, protection was more easily obtained in that day
from the Arab, who made war on Christianity, than from the Byzantine
emperor, who was its champion. What were the different sects and
subdivisions of Christianity to the barbarian? Monophysite, Monothelite,
Eutychian, or Jacobite, all were to him as the scholastic disputes of
noble and intellectual Europe to the camps of gypsies. The Arab felt
himself to be the depository of one sublime truth, the unity of God. His
mission therefore, was principally against idolaters. Yet even to _them_
his policy was to sell toleration for tribute. Clearly, as Mr Finlay
hints, this was merely a provisional moderation, meant to be laid aside
when sufficient power was obtained; and it _was_ laid aside, in after
ages, by many a wretch like Timour or Nadir Shah. Religion, therefore,
and property once secured, what more had the Syrians to seek? And if to
these advantages for the Saracens we add the fact, that a considerable
Arab population was dispersed through Syria, who became so many
emissaries, spies, and decoys for their countrymen, it does great honour
to the emperor, that through so many campaigns he should at all have
maintained his ground, which at last he resigned only under the
despondency caused by almost universal treachery.

The Saracens, therefore, had no great merit even in their earliest
exploits; and the _impetus_ of their movement forwards, that principle
of proselytism which carried them so strongly "ahead" through a few
generations, was very soon brought to a stop. Mr Finlay, in our mind,
does right to class these barbarians as "socially and politically little
better than the Gothic, Hunnish, and Avar monarchies." But, on
consideration, the Gothic monarchy embosomed the germs of a noble
civilization; whereas the Saracens have never propagated great
principles of any kind, nor attained even a momentary grandeur in their
institutions, except where coalescing with a higher or more ancient
civilization.

Meantime, ascending from the earliest Mahometans to their prophet, what
are we to think of _him_? Was Mahomet a great man? We think not. The
case was thus: the Arabian tribes had long stood ready, like dogs held
in a leash, for a start after distant game. It was not Mahomet who gave
them that impulse. But next, what was it that had hindered the Arab
tribes from obeying the impulse? Simply this, that they were always in
feud with each other; so that their expeditions, beginn