8 The Countries, their Peoples and their Religions.

centuries they suffered great oppression, but that very circumstance kept them a separate people and perpetuated the ancient race. They are governed by the Patriarch of Alexandria. There are also twelve bishops and a metropolitan appointed for Abyssinia. The Church still holds the views which are known as ‘Monophysite,’ i.e. that our Lord has only one, the divine, nature. Baptism takes place in infancy, and circumcision is also commended. Prayers are offered seven times a day. Confession is required of all before receiving the Sacrament, and penance is administered. There are four fasting seasons in the year and seven festivals. Abstinence from swine’s flesh, from things strangled, and from blood, is observed.

Mohammedanism.

The Christians now form a comparatively small proportion of the population of the country, upwards of ninety per cent. of the people being Mohammedans of the Sunni sect.

Mohammed, the Arabian Prophet (as he styled himself) who founded Mohammedanism, was born in aA.p. 570 in the city of Mecca in Western Arabia. Most of his countrymen were idolaters at that time, but there were a few Jews and also some nomad tribes who had become Christians. From the Jews Mohammed seems to have learned of the sinfulness of idolatry, and from the Christians he heard something of the birth, life and death of our Blessed Lord. An idea that he was commissioned by God to be an apostle to the Arabs, to turn them from the worship of idols to that of the One God, took firm possession of his mind, and his wife Khadija encouraged him in it.

The Koran.

Mohammed was subject to fits, and believed that while in them he had revelations from God. These revelations were after his death collected by his son-in-law, and from them a book was compiled called the Koran, or ‘Book.’ This the Mohammedans now hold to be divine, and to have been sent down from heaven by the hand of the angel Gabriel in successive portions verbatim as it had been written by God before the creation of the world. Mohammed, at first friendly both to Jews and Christians, became very hostile to them when he found that they refused to accept him as an apostle, or to concede his claim to a divine commission. His followers were told to fight against