commander, dividing his forces into two columns, with one
on the east passed the Rhone, and laid siege to Arles. A Christian army,
attempting the relief of the place, was defeated with heavy loss.
His western column, equally successful, passed the Dordogne, defeated
another Christian army, inflicting on it such dreadful loss that,
according to its own fugitives, "God alone could number the slain." All
Central France was now overrun; the banks of the Loire were reached;
the churches and monasteries were despoiled of their treasures; and
the tutelar saints, who had worked so many miracles when there was no
necessity, were found to want the requisite power when it was so greatly
needed.

The progress of the invaders was at length stopped by Charles Martel
(A.D. 732). Between Tours and Poictiers, a great battle, which lasted
seven days, was fought. Abderahman was killed, the Saracens retreated,
and soon afterward were compelled to recross the Pyrenees.

The banks of the Loire, therefore, mark the boundary of the Mohammedan
advance in Western Europe. Gibbon, in his narrative of these great
events, makes this remark: "A victorious line of march had been
prolonged above a thousand miles from the rock of Gibraltar to the banks
of the Loire--a repetition of an equal space would have carried the
Saracens to the confines of Poland and the Highlands of Scotland."

INSULT TO ROME. It is not necessary for me to add to this sketch of the
military diffusion of Mohammedanism, the operations of the Saracens on
the Mediterranean Sea, their conquest of Crete and Sicily, their insult
to Rome. It will be found, however, that their presence in Sicily
and the south of Italy exerted a marked influence on the intellectual
development of Europe.

Their insult to Rome! What could be more humiliating than the
circumstances under which it took place (A.D. 846)? An insignificant
Saracen expedition entered the Tiber and appeared before the walls of
the city. Too weak to force an entrance, it insulted and plundered the
precincts, sacrilegiously violating the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.
Had the city itself been sacked, the moral effect could not have been
greater. From the church of St. Peter its altar of silver was torn
away and sent to Africa--St. Peter's altar, the very emblem of Roman
Christianity!

Constantinople had already been besieged by the Saracens more than once;
its fall was predestined, and only postponed. Rome had received the