Page:A History of the Knights of Malta, or the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.djvu/27

 amongst these stood that of the Holy Sepulchre, erected by the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great. She had been baptized at the same time as her son, and with all the newly-awakened zeal of a convert, had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. To her is attributed the discovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and upon that site she erected the magnificent pile which bears its name. Her example was followed by Constantine, and by degrees the numerous stately churches and convents which they founded formed the principal adornment of the province.

Jerusalem now became the favoured object of the world's devotion. Religious curiosity had prompted Christians from the earliest times to visit the regions sanctified by their faith. This feeling, supported as it was by the influence of the priesthood, grew in intensity, until at length it became a recognized principle that a pilgrimage to Jerusalem was the most efficacious act by which the penitent could hope to atone for his sins. Vast crowds flocked thither from every corner of Europe to utter a prayer over the tomb of their Saviour, and to gaze on that hallowed spot where He had breathed His last. The very dust of the land was considered sacred in their eyes, and the pious wanderer, on his return, hung his palm branch and pilgrim’s staff over the altar of his parish church, where it remained, not only an emblem of his own devotion, but also an incentive to others to follow his example.

Matters were on this footing when suddenly there arose from the obscurity of the East that wonderful man who was destined to cause a complete revolution, and to become the founder at the same time of a new empire and of a new religion. It will not come within the province of this work to enter into any detail with regard to the rise and progress of Mahomet, who, in the early part of the seventh century, established himself as the prophet of a new faith. Within a very short time from the commencement of his career he had brought the whole of Arabia under his dominion. A fundamental doctrine of his religion being the necessity for its propagation by the power of the sword, the lust of conquest lent its aid to the zeal of fanaticism, and the new creed spread with a rapidity unequalled in the annals of religious propagandism.