the Holy Sepulchre. To this compact unity of Mohammedanism under Koran and caliph, and this wise blending of the terror of arms with peaceful patronage, was due the unparalleled progress of the religion of the Prophet. The Moslem conquests will appear in the story, first of the Saracen, and later that of the Turk. _The Saracens._—During Mohammed’s lifetime Arabia and Syria were beneath his hand. Within eight years following, Persia, parts of Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt submitted to him. Thirteen years more (653) saw the cimeter of the Saracens enclosing an area as large as the Roman empire under the Cæsars. In 668 they assaulted Constantinople. In 707 North Africa surrendered the treasures of its entire coast from the Nile to the Atlantic, and the home of Augustine, the father of Christian orthodoxy, was occupied by the Infidels. In 711 the Saracen general Tarik crossed the straits between the Mediterranean and Atlantic, and landed on the rock which has ever since borne his name—Jebel-Tarik, the “hill of Tarik,” or Gibraltar. By 717 Spain, from the Mediterranean to the Pyrenees, had become the proud conquest of the Moors. But for the timely victory of Charles Martel at Tours, in 732, they had surely subdued France and soon completed the circle of conquest by the desolation of Italy, Germany, and the lands bordering the Balkans. In 847 the Saracens were masters of Sicily, and besieged Rome itself, plundering the suburban churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Thirty years later Pope John VIII. wrote to Charles the Bold: “If all the trees in the forests were turned into tongues, they could not describe the ravages of these impious pagans; the devout people of God is destroyed by a continual slaughter; he who escapes the fire and the sword is carried as a captive into exile. Cities, castles, and villages are utterly wasted and without an inhabitant. The Hagarenes [sons of fornication and wrath] have crossed the Tiber.” In 916 these persistent foes occupied a fortress on the Gangliano, between Naples and Rome, whence they held the papal domain at their mercy, and seizing the persons of pilgrims on their way to the shrine of the apostles, held them for heavy ransom. This stronghold was broken up only by the attack of a powerful confederacy of Italian dukes, aided by the emperors of the East and West. The exigency was so great that, in the estimate of papal apologists, it warranted the action of Pope John X., who arrayed himself in carnal armor and rode at the head of the attacking forces.