Sandjak-cherif, or the standard of the prophet, is so revered among them, that, notwithstanding its reputation has been so often tarnished, it still retains their implicit confidence, and is the sacred ensign to which they rally. Every thing proclaims its sanctity. None but the Emirs are allowed to touch it-they are its guards, and it is carried by their chief. The mussulmauns alone are permitted to look upon it; if touched by other hands it would be defiled; if seen by other eyes it would be profaned; in short, it is encompassed the most barbarous fanaticism. "A long peace had unfortunately caused the ridiculousness, and especially the danger, of this ceremony to be forgotten. The Christians imprudently crowded to see it, and the Turks who by the situation of their houses could make money of their windows, began to profit by the advantage; when an Emir, who preceded the banner, proclaimed with a loud voice: Let no infidel dare to profane with his presence the holy standard of the prophet: and let every mussulmaun, who perceives an unbeliever, make it known, under pain of reprobation. "From that moment no asylum was to be found; even those became informers, who, by letting out their houses, were accomplices in the crime. A religious fury seized on every mind, and armed every hand; the more atrocious the cruelty, the more was it meritorious. No regard was paid to age or sex; women with child, dragged by the hair, and trodden under feet by the multitude, perished in the most deplorable manner. Nothing was respected by these monsters." The tomb of Mahomet is always covered with green silk, of which a piece is for that purpose sent every year by the ottoman Sultan to Medina. The pure and benignant faith of him who was "meek and lowly in heart," and gave unto us a new command that we "love one another"-the lamb of God!—is spiritual life"Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life." (S. John, xi. 25.) The sanguinary and carnal creed of islamism, breathing a ferocious hatred of all the professors of every form, mosaic or christian, of revealed truth, is, spiritually DEATH-the name of the rider on the mahometan green horse. The hell, or Hades-the dark abode of the dead or state of insensibility, that followed with him, is the moral and intellectual blindness which necessarily accompanies the establishment of islamism. "And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth". the mahometan power, pervading vast regions of Asia, Africa, and a considerable part of Europe, threatened at one period its extension to the known limits of the globe- -but that was not given to it." To kill with sword and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth" are expressions descriptive of the various forms of desolation, physical, moral, and religious, which attend the triumphs of the moslem arms-the "beasts of the earth," (pecora, quæ natura prona atque ventri obedientia finxit *) may represent both, pravity of moral judgment, and the sensual enjoyments, to * Sallust. + Bestiarum vero nullum judicium puto. Quamvis enim de which alone, here and hereafter, islamism brutalises the hopes and wishes of its dupes. The animal, which announces its claim to the symbols of this seal, is "a flying eagle"-expressive type of mahometan history!--That powerful bird of prey is distinguished equally by the rapidity of his wing, and by the strength of his talons- -emblems of the rapidity and tenacity with which islamism acquired, and has retained, its vast dominion, secular and religious. I have already observed that the colour green has in hebrew, greek, latin, english, and in many other languages, a metaphorical signification of fresh, undecayed.* That signification is not less remarkably peculiar to one of the distinguishing characteristics pravatæ non sint, pravæ tamen esse possunt. Ut bacillumaliud est inflexum et incurvatum de industriâ, aliud ita natum : sic ferarum natura, non est illa quidem depravata malâ disciplinâ, sed naturâ suâ.-Cic. de Fin. lib. 2. cap. 11. * Thus Aristotle uses the words x\wpа πрayμara to signify recent occurrences· facts yet green in memory.-In latin the term viridis, green, is employed to describe, equally, the bloom of youth, and the soundness of a hale, green old age Eyryalus formâ insignis, viridique juventâ.—Æn. v. 294. Jam senior, sed cruda deo viridisque senectus. Æn. vi. 304. In the TRAXINAI of Sophocles, line 1055, Hercules is represented lamenting that the poisoned robe is putting him to a premature death, by consuming his yet "young blood" -εκ δε χλωρον αιμα με πεπωκεν ηδη.. Cicero appears to have mistaken the sense of that passage, which he has translated into of islamism, than the primary and literal sense of the term is significant of the moslem superstition concerning the colour. The history of the christian church is a stream of incessant mutation and, for many ages, of progressive apostacy. Each century-each year, teems with innovation. New swarms of heresies rise from every chapter -new broods of corruption crawl from every page, of Mosheim's ecclesiastical history. It is the narrative of a bright luminary gradually darkened, and, in a part of its western limb, slowly emerging from the almost total eclipse. But the mahometan crescent never wanes. While the christian church has faded from its vernal beauty, through all the shades of "the sear, the yellow leaf" into the withered Jam decolorem sanguinem omnem exsorbuit.—2 Tus. As if Hercules, in a state of maddening torture, could have been thinking of the colour of his blood! The learned Potter was not misled by the error of Cicero, but has well rendered the passage -"already hath it drank The fresh streams of my blood." Cicero's mistake would not appear so extraordinary if we might suppose that he could have been ignorant that Euripides uses the same words, xλwpov aiμa, in a manner that leaves no possibility of doubting that the true meaning of them is young blood in the tragedy of Hecuba the royal captive is informed by the chorus that all the grecian army has concurred in the resolution to sacrifice her daughter Polyxena to the manes of Achilles, to whom she had been betrothed, and to crown his tomb with her pure young blood— τον Αχίλλειον τύμβον στεφανοῦν If the hue of decaying vitality, the history of islamism has been confined entirely to the vicissitudes of the moslem arms; through all of which the religion planted by the impostor stands unblighted; and, in full bearing of its poisonous fruit, still blooms in the perennial verdure of an evergreen. Its apparent immutability seemed to Gibbon little less than marvellous. "It is not the propagation, but the permanency of his religion, that deserves our wonder: the same pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and Medina, is preserved, after the revolutions of twelve centuries, by the Indian, the African, and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran. christian apostles, St. Peter or St. Paul, could return to the Vatican, they might possibly inquire the name of the Deity who is worshipped with such mysterious rites in that magnificent temple: at Oxford or Geneva, they would experience less surprise; but it might still be incumbent on them to peruse the catechism of the church, and to study the orthodox commentators on their own writings and the words of their master. But the Turkish dome of St. Sophia, with an increase of splendour and size, represents the humble tabernacle erected at Medina by the hands of Mahomet. The Mahometans have uniformly withstood the temptation of reducing the object of their faith and devotion to a level with the senses and imagination of man. 'I believe in one God, and Mahomet the apostle of God,' is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any |