tributary, unless he had violated the law, must be voluntary, and the obligation, once assumed, could never be renounced. The favor enjoyed by the renegade was, however, a far more powerful incentive than any that the promises of the ministers of religion could evoke. The apostate was at once received into full social communion with his former masters. He was eligible to the highest political and military honors. In theory, at least, no stigma could attach to his former condition or antecedents. The equality of all men who professed belief in its dogmas was, as is well known, the cardinal principle of the law of the Prophet. To the slave, these considerations appealed with peculiar force. Tens of thousands of this oppressed and degraded caste had been transferred, at a single stroke by the fortunes of war, from the hands of one master to those of another. A host of captives had been taken in battle. In the minds of but few of these unfortunates the obligations of religion were deeply founded. While emancipation did not invariably follow the profession of the faith of Islam, it usually did; and the condition of the slave was always greatly improved by this concession to the prejudices of him who regulated his conduct and controlled his destiny. In view of these facts, there is little wonder that multitudes of slaves embraced the Mussulman doctrines. The religious freedom of the Christians under Moslem rule was mainly dependent on the prejudices of their own clergy, the character of the dominant faction, and the temper of the sovereign. The provisions of the treaties which guaranteed their privileges were at first strictly observed. The general influx of fanatical foreigners, in time, however, created a strong public sentiment against the proscribed tributaries. They were sometimes deprived of their houses of worship. Arbitrary contributions were frequently exacted from them. On one occasion, the Christians of Cordova were compelled to pay into the treasury the sum of a hundred thousand pieces of gold, nearly a million and a quarter dollars. The revenues of the Church were so impaired by these grievous impositions, that ecclesiastics were often forced to engage in commercial pursuits to provide for the pressing necessities of their order. Some carried the manufactures of Cordova to Germany. Others journeyed as peddlers through France. The trading priest of Moorish Spain was well known in the markets of Genoa and Constantinople. Persons in clerical garb were no longer safe in public places. In the time of the Almoravides, when a Christian passed through the streets, the crowd shrank from contact with him as from one stricken with the plague. Religious processions were pelted by mobs of hooting children, and those who took part in them were fortunate if they escaped without serious personal injury. The ringing of the church-bells provoked the loud threats and curses of intemperate zealots. The breaking up