154 Progress and Civilisation. PT. m. 



tianity in the Western World, its fortunes in Asia 

 were very different. Although it seems to have 

 become established in the maritime cities of Antioch 

 and Alexandria, which were more Greek than Asiatic 

 in their composition, it never appears to have pene- 

 trated far into the interior. It certainly never 

 reached either Persia or India, and whatever footing 

 it may have gained in Syria or Asia Minor was 

 utterly destroyed by the sweeping tide of Mahomet- 

 anism. Nor has Christianity, during succeeding 

 centuries, ever accomplished any settlement on the 

 whole of that vast Continent. Buddhist, Brahmin, 

 and Mahometan have equally adhered with obstinate 

 tenacity to the traditions of their fathers, and utterly 

 rejected all the efforts which the zeal of missionaries 

 has prompted for their conversion. Among all those 

 Religions the only one which assumed an aggressive 

 attitude was the Mahometan ; and it is worthy of 

 remark, that the burst of fanatical zeal, with which 

 the followers of the Prophet were inspired at its 

 commencement, is the only strong impulse which 

 ever appears to have raised the Oriental mind from 

 its passive and inert state. They poured like an 

 avalanche upon Western Asia, wrested all Northern 

 Africa (the land of Tertullian and St. Augustine) 



