ignorant alike of armies, of the God of armies, of battalions, and of squadrons. Besides these populations, the priests and monks do not bear arms in any country—at least when they observe the laws of their institution. It is only among Christians that there have been religious societies established for the purpose of fighting-as the Knights Templars, the Knights of St. John, the Knights of the Teutonic order, the Knights Sword bearers. These religious orders were instituted in imitation of the Levites, who fought like the rest of the Jewish tribes. Neither armies nor arms were the same in antiquity as at present. The Egyptians hardly ever had cavalry. It would have been of little use in a country intersected by canals, inundated during five months of the year, and miry during five more. The inhabitants of a great part of Asia used chariots of war. They are mentioned in the Annals of China. Confucius says, that in his time each governor of a province furnished to the Emperor a thousand war chariots, drawn by four horses. The Greeks and Trojans fought in chariots drawn by two horses. Cavalry and chariots were unknown to the Jews, in a mountainous tract, where their first king, when he was elected, had nothing but she-asses. Thirty sons of Jair, princes of thirty cites, according to the text (Judges, chapter x, v. 4), rode each upon an ass. Saul, afterwards King of Judah, had only she-asses; and the sons of David all fled upon mules, when Absalom had slain his brother Amnon. Absalom was mounted only on a mule, in the battle which he fought against his father's troops; which proves, according to the Jewish historians, either that mares were beginning to be used in Palestine, or that they were already rich enough there to buy mules from the neighbouring country. The Greeks made but little use of cavalry. It was chiefly with the Mace the battles which laid Persia at his feet. It was the Roman infantry that subjugated the greater part of the world. At the battle of Pharsalia, Cæsar had but one thousand horse. It is not known at what time the Indians and the Africans first began to march elephants at the head of their armies. We cannot read without surprise of Hannibal's elephants crossing the Alps, which were much harder to pass then than they are now. There have long been disputes about the disposition of the Greek and Roman armies, their arms, and their evolutions. Each one has given his plan of the battles of Zama and Pharsalia. The commentator Calmet, a Benedictine, has printed three great volumes of his Dictionary of the Bible, in which, the better to explain God's commandments, are inserted a hundred engravings, where you see plans of battles and sieges in copper-plate. The god of the Jews was the god of armies, but Calmet was not his secretary; he cannot have known, but by revelation, how the armies of the Amalekites, the Moabites, the Syrians, and the Philistines, were arranged on the days of general murder. These plates of carnage, designed at a venture, made his book five or six louis dearer, but made it no better. It is a great question whether the Franks, whom the Jesuit Daniel calls French by anticipation, used bows and arrows in their armies, and whether they had helmets and cuirasses. Supposing that they went to combat almost naked, and armed, as they are said to have been, with only a small carpenter's axe, a sword, and a knife, we must infer that the Romans, masters of Gaul, so easily conquered by Clovis, had lost all their ancient valour, and that the Gauls were as willing to be subject to a small number of Franks as to a small number of Romans. Warlike accoutrements have since donian phalanx that Alexander gained changed, as everything else changes. Greek fire, of which the Moors still made use. In fine, you are the depositary of an art, which not only imitates the thunder, but is also much more terrible." There is, however, nothing but truth in In the days of knights, squires, and varlets, the armed force of Germany, France, Italy, England, and Spain, consisted almost entirely of horsemen, who, as well as their horses, were covered with steel. The infantry performed the func-this speech. Two monks have, in reality, tions rather of pioneers than of soldiers. changed the face of the earth. But the English had always good archers among their foot, which contributed, in a great measure, to their gaining almost every battle. Who would believe that armies, nowa-days do but make experiments in natural philosophy? A soldier would be much astonished, if some learned man { were to say to him— Before cannon were known, the northern nations had subjugated nearly the whole hemisphere, and could come again, like famishing wolves, to seize upon the lands as their ancestors had done. In all armies, the victory, and