two years with great success on the Logan Circuit. He was next appointed agent of the Southern Methodist Book Concern and Tract Society, and he so ably dis- charged the obligations of his office as to largely in- crease the influence of the institution. He met with great success — preaching, raising funds, or circulating books. The next year he was appointed to the Frank- lin Circuit, and the following year he was made presid- ing elder of the Glasgow District. His last work was on the Logan District. He died Sept. 14, 1867. Mr. Moore was a preacher of no ordinary ability. He was a diligent student, possessing a clear perception and a re- tentive memory. He was well versed in the doctrines and history of the Bible and of the Church. See Min. A nn. Conf.M. E. Church, South, \HQ7, p. 163.
Moore, Zephaniah Swift, D.D., a noted Amer- ican educator and Congregational minister, was born Nov. 20, 1770, in Palmer, Mass.; graduated at Dart- mouth College in 1793; entered the ministry Feb. 3, 1796, and was made pastor at Leicester, Mass. He was elected professor of languages at Dartmouth College in 1811, and president of Williams College in 1815. In 1821 he was chosen first president of Amherst College, thea just founded, and he occupied this position until his death, June 30, 1823. He published an Oration at Worcester, July 5, 1802: — An Address to the Public in respect to Amherst College (1823); and two occasional Sermons. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, ii, 392 ; Drake, Diet, of Amer. Biog. s. v.
Mooring, Christophek S., an early Methodist Episcopal minister, was born in Surrey County, Va., in 1767 ; entered the Virginia Conference in 1789 ; and died Sept. 30, 1825, having preached with excellent success until called to his future home. He was distinguished for modesty, gravity, and faithfulness ; always ready to teach andto preach, and many souls were converted through his labors. See Minutes of Annual Conferences, i, 507.
Moors (Lat. Jlfauri, meaning dark; Span. J/o?-o.s), the original designation of the inhabitants of the an- cient Mauritania or Morocco (q. v ). The Arabs, who entered and conquered this country in the 7th century, denominated the native population Moghrehins, i. e. " Westerners," or " men of the West," but they called themselves Berbers, while to the Europeans they were known as Moors. The Arabic language, customs, and manners soon came to prevail among the Berbers ; and the Arab conquerors, who gave them the Mohamme- dan faith, freely amalgamating with them, their char- acter was totally changed, and they became hardly dis- tinguishable from their conquerors; and under Moors we now generally understand the mixed races that arose in the 7th century, when the Saracens wrested North Africa from the Byzantine empire, and incorpo- rated it with the caliphate of Damascus. The Moors were distinguished by the warlike spirit which was then common among the Mohammedan nations, and at an early period began to make inroads for plunder into Spain. " A battle with the Visigoths of that country took place in A.D. 672, in which they were defeated with considerable loss; but an opportunity which fa- vored their designs occurred when, during a rebellion which in A.D. 7io placed Roderic, duke of Cordova, on the Spanish throne, the defeated party called in the aid of the Moors. A force of them, led by Taric, entered in the following year, and at the battle of Xeres de la Frontera, near Cadiz, July 11, 711, the army of the Goths, under king Roderic, was almost entirely de- stroyed, while the death of Roderic himself, who Avas killed in the battle, put an end to the dominion of the Goths. Muza, the governor of North Africa, jealous of the success of Taric, now advanced with a new army, and took Cordova and Toledo, and within five years subdued the greater portion of the peninsula to his power. Receiving re-enforcements from Africa, he even . crossed the Pyrenees, twenty years later, and advanced
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as far as Bordeaux and Tours. Here, however, the in- | vaders were defeated by Charles Martel in the battle j of Poitiers, and they re'crossed the Pyrenees, never to i return. The defeat not only drove the Moors from the Continent, but forever after confined thera to the Iberian peninsula: and even here the inhabitants of Asturia, Galicia, and the Basques successfully resisted their d(j- minion. Also in the parts in which the African in- vaders had successfully established themselves, internal divisions, which soon arose among the chiefs, together , with insubordination towards the caliph of Africa, often brought them near an overthrow, until after the ex- I tinction of the family of the Ommiades, when Abderah- I man I, the last representative of the Ommiade caliphs, %vho had escaped i'rom Damascus on the subversion of that dynasty in A.D. 752, brought about the consoli- : dation of the government with the caliphate of Cordo- va, and annulled its previous dependence on the cal- iphate of Damascus. Under this new government or- der and prosperity revived. Abderahman changed [ the laws, regulated" the administration, built a fleet, and i provided for the instruction of the people, llis resi- dc«ice was established at Cordova, where he built a mag- nificent mosque. His successors, and particularly Ab- derahman III and Alhakera II, followed his example; and under the dynasty of the Ommiades Spain became the eciual in civilization and learning of any country in Europe. It seemed as if the Arabs had only been trans- planted to Spain to enable thera to acquire the high incellectual culture which was unknown in the East. Ikrt while they advanced in civilization, they gradually lost the warlike qualities which had enabled them to make their conquest, and the oppressed Spanish Chris- tians came to look forward to the time when they could throw off the yoke and regain their nationality. The flourishing period of the reign of the Ommiades lasted nntil the 10th century, the whole period covering the brightest page of Moorish history. After holding for 282 years the caliphate of Cordova, the Ommiade fam- ily became extinct in 1037 in the person of Ilesham III, who, on account of the insubordination of his sub- jects, retired from the government in 1031, to devote himself to science and literature. "With his retirement the caliphate of Cordova also ended; and the territory •was divided into a number of little states, the governors erecting themselves into hereditary and independent princes, and they severally wasted their strength in in- ternecine wars, interru])ted only occasionally by an alli- ance for mutual defence when the Christians threatened their very existence. The latter had not in the mean time rem'ained stationary. By A.D. 801 Chademagne had definitely incorporated the territory north of the Ebro with the Prankish dominions, and the Moors were driven out of Catalonia. They then retained simply the provinces of Leon and Castile. But even there the Arab population was greatly diminishing; and when in 1085 the Castihans succeeded in taking Toledo, and the Tagus became the frontier of Christian Spain, the Arabs clearly saw their dominion seriously threatened, and, for centuries broken up and scattered, now became more united, and finally resolved to call .Jussuf, of the family of the Alraoravides, who had established a great empire in Africa, to assist them against the king of Castile. Jussuf arrived in 108(j with a numerous army, and promjjtly defeated the Christians at Zalacca, but was obliged to return to Africa to defend his possessions there. He came back soon afterwards, however, and all the Moors of Spain remained united under his gov- ernment. After his death, in HOG, a second period of internal ruptures followed. Abdelmumen, chief of the Almohades, a family opi>osed to the Almoravides, came from Africa with a large army, and, taking Cordova and Granada in 1157, established for a while its supremacy. Whenever the Arabs were at peace with each other, the surrountUng Christian princes thought it their duty to attack these enemies of the cross. Unity having been in a measure restored by the Almoravides, the