The companions of the Prophet have likewise not been spared from the earliest times. So that the barbarity with which Cardinal Ximenes burnt the marvellous libraries of the Moslems of Spain should be forgotten, many calumniators invented the famous legend of the conflagration of the libraries of Alexandria, by order of the Caliph Umar, thus fully showing the slanderers' great disdain for chronology. These collections of books had not been in existence for several centuries when Islam was revealed to the world. The first library, that of Bruchium, containing four hundred thousand volumes, was destroyed by fire during the war of Cæsar against the Alexandrians; and the second, that of Serapeum, comprising two hundred thousand volumes, bequeathed by Antony, was completely pillaged in the reign of Theodosius. These ridiculous legends are dying out gradually at the present day; and yet we prefer their candid fanaticism to the malicious calumny with which certain writers, still impregnated with medieval passionate partiality, try from behind a screen of Oriental science, to belittle one of the men who do the most honour, not only to history, but to the history of humanity. After having adopted the modern civilisation of Christians, may not the Moslems conclude by adopting their religion as well? To answer this question, we need only quote the opinion of an author who, although a fervent Christian, acknowledges facts most loyally. In the course of a remarkable study of Islam, he writes: "Islam is the only religion which has no recreants--It is very difficult, if not impossible, to form an exact idea of the spiritual state of a Moslem evangelized by a Christian. We can only imagine something very near it, by trying to realise in our minds the feelings of an enlightened Christian whom an idolater might be trying to convert to his gross, superstitious cult." (_L'Islam_, by Comte Henry de Castries.) Islam, in spite of its irreducibleness, offers Christians many proofs of its feelings of veneration towards Jesus. Therefore, whence comes the hatred with which the followers of Christ pursue Mohammad even in our present century of tolerance--not to say religious indifference? Is it because of its Asiatic origin? Was not Christianism essentially Asiatic, before Saint Paul had stripped it of Jewish trappings? Jesus declared: 'I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' (ST. MATTHEW, XV, 24.) Is it because of its doctrine? The doctrine of Islam is almost the same as that of certain Protestant sects. Is it because of the remembrance of the Crusades? Despite the years that are past, this remembrance has still disastrous influence over many ignorant minds, but if that was all, it would not suffice to explain away the ostracism shown in Europe to Islam. We must seek therefore some other cause, and we find it furnished by the example of the only religion really reviled and persecuted in the same way.