consequently the fate of kingdoms, was decided by bodily strength and agility-a sort of sanguinary fury -a desperate "My friend, you are a better machinist struggle, man to man. Intrepid men than Archimedes. Five parts of saltpetre, took towns by scaling their walls. There one of sulphur, and one of carbo ligneus, was hardly more discipline in the armies have been separately prepared. Your of the North, during the decline of the saltpetre dissolved, well filtered, well eva-Roman Empire, than among carnivorous porated, well crystallized, well turned, well beasts rushing on their prey. dried, has been incorporated with the yellow purified sulphur. These two ingredients, mixed with powdered charcoal, have, by means of a little vinegar, or solution of sal-ammoniac, or urine, formed large balls, which balls have been reduced in pulverem pyrium by a mill. The effect of this mixture is a dilatation, which is nearly as four thousand to unity; and the lead in your barrel exhibits another effect, which is the product of its bulk multiplied by its velocity. Now, a single frontier fortress would suffice to stop the armies of Genghis or Attila. It is not long since a victorious army of Russians were unavailably consumed before Custrin, which is nothing more than a little fortress in a marsh. In battle, men the weakest in body may, with well-directed artillery, prevail against the stoutest. At the battle of Fontenoi, a few cannon were sufficient to compel the retreat of the whole English column, though it had been master of the The combatants no longer close. The "The first who discovered a part of this mathematical secret, was a Benedic-field. tine nanied Roger Bacon. He who perfected the invention, was another Bene-soldier has no longer that ardour-that dictine, in Germany, in the fourteenth century, named Schwartz. So that you owe to two monks the art of being an excellent murderer, when you aim well, and your powder is good. "Du Cange has in vain pretended that, in 1338, the registers of the Chambre des Comptes, at Paris, mention a bill paid for gunpowder. Do not believe it. It is artillery which is there spoken of name attached to ancient as well as to modern warlike machines. a "Gunpowder entirely superseded the impetuosity, which is redoubled in the heat of action, when the fight is hand to hand. Strength, skill, and even the temper of the weapons, are useless. A charge with the bayonet is made scarcely once in the course of a war, though the bayonet is the most terrible of weapons. In a plain, frequently surrounded by redoubts furnished with heavy artillery, two armies advance in silence, each division taking with it flying artillery, The first lines fire at one another and after one another: they are victims presented in AROT AND MAROT. THIS article may serve to show how much the most learned men may be deceived, and to develope some useful truths. In the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique, there is the following passage concerning Arot and Marot: turn to the bullets. Squadrons at the wings are often exposed to a cannonading while waiting for the general's orders. WITH A SHORT REVIEW OF THE KORAN. They who first tire of this manœuvre, which gives no scope for the display of impetuous courage, disperse and quit the field; and are rallied, if possible, a few miles off. The victorious enemies besiege a town, which sometimes costs them more men, money, and time, than they would have lost by several battles. The progress made is rarely rapid; and at the end of five or six years, both sides, being equally exhausted, are obliged to make peace. Thus, at all events, the invention of artillery and the new mode of warfare have established among the respective powers an equality which secures mankind from devastations like those of former times, and thereby renders war less fatal in its consequences, though it is still prodigiously so. The Greeks in all ages, the Romans in the time of Sylla, and the other nations of the West and South, had no standing army; every citizen was a soldier, and enrolled himself in time of war. It is, at this day, precisely the same in Switzerland. Go through the whole country, and you will not find a battalion, except at the time of the reviews, If it goes to war, you all at once see eighty thousand men in arms. Those who usurped the supreme power after Sylla, always had a permanent force, paid with the money of the citizens, to keep the citizens in subjection, much more than to subjugate other nations. The Bishop of Rome himself keeps a small army in his pay. Who, in the time of the apostles, would have said that the servant of the servants of God should have regiments, and have them in Rome? Nothing is so much feared in England as a great standing army. The Janissaries have