of war against the world, it was owing to its extent rather than its nature. With that singular and unchanging people rapine has always been a legitimate means of subsistence, and war and rapine synonimous terms; it is not then surprising that they gladly embraced a principle so congenial to their characters and interests. Indeed, from Mahomet's inveighing so repeatedly as he does, against the lukewarm, the worldly-minded, the hypocritical, and the refractory, it would seem that the majority of his newlyacquired followers were more influenced by that part of his reliligion than by any other. This was particularly the case with the rougher tribes of the desert, who are more than once designated as peculiarly stupid and unfeeling. In the simplicity of their hearts some of them had ventured to require the repayment of the loans they had made. It is amusing enough to observe the indignation with which the prophet alludes to the circumstance.

After a series of skirmishes they had the good fortune to surprise a rich caravan and defeat a superior force which marched to its relief-but the contest had been severe, and in the ardour of their gratitude they attributed to the succour of angels what was really the effect of their own bravery and desperation. An anecdote follows, without parallel in the annals of self-deception. The prisoners were the former persecutors of the prophet, and it might have been expected that he would not omit to practise the virtue he had inculcated-revenge-but he dismissed them on ransoming themselves; and soon after, being found in tears, he produced the following passages (chap. 8), and informed his friends that they had narrowly escaped being destroyed by God, together with himself for this unseasonable clemency.—

"The prophet may not keep prisoners till he shall have destroyed (unbelievers) throughout the earth."

Captives however were allowed the option of becoming Moslims before execution. And again

66

Say to those who reject thee, if they will repent, what is past shall he forgiven them; but if they return to their transgressions, the example of former ages is before thee.-Slay them till there is no resistance; and all religion is to God."

That this was the system best adapted to secure the triumph of his faith there can be no doubt, and the story plainly shows how strictly Mahomet considered his duty to be confined to what was so. This is the first passage that intimates any anticipation of the future extent of his spiritual empire-but it seems rather to have originated in the exultation of recent victory, than in any sober and unalterable conviction. In the next year the Moslims were totally defeated at Ohad.-Mahomet himself was severely wounded, and narrowly escaped with life. Among the many contradictory excuses by which he strove, in chapter 3, to recon

concile this untoward event with his promises and his pretensions, the reader will observe with satisfaction that he never once alludes to any certain and definite hopes of the future. He seems to have accounted for it in his own mind by supposing it to be a trial of his followers' sincerity; but in his eagerness to relieve their apprehensions he rings the changes on every imaginable topic applicable to the occasion, with a hurried inconsistency that sufficiently marks his anxiety and embarrassment.

This was the only check (if we except the doubtful war of the Ditch, spoken of in chapter 33) which Mahomet met with, and this his energy and abilities soon retrieved. Not a year passed without the reduction or submission of some hostile tribe. Though commanded to kill and slay, and spare not, he seems to have considered himself authorized to treat on less sanguinary terms, and some of his enemies were allowed to remove unmolested from his dangerous vicinity. Treachery and breach of faith, however, he never pardoned, and the entire massacre of a Jewish tribe that had revolted, is a terrible instance of the severity he thought himself bound to exercise on such occasions.

Many passages, relating both to Jews and Christians, are to be found in all the Medinian chapters; and his conduct towards both people is sufficient to show that hostility in general was no farther his object than as he was prompted to it by his religious persuasions. Appealing as he did to their Scriptures, as the foundation and the proof of his own prophetic office, the idolaters of Mecca had considered him from the beginning as a Jewish or Christian sectarian. Far from wishing to disown the connection, he made every attempt to strengthen it by conversion from those sects. But the hopes he entertained on this subject never prevented him from inveighing against what he termed their departure from the original purity of their respective faiths. The christian tenets in particular were the subject of his repeated and most violent vituperations, from the grossness with which the insufficiency of language renders unavoidable in expressing them.

They have said, the Everlasting hath taken to himself a Son.-Verily you approach a tremendous subject. It wanted but little that the heavens had cracked, the earth split, and the mountains crumbled to the dust-for that they named a Son to the Everlasting. It suiteth not the Everlasting to take to himself a Son; for all that is in earth and heaven, doth it not crouch to him?"-Chap. 19.

