ABSTRACT
Once again this was not just a British phenomenon. One of the magazines of the American anti-catholic movement in the 1850s was entitled The New York Crusader and when the Hungarian Louis Kossuth, who was perceived as a symbol of Protestantism and liberty, arrived in the United States in 1851, he was described by the New York Times as a 'Peter the Hermit of a New Crusade.' Crusade language was also used to described the counter campaign and the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions declared in 1844:
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, crusade language was adopted by Christian missions and evangelical movements. For example, the Crusaders' Union, which became an international movement, began in 1900 as
a Bible class for boys in North London. There were a number of Christian publications with the title Crusader and an interesting example of this genre was the monthly magazine of the Carmarthen Wesleyan Methodist Circuit, started in January 1888. By 1890, this had become, under the same title, the journal for Progressive Methodists and was available in every circuit in Britain and Ireland. Every edition included in the heading a figure of a crusader and the first issue gave the following explanation of the choice of title:
Regular features included The Crusader's Pulpit (sermons), a story (For Young Crusaders), Temperance Crusade (the Bible and teetotalism) and Gospel Crusade (Carmarthen Circuit Notes). In August 1889, there was also a Young Crusader's competition for the best paraphrase of a crusade poem by Mrs Hemans. The editor urged young readers to emulate the young crusaders, 'for there is fighting for you too. There are Saracens who will try to hinder you on your pilgrimage to the Heavenly Jerusalem.'
