The History of Christianity - John S. C. Abbott (bookstand for reading .txt) 📗

rich caravan, which greatly elated and enriched his followers, and extended his fame. At length, he encountered governmental resistance. His little army was utterly routed; and Mohammed fled, wounded and bleeding, from the field. Though the repulse seemed for a short time to shake the faith of his followers, he soon rallied them by the assurance that it was in consequence of their sins that God had given them this transient reverse, but that God had promised that all who were slain in his battles should be immediately translated to a paradise of exquisite and eternal bliss.

Crowds flocked to his camp. New battles were fought, and victories won. His disciples became rich and exultant. His religion, consisting mainly of outward forms, was as easy of practice as any part of the military drill. He was soon at the head of ten thousand soldiers inspired with all the ferocity which religious fanaticism could engender. The number rapidly increased to thirty thousand. No power could be brought into the field to resist him. Nearly all Arabia, ignorant, religionless, and greedy of plunder, enlisted under a banner which brought its followers fame, adventure, and wealth. It is no longer to be wondered at that Mohammed by these means eventually found himself at the head of a hundred and fifty thousand of the fiercest warriors earth had ever known. To the pagans, one religion was as good as another. To exchange religions was like exchanging garments. It was comparatively easy to make proselytes among a barbarian people who had no settled convictions of truth, and to whom there could be offered the most attractive of temporal as well as eternal rewards.

Gibbon gives the following account of the personal appearance and intellectual endowments of this wonderful man:—

“According to the traditions of his companions, Mohammed was distinguished by the beauty of his person. Before he spoke, the orator engaged on his side the affections of a public or a private audience: they applauded his commanding presence, his majestic aspect, his piercing eye, his gracious smile, his flowing beard, his countenance that painted every sensation of the soul, and his gestures that enforced each expression of the tongue.

“In the familiar offices of life, he scrupulously adhered to the grave and ceremonious politeness of his country. His respectful attention to the rich and powerful was dignified by his condescension and affability to the poorest citizens of Mecca. The frankness of his manners concealed the artifice of his views; and the habits of courtesy were imputed to personal friendship or universal benevolence. His memory was capacious and retentive, his wit easy and social, his imagination sublime, his judgment clear, rapid, and decisive.

“He possessed the courage both of thought and action; and, although his designs might gradually expand with his success, the first idea he entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an original and superior genius. The son of Abdallah was educated in the bosom of the noblest race, in the use of the purest dialect; and the fluency of his speech was corrected and enhanced by the practice of discreet and seasonable silence. With these powers of eloquence, Mohammed was an illiterate barbarian. His youth had never been instructed in the arts of reading and writing. The common ignorance exempted him from shame and reproach; but he was reduced to a narrow circle of existence, and deprived of those faithful mirrors which reflect to our mind the minds of sages and heroes.”

Mohammed, like Emanuel Swedenborg, accepted both the Old and New Testament as of divine origin. He professed the most profound respect for both Moses and Jesus Christ as prophets sent from God. “Verily Christ Jesus,” writes Mohammed, “the son of Mary, is the Apostle of God, and his Word, which he conveyed unto Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from him, honorable in this world and in the world to come, and one of those who approach near to the presence of God.”198

Our Saviour had promised, that, after his departure from this world, he would send the Paraclete, or Holy Ghost, as a guide and comforter to his disciples. “But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.”199 Mohammed assumed that he was this divinely-commissioned Comforter. The Koran was produced in fragments to meet emergencies; and it was not until two years after the death of Mohammed that these fragments were collected in a single volume. This Koran is one of the most stupid of books, full of incoherent rhapsody and turgid declamation, from which it is difficult to extract a sentiment or an idea. Very few men in Christendom have found patience to read it.

Mohammed at first imposed upon his disciples the daily obligation of fifty prayers. Finding this too onerous to be borne, he diminished the number to five, which were to be performed daily, regardless of any engagements or any surroundings. These seasons of prayer were at daybreak, at noon, in the middle of the afternoon, in the evening, and at the first watch of the night. His precepts of morality were drawn from the Old and New Testaments. Friday was appointed as the Mohammedan sabbath, and vigorous fasts were enforced. All intoxicating drinks were positively interdicted. The Mussulman was enjoined to consecrate one-tenth of his income to charitable purposes. The doctrines of the resurrection and the final judgment were maintained.

“The sword,” says Mohammed, “is the key of heaven and of hell. A drop of blood shed in the cause of God, or a night spent in arms, is of more avail than two months of fasting or prayer. Whoever falls in battle, his sins are forgiven. At the day of judgment his wounds shall be resplendent as vermilion, and odoriferous as musk; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied with the wings of angels and cherubim.”