raised the Sultans to greatness, but they have also strangled them. The Sultans would have avoided the rope, if instead of these large bodies of troops, they had established small ones. "These are the names of two angels, who the imposter Mahomet said had been sent from God to teach man, and to order him to abstain from murder, false judgments, and excesses of every kind. This false prophet adds, that a very beautiful woman having invited these two angels to her table, she made them drink wine, with which being heated, they solicited her as lovers; that she feigned to yield to their passion, provided they would first teach her the words by pronouncing which they said it was easy to ascend to heaven; that having obtained from them what she asked, she would not keep her promise; and that she was then taken up into heaven, where, having related to God what had passed, she was changed into the morning star called Lucifer or Aurora, and the angels were severely punished. Thence it was, according to Mahomet, that God took occasion to forbid wine to men." It would be in vain to seek in the Koran for a single word of this absurd story and pretended reason for Mahomet's forbidding to his followers the use of wine. He forbids it only in the second and fifth chapters. "They will question thee about wine and strong liquors: thou shalt answer, that it is a great sin." "The just, who believe and do good works, must not be reproached with having drunk wine and played at games of chance, before games of chance were forbidden." It is averred by all the Mahometans, that their prophet forbade wine and liquors solely to preserve their health and prevent quarrels, in the burning climate of Arabia. The use of any fermented liquor soon affects the head, and may destroy both health and reason. tribes, and nothing was inserted in the collection that did not appear authentic. Besides, the chapter concerning the The fable of Arot and Marot descend- journey to heaven, not only is not in the ing from heaven, and wanting to lie with Koran, but is in a very different style, and an Arab woman, after drinking wine with is at least four times as long as any of the her, is not in any Mahometan author. It received chapters. Compare all the other is to be found only among the impostures chapters of the Koran with this, and you which various Christian writers, more in-will find a prodigious difference. It bediscreet than enlightened, have printed gins thus:against the Mussulman religion, through a zeal which is not according to knowledge. The names of Arot and Marot are in no part of the Koran. It is one Sylburgius who says, in an old book which nobody reads, that he anathematises the angels Arot, Marot, Safah, and Merwah. Observe, kind reader, that Safah and Merwah are two little hills near Mecca; so that our learned Sylburgius has taken two hills for two angels. Thus it was with every writer on Mahometanism amongst us, almost without exception, until the intelligent Reland gave us clear ideas of the Mussulman belief, and the learned Sale, after living twenty-four years in and about Arabia, at length enlightened us by his faithful translation of the Koran, and his most instructive preface. Gagnier himself, notwithstanding his Arabic professorship at Oxford, has been pleased to put forth a few falsehoods concerning Mahomet, as if we had need of lies to maintain the truth of our religion} against a false prophet. He gives us at full length Mahomet's journey through the seven heavens on the mare Alborac, and even ventures to cite the fifty-third sura or chapter; but neither in this fifty-third sura, or in any other, is there so much as an allusion to this pretended journey through the heavens. "One night, I fell asleep between the two hills of Safah and Merwah. That night was very dark; but so still, that the dogs were not heard to bark, nor the cocks to crow. All at once, the angel Gabriel appeared before me in the form in which the Most High God created him. His skin was white as snow. His fair hair, admirably disposed, fell in ringlets over his shoulders; his forehead was clear, majestic, and serene, his teeth beautiful and shining, and his legs of a saffron hue; his garments were glittering with pearls, and with thread of pure gold. On his forehead was a plate of gold, on which were written two lines, brilliant and daz{zling with light; in the first were these words, "There is no God but God;' and in the second these, Mahomet is God's Apostle.' On beholding this, I remained the most astonished and confused of men. I observed about him seventy thousand little boxes or bags of musk and saffron. He had five hundred pairs of wings; and the distance from one wing to another was five hundred years' journey. "Thus did Gabriel appear before me. He touched me, and said, 'Arise, thou sleeper!' I was seized with fear and trembling, and, starting up, said to him, 'Who art thou?' He answered, 'God have mercy upon thee! 1 am thy brother Gabriel.' "O my dearly-beloved This strange story is related by Abul-} Gabriel,' said I, 'I ask thy pardon; is it feda, seven hundred years after Mahomet.