nism to the
Christianity of degenerate nations? Was Mohammedanism a better religion
than the Christianity which existed in Asia Minor and in various parts
of the Greek empire in the sixth and seventh centuries? Was it a good
thing to convert the church of Saint Sophia into a Saracenic mosque, and
the city of the later Christian emperors into the capital of the Turks?
Is a united Saracenic empire better than a divided, wrangling
Christian empire?

But I will not enter upon that discussion. I confine myself to facts. It
is certain that Mohammedanism, by means of the sword, spread with
marvellous and unprecedented rapidity. The successors of the Prophet
carried their conquests even to India. Neither the Syrians nor the
Egyptians could cope with men who felt that the sacrifice of life in
battle would secure an eternity of bliss. The armies of the Greek
emperor melted away before the generals of the caliph. The Cross waned
before the Crescent. The banners of the Moslems floated over the
proudest battlements of ancient Roman grandeur.

In the fifth year of the caliph Omar, only seventeen years from the
Prophet's flight from Mecca, the conquest of Syria was completed. The
Christians were forbidden to build churches, or speak openly of their
religion, or sit in the presence of a Mohammedan, or to sell wine, or
bear arms, or use the saddle in riding, or have a domestic who had been
in the Mohammedan service. The utter prostration of all civil and
religious liberty took place in the old scenes of Christian triumph.
This was an instance in which persecution proved successful; and because
it was successful it is a proof, in the eyes of Carlyle, that the
persecuting religion was the better, because it was outwardly
the stronger.

The conquest of Egypt rapidly followed that of Syria; and with the fall
of Alexandria perished the largest library of the world, the thesaurus
of all the intellectual treasures of antiquity.

Then followed the conquest of Persia. A single battle, as in the time of
Alexander, decided its fate. The marvel is that the people should have
changed their religion; but then, it was Mohammedanism or death. And a
still greater marvel it is,--an utter mystery to me,--why that Oriental
country should have continued faithful to the new religion. It must have
had some elements of vitality almost worth fighting for, and which we do
not comprehend.

Nor did Saracenic conquests end until the Arabs of the desert had
p