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 of Christ (a.d. 1054). But God did not delay to inflict upon them the punishment they had so well deserved. As in former times He had chastised the Israelites for the neglect of His laws, so He now punished the degenerate Christians also. In the beginning of the seventh century (a.d. 622), there had appeared in Arabia an arrogant impostor called Mahomet, who pretended to be a messenger of God, and patched up a new religion out of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian observances and doctrines. At the head of a band of robbers, he first plundered caravans, soon after took cities and countries, and, sword in hand, forced the inhabitants to embrace his religion. His successors, who were called Caliphs, continued, by the force of arms, to subdue one country after another in Asia and Africa, and to spread the doctrine of their false prophet, and, at the same time, barbarism, profligacy, and the most oppressive slavery. Christianity, it is true, was not entirely rooted out in those countries; but being separated from the true Church, it fell into a state of torpidity and debasement, under which it is still languishing at the present time.

40. In the year 637 Jerusalem, the capital of the