} a revelation of something new, or is it It is taken, he says, from ancient manuscripts which were current in Mahomet's Lime. But it is evident that they were not Mahomet's; for, after his death, Abubeker gathered together all the leaves of the Koran, in the presence of all the chiefs of some afflicting threat that thou bringest me?' 'It is something new,' returned he; rise, my dearly-beloved, and tie thy mantle over thy shoulders; thou wilt have need of it, for thou must this night pay a visit to thy lord.' So saying, Gabriel, taking my hand, raised me from the ground, and having mounted me on the mare Alborac, led her himself by the bridle," &c. In fine, it is averred by the Mussulmen, that this chapter, which has no authenticity, was imagined by Abu-Horaïrah, who is said to have been cotemporary with the prophet. What should we say of a Turk, who should come and insult our religion by telling us that we reckon among our sacred books, the Letters of St. Paul to Seneca, and Seneca's Letters to St. Paul; the Acts of Pilate; the Life of Pilate's Wife; the Letters of the pretended King{ Abgarus to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ's Answer to the same; the Story of St. Peter's Challenge to Simon the Magician; the Predictions of the Sibyls; the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs; and so many other books of the same kind? preserved in Syria and Arabia until Mahomet's time. How many times has it been repeated, that Mahomet had accustomed a pigeon to eat grain out of his ear, and made his followers believe that this pigeon brought him messages from God?' Is it not enough for us, that we are persuaded of the falseness of his sect, and invincibly convinced by faith of the truth of our own, without losing our time in calumniating the Mahometans, who have established themselves from Mount Caucasus to Mount Atlas, and from the confines of Epirus to the extremities of India? We are incessantly writing bad books against them, of which they know nothing. We cry out that their religion has been embraced by so many nations only because it flatters the senses. But where is the sensuality in ordering abstinence from the wine and liquors in which we indulge to such excess; in pronouncing to every one an indispensable command to give to the poor each year two and a half per cent. of his income, to fast with the greatest rigour, to undergo a painful operation in the earliest stage of puberty, to make, over arid sands, a pilgrimage of sometimes five hundred leagues, and to pray to God five times a day, even when in the field? We should answer the Turk by saying, that he was very ill informed, and that not one of these works was regarded as authentic. The Turk will make the same answer to us, when to confound him we reproach him with Mahomet's journey to the seven heavens. He will tell us that this is nothing more than a pious fraud of latter times, and that this journey is not in the Koran. Assuredly I am not here But, say you, they are allowed four comparing truth with error-Christianity wives in this world, and in the next they with Mahometanism-the Gospel with the will have celestial brides. Grotius exKoran; but false tradition with false tra-pressly says-" It must have required a dition-abuse with abuse-absurdity with great share of stupidity to admit reveries absurdity. so gross and disgusting." } This absurdity has been carried to such We agree with Grotius, that the Mahoa length, that Grotius charges Mahomet metans have been prodigal of reveries. with having said, that God's hands are The man who was constantly receiving the cold, for he has felt them; that God is chapters of his Koran from the angel Gacarried about in a chair; and that, in briel, was worse than a visionary; he was Noah's ark, the rat was produced from an impostor, who supported his seducthe elephant's dung, and the cat from the tions by his courage: but certainly there lion's breath. was nothing either stupid or sensual in Grotius reproaches Mahomet with hav-reducing to four the unlimited number of ing imagined that Jesus Christ was taken wives whom the princes, the satraps, the up into heaven instead of suffering exe- nabobs, and the omrahs of the East kept cution. He forgets that there were entire in their seraglios. It is said that Solomon heretical communions of primitive Chris-had three hundred wives and seven huntians who spread this opinion, which was dred concubines. The Arabs, like the |