relate--the Southern revolt against Christianity. Its issue was
the loss of nine-tenths of her geographical possessions--Asia,
Africa, and part of Europe.

MOHAMMED. In the summer of 581 of the Christian era, there came
to Bozrah, a town on the confines of Syria, south of Damascus, a
caravan of camels. It was from Mecca, and was laden with the
costly products of South Arabia--Arabia the Happy. The conductor
of the caravan, one Abou Taleb, and his nephew, a lad of twelve
years, were hospitably received and entertained at the Nestorian
convent of the town.

The monks of this convent soon found that their young visitor,
Halibi or Mohammed, was the nephew of the guardian of the Caaba,
the sacred temple of the Arabs. One of them, by name Bahira,
spared no pains to secure his conversion from the idolatry in
which he had been brought up. He found the boy not only
precociously intelligent, but eagerly desirous of information,
especially on matters relating to religion.

In Mohammed's own country the chief object of Meccan worship was
a black meteoric stone, kept in the Caaba, with three hundred and
sixty subordinate idols, representing the days of the year, as
the year was then counted.

At this time, as we have seen, the Christian Church, through the
ambition and wickedness of its clergy, had been brought into a
condition of anarchy. Councils had been held on various
pretenses, while the real motives were concealed. Too often they
were scenes of violence, bribery, corruption. In the West, such