of truths thus
indirectly received, but in the fact that both Jews and Christians had
lapsed from a fair representation of the creeds which they professed.
The Jews in Arabia had lost the true spirit of their sacred scriptures,
and were following their own perverted traditions rather than the
oracles of God. They had lost the vitality and power of the truths
revealed to their fathers, and were destitute of moral earnestness and
all spiritual life. On the other hand, the Christian sects had fallen
into low superstitions and virtual idolatry. The Trinity, as they
represented it, gave to Mohammed the impression that the Virgin Mary,
"Mother of God," was one of the three persons of the Trinity, and that
the promise of the coming Paraclete might very plausibly be appropriated
by himself.[100] The prevailing worship of pictures, images, and relics
appeared in his vision as truly idolatrous as the polytheism of the
heathen Koreish. It was clear to him that there was a call for some
zealous iconoclast to rise up and deliver his country from idolatry. The
whole situation seemed auspicious. Arabia was ripe for a sweeping
reformation. It appears strange to us, at this late day, that the
churches of Christendom, even down to the seventh century, should have
failed to christianize Arabia, though they had carried the Gospel even
to Spain and to Britain on the west, and to India and China on the east.
If they had imagined that the deserts of the Peninsula were not
sufficiently important to demand attention, they certainly learned their
mistake; for now the sad day of reckoning had come, when swarms of
fanatics should issue from those deserts like locusts, and overrun their
Christian communities, humble their bishops, appropriate their sacred
temples, and reduce their despairing people to the alternatives of
apostacy, tribute, slavery, or the sword.

It seems equally strange that the great empires which had carried their
conquests so far on every hand had neglected to conquer Arabia. It was,
indeed, comparatively isolated; it certainly did not lie in the common
paths of the conquerors; doubtless it appeared barren, and by no means a
tempting prize; and withal it was a difficult field for a successful
campaign. But from whatever reason, the tribes of Arabia had never been
conquered. Various expeditions had won temporary successes, but the
proud Arab could boast that his country had never been brought into
permanent subjection.[101] Mea