THE AWAKENING OF JAPAN
trast between the effect of the Mongol outburst on Buddhaland and on Christendom. The maritime races of the Mediterranean and the Baltic, by their long course of mutual aggression, were well equipped to cope with the terrific onslaught of the nomadic invaders. In spite of temporary reverses, Europe may even be said to have gained some advantage from those struggles which were so disastrous to us of the East. It was then that she first developed that power of combination which makes her so formidable to-day. The Mongol outburst, which displaced the Turkish hordes and resulted in the creation of
the Saracenic and Ottoman empires, gave the Frankish nations the opportunity of uniting against a common enemy. Before the walls of Jerusalem and on the banks of the Danube met in
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