more full description, as most appropriately adapted to the more detailed prediction, we would here leave to Gibbon the unintentional task of illustrating the word. And it will hardly be a tax on the attention of the reader, to observe how the pages of the sceptic teem with responses to the prophet-how incidentally he shows that Christians then looked to the saints for protection-how they were honoured, and their altars enriched with gold and silver and precious things-how such transgressions had come to the full, and idolatry was established in Rome, under the authority of the Pope, when the king of the south pushed at him-how the false and apostate form of papal worship is associated in the same page of history, as well as of prophecy, with the invasion of the Saracens, and how, coming at the time, and executing their appointed work, they neither surpassed their commission, nor came short of their charge. "The commodious harbour of Palermo was chosen for the seat of the naval and military power of the Saracens. Syracuse preserved, about fifty years, the faith which she had sworn to Christ and to Cæsar. In the last and fatal siege, her citizens displayed some remnant of the spirit which had formerly resisted the powers of Athens and Carthage. They stood above twenty days against the battering rams and catapulta, the mines and tortoises of the besiegers; and the place might have been relieved, if the mariners of the imperial fleet had not been detained at Constantinople, in building a church to the Virgin Mary. The relics were still precious: the plate of the cathedral weighed five thousand pounds of silver, &c. The Arabian squadrons issued from the harbours of Palermo, Bisorta, and Tunis; an hundred and fifty towns of Calabria, and Campania, were attacked and pillaged; nor could the suburbs of Rome be defended, by the name of Cæsars and apostles. Had the Mahometans been united, Italy must have fallen an easy, a glorious accession to the empire of the prophet. But the califs of Bagdad had lost their authority in the west; the Aglabites and Fatimites usurped the provinces of Africa; the emirs of Sicily aspired to independence; and the design of conquest and dominion was degraded to a repetition of predatorý inroads. 5 "In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a solemn and mournful recollection. A fleet of Saracens from the African coast, presumed to enter the mouth of the Tyber, and to approach the city, which even yet in her fallen state, was revered as the metropolis of the Christian world. The gates and ramparts were guarded by a trembling people; but the tombs and temples of St. Peter and St. Paul were left exposed in the suburbs of the Vatican and the Ostian Way. Their invisible sanctity had protected them against the Goths, the Vandals, and the Lombards; but the Arabs disdained both the gospel and the legend; and their rapacious spirit was approved and animated by the precepts of the Koran. The Christian idols were stripped of their costly offerings; a silver altar was torn away from the shrine of St. Peter; and if the bodies or the buildings were left entire, their deliverance must be imputed to the haste rather than the scruples of the Saracens. In their course along the Appian Way, they pillaged Fundi and besieged Gayeta; but they had turned aside from the walls of Rome, and, by their division, the capitol was saved from the yoke of the prophet of Mecca.The siege of Gayeta was raised, and part of the enemy, with their sacrilegious plunder, perished in the waves. But the storm which had been delayed, soon burst upon them with redoubled violence. A fleet of Arabs and Moors, after a short refreshment in the harbours of Sardinia, cast anchor before the mouth of the Tyber, sixteen miles from the city; and their discipline and numbers appeared to threaten, not a transient inroad, but a serious design of conquest and dominion. But the vigilance of Leo had formed an alliance with the vassals of the Greek empire, the free and maritime states of Gayeta, Naples, and Amalis; and in the hour of danger their gallies appeared in the port of Ostia, under the command of Cæsarius.-With his principal companions he was invited to the Lateran palace, and the dexterous pontiff affected to inquire their errand, and to accept with joy and suprise their providential succour. The city bands, in arms, attended their father to Ostia, where he arrived and blessed his generous deliverers. They kissed his feet, and received the communion with martial devotion, &c. victory inclined to the side of the allies, when it was less gloriously decided in their favour by a sudden tempest, which confounded the skill and courage of the stoutest mariners. The sword and the gibbet reduced the dangerous number of captives; and the remainder was more usefully employed to restore the sacred edifices, which they had attempted to The subvert. The pontiff, at the head of the citizens and allies, paid his grateful devotion at the shrines of the apostles; and among the spoils of this naval victory, thirteen Arabian bows, of pure and massy silver, were suspended round the altar of the fishermen of Galilee. The reign of Leo IV. was employed in the defence and ornament of the Roman state. The churches were renewed and embellished; near four thousand pounds of silver were consecrated to repair the losses of St. Peter; and his sanctuary was decorated with a plate of gold, the weight of two hundred and sixteen pounds, embossed with the portraits of the pope and emperor, and encircled with a string of pearls.' The king of the south pushed at the pontiff, who honoured tutelar saints with gold and