138 SHEMITIC CIVILIZATION. 



which it had battled against. All the 

 people influenced by the culture of Greece 

 and Borne, became Christians ; the Ger- 

 manic nations and the Slaves 1 followed some- 

 what later. Persia and India alone, of the 

 Indo-European race, preserved, much altered 

 it is true, the old faith of their ancestors, 

 owing to their religious institutions being 

 strongly and closely allied to the State. 

 The Erahmanic race, above all, rendered to 

 the world a scientific service of the highest 

 order, by the preservation, with an exuber- 

 ance of minute and touching precaution, 

 of the most ancient hymns of that worship, 

 the Vedas. 



The religious fertility of the Shemitic 

 race was not yet exhausted. After this un- 

 equalled victory, Christianity, taken up by 

 Greek and Latin civilization, had become the 

 property of the West; the East, its birth- 

 place, was just the place where it encoun- 

 tered the greatest obstacles. Arabia espe- 

 cially, towards the seventh century, could 



1 The Slaves or the Slavonic race. 



