thrown at Aisnaddin, and had left behind 50,000 of their number slain upon the field. And now the last resources of the Empire have been taxed to put in array another army, on whose valor all hope depends.

But in vain is their valor against that army of shouting fanatics. "Allah Achbar" they cry as they rush to the charge, their long hair like women's floating behind, their yellow turbans gleaming like crowns upon their heads, a lion-like fierceness distorting their faces, and their arrows, shot backward even in retreat, sharper and more deadly than scorpions' stings. "Paradise is before, and hell-fire in your rear," shout the generals, and with one common impulse they spur their fleet steeds to furious speed and fall like a rolling rock upon the astonished foe.

It is not in mortal valor to withstand so fierce and desperate an onset. The Romans fight well but they fight vainly. Their ranks are soon broken, and those fiery horsemen dash into the breaches and trample them down, and only a fragment of the beaten army escapes in safety from that field of blood. The Roman Emperor can no longer keep the field.

Syria is open to the arms of Caled, "the sword of God," and now begins a career of conquest which the world will never forget.

From province to province, from city to city, he leads his invincible horsemen, and no barrier is found able to resist his course. His orders are strict. Neither tree nor harvests are to be hurt, but to the "Christian dogs," the worshippers of images, the only choice offered is "the sword, the tribute, or the Koran," death, slavery, or the profession of Islamism. In six years all Syria is ravaged from Antioch to Jerusalem. Egypt and Alexandria fall almost at the same time. And then the tide of invasion rolls along

the shores of the Mediterranean, spans the whole breadth of Africa, crosses the straits of Gibraltar, spreads out over Spain, surges up over the Pyrenees and rushes down upon southern France, and is only stayed at last by the arms and valor of Charles Martel in the colossal seven days fight on the plains of Tours; and the Arabian Empire, after a century of unchecked conquest, extends from East to West two hundred days' journey, from the confines of Tartary and India to the Pyrenees mountains and the Atlantic shores.

In the meanwhile the trembling Emperor retires to his capital, and the insatiate foe sweeps over the fertile provinces of Lesser Asia, demolishing the churches, destroying the images and dealing out death or slavery to all who dare to call themselves by the name of Christian. Who shall tell what weight of woe is contained in the simple statement of the historian that in the first ten years of the wars upon the empire, THIRTY-SIX THOUSAND cities and castles were captured, and FOUR THOUSAND churches and temples were levelled with the ground? And the effeminate citizens of Constantinople had time for serious thought while shivering in terror and want behind their beleagured walls during two lengthened sieges, the combined durations of which sum up the period of eight full years! Yet the city fell not, for its time was not fully come.

But from the year 612, when Mahomet first proclaimed the mission of the sword, to the year 762, when civil dissensions had broken the power of the Caliphs and caused the removal of the seat of government from Damascus to Bagdad on the distant Tigris, is five times thirty, or one hundred and fifty years, exactly five prophetic months.

Most marvellous is this fulfillment of the prophetic word: “AND THE FIFTH ANGEL SOUNDED, AND I SAW A STAR FROM HEAVEN

FALLEN UNTO THE EARTH: AND THERE WAS GIVEN TO HIM THE KEY OF THE PIT OF THE ABYSS.

"AND HE OPENED THE PIT OF THE ABYSS; AND THERE WENT UP A SMOKE OUT OF THE PIT, AS THE SMOKE OF A GREAT FURNACE; AND THE SUN AND THE AIR WERE DARKENED BY REASON OF THE SMOKE OF THE PIT.

"AND OUT OF THE SMOKE CAME FORTH LOCUSTS UPON THE EARTH;

AND POWER WAS GIVEN THEM AS THE SCORPIONS OF THE EARTH HAVE POWER.

"AND IT WAS SAID UNTO THEM THAT THEY SHOULD NOT HURT THE GRASS OF THE EARTH, NEITHER ANY GREEN THING, NEITHER ANY TREE, BUT ONLY SUCH MEN AS HAVE NOT THE SEAL OF GOD ON THEIR

FOREHEADS.

"AND IT WAS GIVEN THEM THAT THEY SHOULD NOT KILL THEM, BUT THAT THEY SHOULD BE TORMENTED FIVE MONTHS: AND THEIR TORMENT WAS AS THE TORMENT OF A SCORPION, WHEN IT STRIKETH A MAN. "AND IN THOSE DAYS MEN SHALL SEEK DEATH, AND SHALL IN NOWISE FIND IT; AND THEY SHALL DESIRE TO DIE, AND DEATH FLEETH FROM THEM.

"AND THE SHAPES OF THE LOCUSTS WERE LIKE UNTO HORSES PREPARED FOR WAR; AND UPON THEIR HEADS AS IT WERE CROWNS LIKE UNTO GOLD, AND THEIR FACES WERE AS MEN'S FACES.

"AND THEY HAD HAIR AS THE HAIR OF WOMEN, AND THEIR TEETH

WERE AS THE TEETH OF LIONS.

"AND THEY HAD BREAST-PLATES, AS IT WERE BREAST-PLATES OF IRON; AND THE SOUND OF THEIR WINGS WAS AS THE SOUND OF CHARIOTS OF MANY HORSES RUSHING TO WAR. AND THEY HAVE TAILS LIKE

UNTO SCORPIONS, AND STINGS; AND IN THEIR TAILS IS THEIR POWER TO HURT MEN FIVE MONTHS.

"THEY HAVE OVER THEM AS KING THE ANGEL OF THE ABYSS: HIS NAME IN HEBREW IS ABADDON, AND IN THE Greek tongue HE HATH THE NAME APOLLYON. THE FIRST WOE IS PAST: BEHOLD, THERE COME YET TWO WOES HEREAFTER."

Those who had wielded the proselyting sword, were themselves made to feel its sharpest edge, and idolaters who had called themselves Christians were scourged by the Pagan haters of idols; still they repented not.

We take now a long stride in history of more than three centuries to the year 1095. The scene is laid in France, in the city of Boulogne.

A vast concourse is gathered under the open sky, listening to an impassioned harangue, and never was orator more strange and eccentric than the monk who addresses them.

His figure is diminutive. His feet no less than his head are bare. His shrunken body is covered only by a coarse cloth, held in place by a leathern girdle. But there is a fire in his eye, and a thrilling passion in the tones of his voice that rivet the attention of every one of his vast audience. He tells them of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship at the holy sepulchre, and how he was insulted and beaten and almost slain by the Turkish tyrants who have conquered the Saracens, and have now for twenty years reigned in the city of David.

He tells how the Christians who live there are in sorrow and fear, how their venerable patriarch has been dragged along the street by the hair and cast into prison, to extort a ransom, and how even the solemnities of divine worship in the Church of the