CHAP. I.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

83

ranee. Nor does it not savour of tolerance, thatMahomet admits of an exception in favour of thoseof the Book, by which most understand the oldTestament, which includes all Christians—and some,all who believe in God and have a written law.The superstitious corruptions of the Turks andtheir ferocious barbarity must go to their ownaccount. No doubt but they were at least assuperstitious as the most illiterate of the Christianscould be; and the Turkish annalists recount verygravely, how angels or even legions of angelsjoined Islam’s ranks during battle; and at almostevery important event the same writers accompanyit with an eclipse of the sun, darkness over thewhole globe, and the stars visible at broad noonday. The Turks had probably been worse whenidolaters in Scythia, both as to superstition andfierceness; and those of them who had become alittle effeminate and luxurious, also lost somethingof their native coarseness.

The Arabian historians themselves avow that inthe eleventh century the whole East exhibitedfrightful disorder; that it was indeed the mostdisastrous of the periods; that the empire foundedby the successor of Mahomet had melted away;and a wild race from the depths of Tartary reignedover the most delicious of the countries held once

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