_Owing to the impossibility of my attending personally to the
editing of this volume, I requested my old friends_, Rev. C.S.
Robinson, D.D., _and_ Rev. Isaac Riley, _of New York, to superintend
the work, and would gratefully acknowledge their kind and
disinterested aid, cheerfully proffered at no little sacrifice of
time._

H.H. JESSUP.




PREFACE.


The Orient is the birthplace of prophecy. Before the advent of our Lord,
the very air of the East was resounding with the "unconscious prophecies
of heathenism." Men were in expectation of great changes in the earth.
When Mohammed arose, he not only claimed to be the deliverer of a
message inspired of Allah, but to foretell the events of futurity. He
declared that the approach of the latter day could be distinguished by
unmistakable signs, among which were two of the most notable character.

Before the latter day, the _sun shall rise in the West_, and God will
send forth a cold odoriferous wind blowing from _Syria Damascena_, which
shall _sweep away_ the souls of all the faithful, and _the Koran
itself_. What the world of Islam takes in its literal sense, we may take
in a deeper spiritual meaning. Is it not true, that far in the West, the
gospel sun began to rise and shed its beams on Syria, many years ago,