Thus year after year these Moslem assaults were continued. Such were the measures the Turks used to convert Europe to Mohammedanism; such were the persuasions urged by the missionaries of the Koran. Shortly after this, the banners of the advance-guard of the Turkish army were seen even from the steeples of Vienna: the majestic host invested the city on all sides. The renowned John Zobieski, King of Poland, came to the rescue with sixty thousand men. Uniting with the German troops, the combined army fell upon the invaders with almost frenzied courage, utterly routed them, and drove them in wild disorder back to Belgrade. Still, through years of blood and woe, these Moslem assaults were continued. The conquering armies of the Prophet took all of Asia, Egypt, Africa, and Greece. They crossed the Straits of Gibraltar from Africa into Spain, overran the whole Spanish Peninsula, and hung like a black cloud upon the northern cliffs of the Pyrenees, threatening the provinces of France. They swept both banks of the Danube to the walls of Vienna. The Austrian royal family fled at midnight. It seemed inevitable that all Europe was to be overrun by the Moslems, and that all Christendom was to be cut down beneath their bloody cimeters. This conflict of Mohammedanism against Christianity continued for five centuries. At one time, the Austrian ambassador at Constantinople wrote to the Emperor Ferdinand in Vienna,―― “When I compare the power of the Turks with our own, the consideration fills me with dismay. I see not how we can resist the destruction which awaits us. They possess great wealth, strength unbroken, a perfect knowledge of the arts of war, patience, union, order, frugality, and a constant state of preparation. “On our side are exhausted finances and universal luxury. Our national spirit is broken by mutinous soldiers, mercenary officers, licentiousness, intemperance, and a total contempt of military discipline. Is it possible to doubt how such an unequal conflict must terminate? The all-conquering Mussulmans will soon rush with undivided strength, and overwhelm all Europe as well as Germany.” Such was the career and the final menaces of Mohammedanism. But the Church is safe: God interposed by his resistless providences. Mohammedanism, everywhere on the wane, exists now only through the toleration of the Christian powers: it is ere long to be buried in the same grave in which the paganism of Greece and Rome lies mouldering in the dust. One foe after another Satan has been marshalling against Christianity; but ever, though sometimes after a strife truly terrific, Christianity has come off the victor. Eighteen centuries have rolled away since the death of Christ; but never was Christianity so vigorous and efficient a power in the world as now. Mohammed himself ever remembered the kindness he had received in the Syrian convent. He left it as one of the injunctions of the Koran,――