This remarkable man died on the 7th of June, 632. His character was by no means blameless when judged by the standard of Christianity. Whenever he wished to indulge in any crime, he could easily find a fresh revelation authorizing him to do so. Major Price, after the most careful examination of documentary evidence, speaks as follows of his death:—

“In tracing the circumstances of Mohammed’s sickness, we look in vain for any proofs of that meek and heroic firmness which might be expected to dignify and embellish the last moments of the apostle of God. On some occasions he betrayed such want of fortitude, such marks of childish impatience, as are in general to be found in men only of the most ordinary stamp; and such as extorted from his wife Ayesha, in particular, the sarcastic remark, that, in herself or any of her family, a similar demeanor would long since have incurred his severe displeasure. He said that the acuteness and violence of his sufferings were necessarily in the proportion of those honors with which it had ever pleased the hand of Omnipotence to distinguish its peculiar favorites.”200

Immediately after the death of Mohammed, his disciples pushed their conquests with amazing energy. In the course of a few centuries, they overran all of Egypt and of Asia Minor, and established the most stern and unrelenting despotism earth has ever known. Their military organization and prowess were such, that they could bring into the field a more powerful army than any other nation.

They crossed the Bosphorus into Europe, and stormed Christian Constantinople with six hundred vessels of war and an army of three hundred thousand troops. Sixty thousand of the inhabitants of Constantinople were massacred in cold blood. The Christian maidens were dragged shrieking into the Moslem harems. The boys of tender age were compelled, under the blows of the scourge and of the cimeter, to adopt the religion of the Prophet, and to enlist under his banner. Thus the whole Eastern or Greek empire was soon blotted out. The crescent of Mohammed supplanted the cross of Christ over all the towers of the imperial city. The head of the Christian was crushed by the heel of the Turk.

The conqueror, assuming the title of Mohammed II., prepared to invade Italy. It was his boast that he would feed his horse from the altar of St. Peter’s, in Rome. He crossed the Adriatic, took Otranto, and was in the onward career of victory, with every prospect of annexing Italy to the Mohammedan empire, when he died. There was then a short respite for imperilled Christendom. But soon the flood of Mohammedan invasion rolled up the Danube in surges of flame and blood. Year after year, and generation after generation, the valley of this majestic stream was but a constant battle-field, where Christian and Moslem grappled each other in the death-struggle.

One of these marches up the Danube is worthy of more minute record. It was leafy June: luxuriant foliage and gorgeous flowers decorated the banks of the river with loveliness which attracted the admiration even of semi-barbarian eyes. The turbulent host, counting within its ranks two hundred and fifty thousand veteran warriors, for many days sauntered joyously along, encountering no foe. War seemed but the pastime of a festival-day. Banners floated gayly in the breeze; music enlivened the march. Arabian chargers pranced proudly beneath their riders, glittering in Oriental gorgeousness of costume. A fleet of gayly-decorated barges filled the stream, impelled by sails when the wind favored, and urged by rowers when the winds were adverse.

Each night, upon some smooth expanse of the river’s banks, the white tents of the invaders were spread, and a city of nearly two hundred thousand inhabitants rose as by magic, with its grassy streets and squares, its busy population, its trumpet-peals from martial bands, and its bannered magnificence blazing in all the regalia of war. Like a fairy vision the city rose in the rays of the declining sun; and like a vision it disappeared in the early dawn of the morning, and the mighty host moved on.

But the black day came. The Turks had ascended the river about a hundred and fifty miles, when they came to a small island called Zigeth. It was strongly fortified, and commanded both banks of the stream. Not another mile could the Moslems advance till this fortress was battered down. Zrini, the heroic Christian commander, and his whole garrison of six thousand men, took an oath that they would surrender the post only with their lives.

Day and night, week after week, the assault continued unintermitted. The besieged, with guns in battery to sweep all approaches, mowed down their assailants with awful carnage; but bastion after bastion was crumbled by the tremendous cannonade of the Moslems: the walls of solid masonry were battered down till they presented but a shapeless pile of rocks. The Turks, reckless of life, like swarming bees swept over the smouldering ruins. They had apparently cut down every inmate of the fort; and, with shouts of victory, were raising the crescent over the blackened and blood-stained rocks, when there was an earthquake roar, and an explosion almost as appalling as the thunders of the archangel’s trump.

Zrini had fired the subterranean vaults containing thousands of kegs of powder. The whole citadel—men, horses, rocks, and artillery—was thrown into the air, and fell a commingled mass of ruin, fire, and blood. The Turks, having lost their leader and a large part of their army, retreated, exhausted and bleeding, but only to gather strength to renew the strife.

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