silver, and precious stones, and pleasant things. The califs fixed their royal residence at Bagdad, conquered many provinces of the Roman empire, assaulted Rome, and for three hundred years were a woe to Christendom-which retained the name after the worship of God was corrupted, and the spirit of a holy faith was lost. The empire of the Saracens was undermined by luxury. Often did it push from without, against the territories of Rome. But at last it fell—and a new enemy, (a second and more lasting woe,) arose, and another king,-like the king of Egypt and the king of Syria, the papal monarch, and the king of the Saracens,-the first of a long race, who occupied his place, and exercised his power, and were identified by his name,-appeared upon the scene, who finally subverted the throne of the Cæsars, and for ever dispossessed the pope of half the church, over which he had assumed an universal sovereignty. And the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships, and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over. Ver. 40. Fallen as it is, the rise of the Ottoman empire now "Gibbon's Hist, vol, x. pp. 61—65. c. 52, sounds like the announcement of an ancient tale. And Europe has forgotten the dread with which it once was inspired. A brief recapitulation, in the words of history, of their rise and progress, will serve to show how this prophecy preserves its precision to the last. The decline of the Saracens and the rise of the Turks, together with the distinct declaration of their relative local position, is stated in a single sentence by Gibbon. "When the Arabian conquerors had spread themselves over the east, and were mingled with the servile crowds of Persia, Syria, and Egypt, they insensibly lost the free-born and martial virtues of the desert. The courage OF THE SOUTH is the artificial fruit of discipline and prejudice; the active power of enthusiasm had decayed, and the mercenary forces of the caliphs were recruited in those climates of THE NORTH, of which valour is the hardy and spontaneous production. Of the Turks who dwelt beyond the Oxus and Jaxartes, the robust youths, either taken in war or purchased in trade, were educated in the exercises of the field, and the profession of the Mahometan faith."* The woes of Christendom there met and merged into each other, and the one appeared in its embryo form as the other declined and decayed, -the first, in its old age, fostering the second in its youth. "The thrones of Asia were occupied by slaves and soldiers of Turkish extraction. A swarm of these northern shepherds overspread the kingdoms of Persia ; their princes, of the race of Seljuk, erected a splendid and solid empire, from Samarcand to the confines of Greece and Egypt; and the Turks have maintained their dominion in Asia Minor, till the victorious crescent has been planted on the dome of St. Sophia."+ "In the decline of the caliphs, and the weakness of their lieutenants, the barrier of the Jaxartes was often violated. In each invasion, after the victory or retreat of their countrymen, some wandering tribe, embracing the Mahometan * Gibbon, vol. x. p. 72, c. 52, A. D. 832-870. faith, obtained a free encampment in the spacious plains and pleasant climate of Transoxiana and Carizme. The Turkish slaves who aspired to the throne, encouraged their emigrations, which recruited their armies, awed these subjects and rivals, and protected the frontier against the wilder natives of Turkestan; and this policy was abused by Mahmud the Gaznevide, beyond the example of former times. He was admonished of his error by a chief of the race of Seljuk, who dwelt in the territory of Bochara. The sultan had inquired what supply of men he could furnish for military service. 'If you send,' replied Ishmael, 'one of these arrows into our camp, fifty thousand of your servants will mount on horseback. And if that number,' continued Mahmud, 'should not be sufficient?' Send this second arrow to the horde of Balik, and you will find fifty thousand more.' . But,' said the Gaznevide, dissembling his anxiety, 'if I should stand in need of the whole force of your kindred tribes?' patch my bow,' was the last reply of Ishmael, and as it is circulated around, the summons will be obeyed by two hundred thousand horse.' The shepherds were converted into robbers; the bands of robbers were collected into an army of conquerors; as far as Ispahan and the Tigris, Persia was afflicted by their predatory inroads; and the Turkmans were not ashamed or afraid to measure their courage and numbers with the proudest sovereigns of Asia.-The memorable day (or battle,) of Zendecan founded in Persia the dynasty of the shepherd kings. The victorious Turkmans immediately proceeded to the election of A KING.”* • Des "The whole Turkish nation embraced with fervour and sincerity the religion of Mahomet.”† "The Roman emperors were SUDDENLY ASSAULTED by an unknown race of barbarians, who united the Scythian valour with the fanaticism of new proselytes, and the art and riches of a powerful monarchy. The myriads of Turkish horse overspread a frontier of six hundred miles, from Taurus to Arzeroum; and the blood of one hundred and thirty thousand Christians was a grateful sacrifice to the Arabian prophet. Alp Arsan passed the Euphrates at the head of the Turkish cavalry, and entered Cæsaria, the metropolis of Cappadocia, to which he had been attracted by the fame and wealth of the temple of St. Basil. The solid structure resisted the destroyer; but he carried away the doors of the shrine, encrusted with gold and pearls, and profaned the relics of the tutelar Gibbon, pp. 342, 343, 344. + Ibid. p. 347. |