Ninth Crusade

Baccho! It was the Crusade of the Children, And they were marching with their songs and flowers To take Christ's Sepulchre!* American children by the thousand are being enlisted for the so-called Ninth Crusade. Theirs is not to be a march over mountain and sea, but a "mental pilgrimage." They are to rescue the holy places by the nickels which they contribute through Sunday School agencies.

The organization of the Ninth Crusade--of the children--is a means of arousing enthusiasm for giving financial assistance to the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate/- of Jerusalem. Crusade "commanderies" exist in many states. Each district is commanded by a "knight" who appoints a "seneschal" in every Sunday School in the district. The seneschal enlists as many children as possible and dubs them Crusaders of the Shrine. If sufficient funds are collected by a district ("commanderie"), the Patriarch of Jerusalem will acknowledge the service by erecting a bronze memorial near one of the sacred spots. For example, Sunday School children of Philadelphia hope to have a tablet in the Church of the Nativity if the money which they collect can save this church from the infidel usurer.

The Ninth Crusade is Protestant. A committee headed by Charles S. Macfarland (of the Federal Council of Churches) and Bishop Manning of New York is in charge. It has offered to Sunday School children a prize for the best essay on The Meaning of the Holy Places. The prize is a trip to Jerusalem.

* From In April Once, a poem by William A. Percy dealing with incidents of the Children's Crusade, 13th Century. One band of children, led by faith, drowned themselves. Thousands were sold into slavery.

/- An administrative division of the (Greek) Orthodox Church, which is custodian of places made sacred by Jesus' bodily presence.