It has often been maintained by the enemies of the Turk that his Mohammedan fanaticism makes his continued occupation of any portion of Christian Europe undesirable. But in justice to the votaries of the Moslem creed one ought to bear in mind, in the first place, that early Mohammedanism never persecuted the Christian religion in the ferocious fashion that Christianity persecuted Mohammedanism, as for example in Spain. The Moslems were taught that it was their duty to convert or exterminate the idolatrous heathen, but to respect “the people of the book.” Did not Mohammed himself spread his cloak upon the ground for the Christian envoys who came to him, treating them with honour; and do not the Mussulmans believe that on the day of judgment the Judge will be Jesus Christ, while the Prophet Mohammed will stand at His side as the Intercessor? When the Turks conquered the territories of the Christians they did not massacre the Christians, neither as a rule did they enslave them, and they did not interfere with their religion; under the more equitable Moslem rule the conquered Greeks found themselves less heavily taxed and generally better off than they had been under the rule of the emperors of the decaying Byzantine Empire. To Jews also, as being worshippers of the one God, they extended a like tolerance; and it was to Turkey—where they are numerous and prosperous and still speak an old Spanish dialect—that the Jews fled when they were driven out of Spain by the persecutions of Ferdinand and Isabella.