It almost seemed as if these terrible Saracens,
who bore everything down before them, were intended to conquer all
Europe, and crush down the Church there as they had done in the east;
but God was with His people, and He raised up a great warrior among the
Christian Franks. Charles Martel, or Charles of the Hammer, so called,
because he always went into battle with a heavy iron hammer, led the
Franks against the Saracens, when they came up into the South of France;
and in the year 732 gave them at Tours the first real defeat they had
yet met with. It turned them back completely, and they never came north
of the Pyrenees again; but all over the west of Asia and north of
Africa, the first places where Christianity had spread, the heavy dark
cloud of Mahometanism settled down, and has never been removed.
LESSON XXX.
THE FIRST SCHISM.
"While men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat."
--_St. Matt._ xiii. 25
Is the West there was no heresy as there was in the East. The simple
Teutons believed what they were taught, and grew softened by little and
little, as their clergy gained more influence over them.
Pages:
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224