nection with the pontificate and the Kaaba, must necessarily have attracted his attention to religion. His journey into Syria and other countries led him to observe different religious systems. His entrance on war at the early age of fourteen, must have stirred his latent desire for military fame. And, finally, his acquisition of very considerable wealth, all at once, and at an early age, must have much whetted his desire for the position to which his birth entitled him, and of which he was deprived only by the misfortunes of his childhood.

It may

be

However, for some ten years after his marriage, we learn scarcely any thing respecting him. Some have thought that he employed this time in study. so; but all his life he professed to be unable either to read or write a word. He frequently alludes to his being an illiterate prophet, and the Koran, he declared, was given him directly by inspiration of heaven, he being unable either to read or write a single word himself. Many have thought that this was only feigned; among whom appears to rank Savary, who was certainly inclined to give him credit for sincerity wherever he could. If there be any one circumstance that would leave a doubt as to his being able to read or write, it is this. One is ready to think that if Mohammed had read the Scriptures for himself, the Koran would have been a much better and more beautiful book; that the allusions to Scripture would have been more correct, and the details of Scriptural facts would have been free from much of the absurdity which is found in them. However, whether he could or could not read and write; whether he employed these ten years in study or otherwise, we are scarcely now able to determine. But when arrived at thirty-eight years of age, he was observed to be much in solitude. In the cave of Hara, near his native city, he frequently spent long periods of time. At last he

arrived at forty years of age: he took his wife, Kadijah, and several members of his family to this cave. There they staid for the night. During the night, he came to his wife and told her that while lying in his bed the angel Gabriel appeared to him in a form so resplendent that he could not look at him; and then, in order that he might bear his presence, he changed into a beautiful human form. This celestial being said to him, "Read!" Mohammed replied, "I can not read." The angel enjoined, "Read, in the name of thy Lord, who created all things, who created man of congealed blood. Read, in the name of thy most beneficent Lord, who taught the use of the pen, who teacheth man that which he knoweth not." These words are found in the ninetysixth chapter of the Koran, and are the first that were revealed direct from heaven. Mohammed, upon this, got up, and went to the middle of the mountain. There he stood, and there his visitant stood, each looking at the other. At length the angel said, "I am Gabriel, and thou art Mohammed, the prophet of God," on which he disappeared. When he told his wife, Kadijah, this, she said, “I am very glad of this news which thou dost tell me, and by Him in whose hand is the soul of Kadijah, I verily hope thou wilt be the prophet of this nation."

On account of this confession, he at once acknowledged her as a disciple, and Kadijah stands the first in the annals of the "true believers." She immediately went to a cousin of hers, called Waraka, who was a Christian, and told him what Mohammed had said. Waraka said he was acquainted with the prophetic writings, and that all this had been foretold, and that, without doubt, Mohammed would be the prophet of the nation. However, it does not appear that he himself became a "true believer." The second believer was a

slave in the house of Mohammed, called Zeid, and immediately on his professing faith in the prophet, he received his liberty, a custom that has obtained in all Mohammedan families since that day. The third believer was a brave and generous boy, called Ali, then ten years of age, and the son of his uncle, Abu Taleb. Ali, making no account of Kadijah, who was a woman, or of Zeid, who was a slave, always afterward claimed to be the first of the "true believers."

Thus far Mohammed's successes were not very notable. For his wife and his cousin to believe, was not much, and for his cousin of ten years of age to believe, was not much; but, before long, Abubekir, one of the leading men in the city of Mecca, professed faith in the divinity of Mohammed's mission. He became of eminent service to the cause of Mohammed. For three years, however, there was no public attempt, and no eclat. Mohammed proceeded gradually, ever and anon bringing out his revelations, saying that the Koran existed a perfect book in heaven, written before God, on a reserved table, and that the angel Gabriel received a commission, from time to time, to bring down, of this book, certain sentences, and communicate them to Mohammed. Once a year, the angel was commissioned to take the entire book, beautifully bound in green silk, and to hold it before the eyes of the prophet. The prophet then contented himself with bringing the chapters out piecemeal. They were composed in a strain more beautiful, and in a style far superior to that of any existing writer in Arabia. All were struck with their grandeur and sublimity. They made his fame as an author, and converted Lebid, the first poet of Arabia, by the mere beauty of their style. Seeing one of the chapters of the Koran placed beside some verses of his own, he said the language was so perfect, that it must be inspi

ration. He at once hurried to Mohammed, and professed himself a true believer.

After three years, Mohammed told his cousin Ali to summon the Koreish, his own relatives, and the leading tribe of the city. They were brought together. He gave them an entertainment, and then he was about to open his mission; but one of his uncles, Abu Laheb, interrupted him, opposing him and his mission in such a manner that no business could be transacted on that day. But a revelation came down, and so the 111th chapter of the Koran declares, "The hands of Abu Laheb shall perish, and he shall perish. His riches shall not profit him, nor that which he hath gained. He shall go down to be burned in flaming fire, and his wife, also, bearing wood, and having on her neck a cord of twisted fibers of a palm-tree." Mohammed, however, was determined not to be discouraged by this rude commencement, and he instructed Ali to call his relatives together again, the next day. They came again, he entertained them, and, after the entertainment, said, "I know of no man in Arabia that has such a good present to offer his kindred, as I now make to you. I offer you the good things of this world, and those of another life. The almighty God has sent me to call you unto him. Who, then, among you, will be my vizier, my helper, my deputy, my vicegerent?" They were all silent; not one responded to the call; but, suddenly, young Ali cast himself before the prophet, and said, "I will, O prophet. I will beat out the teeth, and pull out the eyes, and rip open the bellies, and break the legs, of all that dare to oppose thee. I will be thy vizier." Mohammed, transported with the zeal of his cousin, embraced him, and said to the assembled Koreish, "This, then, is my vizier. You are all bound to obey him." They burst out into laughter, turned to Abu

Taleb, and said, "Now you are to obey your son." Not discouraged by these repulses, Mohammed went forth among the people, preaching that they must abandon idols, that they must become worshipers of one only God, and acknowledge Mohammed as his prophet.

Now, having brought him to his proper appearance in public life, we will just look at him by aid of the representations in which writers present him to us. They say, then, that Mohammed was a man of middle size, with singular strength and muscularity of form. He had a very large head, covered with rich, black, glossy hair, which flowed over his shoulders. His forehead was prominent; his eyebrows long, and nearly meeting, but between them ran a vein, which, in times of excitement, throbbed violently. His eyes were of a flashing black, his nose aquiline, his cheeks full and florid, his mouth large, and his teeth thinly set, small, pointed, and of the most exquisite whiteness. A full beard flowed down upon his chest. His countenance was beautiful in the extreme, and his address insinuating beyond any power of resistance. To this he added consummate eloquence, an eloquence that charmed and ravished all who heard it. Then, his habits of meditativeness, his fancying or feigning that he received communications from the spiritual world, tended to give him a loftiness and command, calculated to produce that enthusiasm which he eventually inspired. Such a man, then, was Mohammed, when, in the fortieth year of his age, he professed to be the commissioned prophet of God, just as Jesus, and Moses, and others had been; commissioned as the last of the prophets, to call the people from the worship of idols, to that of the one true God. We have this sermon to the tribes quoted: "Ho!"-to such and such a tribe-"I am the apostle of God. The true God has sent me to call you to his service, and to command you not to associate any