File:Christian heroes and martyrs (1895) (14781728465).jpg

Identifier: christianheroesm00fost (find matches)
Title: Christian heroes and martyrs
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: (Foster, William A.) (from old catalog)
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Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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s Mohammedpermitted his savage followers to plunder and kill as they would.Forty thousand of the unfortunate inhabitants were slain, whilesixty thousand, yet more unfortunate, were carried away captive. It is related, that during the sack of Constantinople, the Turks tookthe cross from the spire of the great church of St. Sophia, and writingover it, This is the God of the Christians, carried the sacred emblemaround the city, and exposed it to the contempt of the soldiers. Thebody of the emperor being found among the slain, was also subjectedto insult. Mohammed commanded the head to be stuck on a spear,and exhibited it to the mocking crowd. Such Christians as escapedfrom the wreck of the empire fled to parts of Western and NorthernEurope; the ancient, imperial city itself became, and has ever sinceremained, the home of the sultans and the citadel of Mohammedanism. Thus the ancient capital of the Roman empire, which had beenfounded by a Constantine, fell during the reign of another Con-
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THE TURKS, LED BY MOHAMMED II, TAKE CONSTANTINOPLE 228 THE WORLDS CHRISTIAN MARTYRS. stantine, eleven hundred and twenty-three years later, into the handsof the barbarians of Asia. Attack on Rhodes.Sixty-seven years after the fall of Constantinople, the Turks, whohad grown greatly in numbers and power, threatened all Europe. Theyinvaded Hungary, took the city of Belgrade, and many other townswere successively carried by storm, or obliged to open their gates.Two years after this, under Solyman I., they attacked Rhodes, witha fleet of four hundred ships and an army of two hundred thousandmen. The island was bravely defended by the Knights Hospitallers,a noble order of Christian crusaders who had held it against theinfidels for over two hundred years. These heroes resisted the Turkstill all their fortifications were levelled with the ground, their pro-visions exhausted, and their ammunition spent. Finding that no aidcould be expected from the Christian nations, they surrendered, thesiege

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