With the advent of the power of Christianity in Spain, in the Sixth Century, a sad change took place. It marked the beginning of the martyrology of the Jews in Europe. Thousands were massacred, thousands were dragged to the baptismal font, thousands were forced to take the staff of exile. But not for long. A deliverer arose from the Arabian peninsula and hastened to their rescue. This Arabian people, agile in the use of arms, dexterous in the training of horses, capable of sustaining great fatigue and hardship, and, true to the Semitic race, intellectual and sagacious, had lived till late in the Sixth Century a peaceful, nomadic life. Suddenly they were awakened out of their religious and political inactivity by their great leader Mohammed, the prophet. He kindled in their hearts the fire of enthusiasm, and led them forth to establish throughout the world his faith and his dominion. Asia submitted, Africa submitted. The early dawn of the Eighth Century saw them, where the African continent protrudes boldly to meet the continent of Europe, casting wistful glances across the straits of Hercules, upon Andalusia's beauteous lands. The exiled Jews and Christians, roused to rebellion by the religious and political tyranny of Spain, conspired with the Mohammedan invaders, and the portals of Spain were opened to the people of Arabia, and Europe to the creed of Mohammed. The exiled Jews returned to their country, and the baptized to their cherished faith, for the Arab-Moors tolerated both the Hebrew people and their faith. Moorish and Jewish skill and industry and intelligence united, and united they became--and they maintained that distinction for many centuries--the most prosperous and most intellectual people of Europe, at a time when the rest of Europe was numbed into a death-like torpor, mentally spell-bound, industrially entranced, politically enslaved, morally degraded and religiously fettered, by a corrupt priestcraft, to ignorance and superstition. Eight centuries long Jew and Moor toiled side by side, and during all these centuries, the Jews, with some few exceptions, politically tolerated, and religiously free, arose to great wealth and commercial importance, clothed honorably high political offices, and occupied a social and intellectual position never equalled in Europe before or since. But the Mohammedan power began to wane, and with its waning came the terrible change in the fortunes of the Hebrew people. With Moorish decline awakened the eagerness of the Spaniards for the provinces from which the Arabian invaders had driven them, and with it grew a most fanatical zeal for the expulsion from its territories of every belief save that of Christianity.