and noisy conflicts. It is significant because it is a crusade to rescue humanity's most precious possession, the original Christianity, the pure teachings of Jesus, as outlined in the four gospels. In healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the dead, Christian Science is restoring Christianity to its rightful place in the estimation of the world, and wresting it from the hands of materiality. Because its object and methods are right, it must succeed, if its followers but remain faithful, because of the inherent superiority of good over evil.
Could anything be more picturesque, then, or significant, or important, or joy-giving, or right, than a children's crusade, or rather, a young people's crusade, following the march of Christian Science throughout the world? It certainly would be the most important thing that young men and young women ever engaged in. Because it is so closely connected with universal human needs and problems, it would be thoroughly practical. Another reason for its attractiveness is that it would be different from anything that young people have ever attempted before. For, on the whole, young people have spent their time growing up into the world and becoming educated by its ways, instead of growing up in God and being taught by Him. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "Children should be allowed to remain children in knowledge, and should become men and women only through growth in the understanding of man's higher nature" (p. 62).
