French monarchy invited the attacks of these insatiate fanatics. The smoke that arose from the cave of Hera was diffused from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean. But the prevalence of their faith is best seen in the extent of their conquests. It was given to the last of the apostles of Jesusmen who, as prophesied concerning them, knew their God, and instructed many, and suffered much,— prophetically to see and to describe, in the opposite character which they assumed and maintained, the robbers from the desert, who were "the apostles of Mahomet." west. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth; and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. Ver. 3. A false religion was set up, which although the scourge of transgressions and idolatry, filled the world with darkness and delusion; and swarms of Saracens, like locusts, overspread the earth, and speedily extended their ravages over the Roman empire, from east to The hail descended from the frozen shores of the Baltic; the burning mountain fell upon the sea, from Africa and the locusts (the fit symbol of the Arabs,) issued from Arabia, their native region. They came, as destroyers, propagating a new doctrine, and stirred up to rapine and violence by motives of interest and religion. "In the tumult of a camp, the exercises of religion were assiduously practised; and the intervals of action were employed in prayer, meditation, and the study of the Koran. Such was the spirit of the man, or rather of the times, that Caled, -the foremost leader of the Saracens, who was called the sword of God,-professed his readiness to serve under the banner of the faith, though it were in the hands of a child or an enemy. Glory, riches, and dominion, were indeed promised to the victorious Mussulman; but he was carefully instructed, that if the goods of this life were his only incitement, they likewise would be his only reward."* The hosts of the Saracens were armies of fanatics. They came out of the smoke, as locusts, upon the earth. Their faith was associated with their arms; and their success corresponded with their zeal. Their symbol, and the whole description of their character and acts, are in entire accordance with that of the king of the south, (Dan. xi. 40.) and the vision and interpretation of the little horn of the he-goat,-or the kingdom that arose at the time of the end when the transgressors came to the full,-as first exemplified by the Saracens. In introducing the history of Mahometanism, and interwoven with the personal history of Mahomet, Gibbon justly remarks, that "the Christians of the seventh century had insensibly relapsed into the semblance of paganism; their public and private vows were addressed to the relics and images that disgraced the temples of the east: the throne of the Almighty was darkened by a cloud of martyrs, and saints, and angels, the objects of popular veneration; and the Collyridian heretics, who flourished in the fruitful soil of Arabia, invested the virgin Mary with the name and honour of a goddess."+ Such was Christendom when the first woE arose. Like the storm of hail and fire, under the first trumpet, it came upon the earth. The rapidity and extent of the conquest of the Saracens is implied by other characteristics, and may be comprised in a single view. "In the victorious days of the Roman republic, it had been the aim of the senate to confine their consuls and legions to a single war, and completely to suppress a first enemy before they provoked the hostilities of a second. These timid maxims of policy were disdained by the magna * Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. p. 332, chap. 51. † Ib. p. 261. nimity or enthusiasm of the Arabian Caliphs. With the same rigour and success they invaded the successors of Augustus and those of Artaxerxes; and the rival monarchies at the same time became the prey of an enemy whom they had been so long accustomed to despise. In the ten years of the administration of Omar, the Saracens reduced to his obedience thirty-six thousand cities or castles, destroyed four thousand churches or temples of the unbelievers, and edified fourteen hundred moschs, for the exercise of the religion of Mahomet. One hundred years after his flight from Mecca, the arms and the reign of his successors extended from India to the Atlantic Ocean."* "At the end of the first century of the Hegira, the caliphs were the most potent and absolute monarchs of the globe.The regal and sacerdotal characters were united in the successors of Mahomet. Under the last of the Ommiades, the Arabic empire extended two hundred days' journey from east to west, from the confines of Tartary and India to the shores of the Atlantic ocean. And if we retrench the sleeve of the robe, as it is styled by their writers, the long and narrow province of Africa, the solid and compact dominion from Fargana to Aden, from Tarsus to Surat, will spread on every side to the measure of four or five months of the march of a caravan. The progress of the Mahometan religion diffused over this ample space a general resemblance of manners and opinions: the language and laws of the Koran were studied with equal devotion at Sarmacand and Seville: the Moor and the Indian embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of Mecca; and the Arabian language was adopted as the popular idiom in all the provinces to the westward of the Tigris." "When the Arabs first issued from the desert, they must have been surprised at the ease and rapidity of their own success. (He shall destroy wonderfully, &c.) But when they advanced in the career of victory to the banks of the Indus and the summit of the Pyrenees; when they had repeatedly tried the edge of their scimitars, (a great sword was given him,) and the energy of their faith, they might be equally astonished that any nation could resist their invincible arms, that any boundary should confine the dominion of the successor of the prophet. The confidence of soldiers and fanatics may indeed be excused, since the calm historian Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. p. 361, c. 50. + lb. ix. pp. 500—502, c. 51. of the present hour, who strives to follow the rapid course of the Saracens, must study to explain by what means the church and state were saved from this impending, and as it should seem, from this inevitable danger,"* &c. "In the decline of society and art, the deserted city could supply a slender booty to the Saracens; their richest spoil was found in the churches and monasteries, which they stripped of their ornaments, and delivered to the flames: and the tutelary saints, both Hilary of Poitiers and Martin of Tours, forgot their miraculous powers in the defence of their own sepulchres. A victorious line of march had been prolonged above a thousand miles, from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks of the Loire," &c. There came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth, &c. When the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and practise, &c. Dan. viii. 23, 24. And there went out another horse that was red (another religion, and of an opposite character, than the Christian) and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and there was given unto him a great sword. Rev. vi. 4. That the Saracens acted up to the character of a woe, may receive, though scarcely requiring, a specific illustration. "Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous,-it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these roving barbarians; and in the familiar intercourse of war, they learned to see and to despise the splendid weakness both of Rome and of Persia. From Mecca to the Euphrates, the Arabian tribes were confounded by the Greeks and Latins, under the general name of SARACENS, a name which every Christian mouth has been taught to pronounce with terror and abhorrence.”+ + * Gibbon's Hist. vol. x. pp. 1, 2, chap. 52. Ibid. vol. ix. pp. 382, 383, c. 51. A still more specific illustration may be given, of the power, like unto that of scorpions, which was given them. Not only was their attack speedy and vigorous, but "the nice sensibility of honour, which weighs the insult rather than the injury, sheds its deadly venom on the quarrels of the Arabs :-an indecent action, a contemptuous word, can be expiated only by the blood of the offender; and such is their patient inveteracy, that they expect whole months and years the opportunity of revenge."* And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads, ver. 4. On the sounding of the first angel, the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up, chap. viii. ver. 7. It was in the conflagration of the whole country that the aged Claudian saw and lamented the sure fate of his contemporary trees; and the pastures of Gaul, with the well-cultivated farms on the banks of the Rhine, were suddenly changed into a desert, distinguished only from the solitude of nature by the smoking ruins. The consuming flames of war spread over the greatest part of the seventeen provinces of Gaul. Such, in that respect, is the testimony of Gibbon; and no less clearly does he illustrate the directly opposite fact, which as remarkably distinguished the incursions of the Saracens. They were a permanent woe—and the smoke of the great furnace, from the bottomless pit, passed not away like the storm of hail and of fire. The sons of the desert sought to claim and to keep as their own the fairest portions, if not the whole, of Asia and of Europe. They tormented men even as * Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. p. 238, c. 50. |