prevails is just.  In other words, if Mohammedanism, by any means it may choose to use, proves itself more formidable than other religions, then it ought to prevail.  Suppose that the victories of the Saracens had extended over Europe, as well as Asia and Africa,—­had not been arrested by Charles Martel,—­would Carlyle then have preferred Mohammedanism 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 penetrated southward into India farther than had Alexander the Great, and westward until they had subdued the northern kingdoms of Africa, and carried their arms to the Pillars of Hercules; yea, to the cities of the Goths in Spain, and were only finally arrested in Europe by the heroism of Charles Martel.