"A Power that at his pleasure doth create
To save or to destroy;
And to eternal pain predestinate,
As to eternal joy.
"It is the merit and the glory of Mohammed that, beside founding twenty spiritual empires and providing laws for the guidance through centuries of millions of men, he shook the foundations of the faith of heathendom. Mohammed was the impersonation of two principles that reign in the government of God,—destruction and salvation. He would receive nations to his favor if they accepted the faith, and utterly destroy them if they rejected it. Yet, in the end, the sapless tree must fall."
M. H. Blerzey,[399] in speaking of Mohammedanism in Northern Africa, says:—
"At bottom there is little difference between the human sacrifices demanded by fetichism and the contempt of life produced by the Mussulman religion. Between the social doctrines of these Mohammedan tribes and the sentiments of Christian communities there is an immense abyss."
And again:—-
"The military and fanatic despotism of the Arabs has vested during many centuries in the white autochthonic races of North Africa, without any fusion taking place between the conquering element and the conquered, without destroying at all the language and manners of the subject people, and, in a word, without creating anything durable. The Arab conquest was a triumph of brute force, and nothing further."
And M. Renan, a person well qualified to judge of the character of this religion by the most extensive and impartial studies, gives this verdict:[400]—