hey travelled backward and forward in person, or were in constant
communication with that great city, in which were found all the culture,
the letters, the arts, and sciences which had survived the general
wreck."

Nobody need disparage the Celtic Church; but it is not too much to say
that the Celtic Church could never have preserved Christianity in
Britain against the victorious Saxon or English heathen. But from the
very beginning the Church of England has retained the traces of her
early origin, when Gregory the Great was Pope, when the claim to be
universal bishop was deemed untenable, when even the ritual of the Mass
was still in unessential details flexible.

[Signature of the author.]

MAHOMET

(571-632)

The Arabian "Prophet" was born at the city of Mecca, some time during
the sixth century, but the precise year has, after much discussion,
still been left in doubt. Hottinger says, A.D. 571, Reiske, A.D. 572,
and Gagnier, A.D. 578. His lineage has also been the subject of great
altercation, one party exalting him above most of his countrymen, while
the other degraded him to the lowest rank--particularly contemporary
Christian writers, who were desirous of rendering him an object of
contempt; and in the same degree that the Christians felt themselves
called upon to degrade the Arabian prophet, so did the Mahometans think
themselves compelled to exalt him. Mahomet successfully vindicated for
himself a high lineage among his countrymen; the tribe of Koreish, to
which he belonged, laying claim to Ishmael as their progenitor, and this
claim, arising from the vanity of the tribe, was eagerly laid hold of
and supported by his votaries.

[Illustration: Two camel ridders. [TN]]

Abdallah, the father of Mahomet, was the youngest son of Abd al
Motalleb, the son of Hashem. "Hashem," say the authors of the "Modern
Universal History," "succeeded his father Abd al Menaf in the
principality of the Koreish, and consequently in the government of
Mecca, and the custody of the Caaba." So far the genealogy of the
prophet is supported by authentic history--that he was descended from
the princes of his people cannot be denied. This descent from Ishmael,
Gibbon, after Sale, thus disproves: "Abulfeda and Gagnier describe the
popular and approved genealogy of the prophet. At Mecca I would not
dispute its authenticity; at Lausanne, I will venture to observe, 1st,
That, from Ishmael to Mahomet, a period of two thousand five