Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/155

Rh not make up its mind to become Christian. Wavering between Judaism and Christianity, between native superstition and memories of the old patriarchal worship, disgusted by the mythological elements which the Indo-European race had introduced into the heart of Christianity, she would return to the religion of Abraham. She founded Islamism. Islamism rose up in its turn with an immense superiority in the midst of the debased religions of Asia. With a single blow it overturned Parsee-ism, which had been strong enough to triumph over Christianity under the Sassanides, and reduced it to the position of a petty sect. India also saw, in turn, but without being converted, the Divine Unity proclaimed victoriously in the midst of her ancient Pantheon. Islamism, in a word, brought over to Monotheism, nearly all those pagan lands which Christianity had not yet converted. It is finishing its mission in our times by the conquest of Africa, which is now becoming almost entirely Mahometan. Thus with a few