Charlemagne, a German, was in the year 800 crowned Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire at Rome, and had displaced the Caesars as the head of Christendom.

Besides that, the “Bishop of Rome,” as he was once called, had now become the Pope, the Vicar of Christ on Earth; and as the power of the rival emperors declined, the power of the Pope increased; so that Rome, as the spiritual head of Christendom, was now superior to Constantinople.

While the Goths were breaking in pieces the Roman Empire, and while Constantinople was growing in splendor, important events were happening in far-off Asia.

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In the year 569, there was born in Arabia a child who altered the whole course of history.  His name was Mahomet.

As the Mahometan religion has always been a scourge and a curse, you would naturally suppose its founder was a bad man.  But on the contrary he was a very good man, and had a great desire to make his people better.

The Arabians had a corrupt form of idolatry which came from the Persians, and worshipped not one, but a great many gods.

Mahomet sincerely believed that he was inspired by the one true and great God to overthrow this old religion and to establish a pure and true one.

Under this inspiration he wrote the Koran, which is the Mahometan Bible.  This book told them of the sins they must not commit, and of the joys which hereafter awaited those who should be faithful to the teachings of the one God and his prophet Mahomet.

The fatal element in this religion was its cruelty.  The Prophet had declared that it should be enforced with the sword, that it should be:  the Koran—­or death!

It spread with the fury of a conflagration.  The Arabs, or Saracens, as they were called, conquered Persia and Syria and Egypt.  After that they began to look enviously at Constantinople and to dream of universal empire like the Romans.  They were not a horde of ignorant barbarians like the Goths.  They came from an ancient seat of learning, and their leaders were men of knowledge and attainments far beyond anything existing in Europe at that time.

In the year 710, like a flock of vultures a great Mahometan host swooped down upon Christian Europe.

Spain was the extreme western limit of the Roman Empire.  It was the plan of these terrible Saracens, after conquering Spain, to sweep over the Pyrenees into France.  Then another Saracen army, after conquering Constantinople, was to flow westward, and the two streams would meet at Rome.

It was a very nice plan—­for the Saracens!  But they did not get over the Pyrenees.  Nor did they take Constantinople until six hundred years later.  So they were content to establish themselves firmly in Spain and upon the African coast opposite, and bided their time.

After the occupation of Northern Africa and Spain, they were no longer call Saracens, but Moors.  They lingered in Spain until the discovery of America; and the final expulsion of the Moors from the Spanish peninsula, which was effected with great cruelty, took place during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.  They made Spain beautiful, and they made it great.