Their morality however, he warmly admired; and it cannot escape an impartial observer, that up to the period when he was driven by his enemies to adopt the severity of the Pentateuch, his own precepts are entirely formed on the mild spirit of the Gospel; while the personal character and sacred office of Christ are in

vested in the third and other chapters with every attribute which, short of divinity, it is possible to bestow. On his arrival at Medina the Jews, who formed a very strong party both in the city and its vicinity, met all his overtures with the most determined opposition. They seduced his followers, openly ridiculed his pretensions, treated him with personal disrespect, and took every opportunity to unite with his assailants. The angry observations and strict injunctions which this conduct produced, are too frequent not to be observed-but it is pleasing to remark, that in the 5th and 9th chapters, the latest that were produced, long after Mahomet must have given up all hopes of overcoming Christian faith and Jewish obstinacy, he recognizes their claim to brotherhood as a scriptural people-allows his followers to eat the same food, at the same table-and exempts them from the general rule of extermination by allowing tribute in place of conformity.

The same consciousness of divine inspection, and the same reference of every provision to the interests of religion are observable throughout. "I have seen," says Mahomet, in the pious exultation of success, I have seen men embrace the faith of God in crowds. Then celebrate the glory of thy God, and pray to Him for mercy; verily he is willing to listen.'

Observe this prayer which concludes his first attempt at legislation.--Did human language ever breathe a deeper and more unaffected piety?

"To God belongs all, in heaven and earth; and whether you show what is in your thoughts or conceal it, he will lay it alike to your account; for his power is unlimited.

"The prophet has believed in what was revealed to him, and all the faithful believe in God-in the angels, the scriptures, and the prophets, among whom is no variance; and say, we have heard and obeyed; merciful art Thou, O Lord; unto Thee shall we be taken.

"God will not require of any but according to his power; to each shall be what he gained, and on each what he incurred. Thou, Lord, wilt not scan too nicely our neglects or our offences. Thou wilt not load us with a covenant as thou loadedst those before us-' -Thou wilt not put upon us what we cannot bear.-Thou wilt spare us- -Thou wilt forgive us.-Thou wilt pity us.-Thou art our God. Oh, defend us against the unbelieving."-Chap. 2.

In another chapter, where he is desiring his followers to avoid disputes with the Jews and Christians, he tells them, when pressed on points of faith, to submit the question to a divine ordeal. The disputants were to kneel down with their wives and children and invoke the curse of God upon the erring party-what a singular contrast between the strength of his conviction and the weakness of his cause!-The pretensions are unfit for belief that will not bear discussion—and yet the man who in an ignorant and superstitious age could solemnly submit a claim of inspiration to

the immediate judgment of God, MUST have believed all that he averred.

We now arrive at those singular and important chapters, 49, 33, 24, and 66, from which it seems evident that whatever may have been Mahomet's own opinion of the impulses by which he was conducted, they had really no deeper or holier origin than his own bosom. While at Mecca, he had constantly disclaimed any other authority over his followers than that which the sacred duty of admonition might give him: but six years of absolute power and continued success had altered his tone. His followers are now told that they are not to speak to the Prophet so familiarly as they would to each other; that they are not to raise their voices in his presence, nor call to him when he wishes to be private; that they are not to enter his house unbidden, nor to discourse on ordinary topics while they are there; and lastly, that no one is to have a will of his own when the Prophet's pleasure has been declared. It will not escape the reader that all these tributes of respect are necessary consequences of Mahomet's general pretensions. It is his jealousy in insisting on them and producing the divine mandate for their observance, which betrays the exacting feelings of earthly authority. The 33d chapter furnishes us with a still heavier charge. In a casual visit Mahomet was smitten with the charms of Zinaba, the wife of his freedman Zeid. The affectionate follower balanced not a moment between his own inclinations and those of his friend and master. Zinaba was divorced by Zeid, and married by Mahomet. But Zeid having been previously adopted by Mahomet, the marriage, by the existing laws of Arabia, was incestuous. This to a prophet was a trifling objection; the laws that made it so were condemned and abrogated; and the hesitating moslims were assured by the word of God that Mahomet was irreproachable. Yet even this was not enough. The legal number of wives to which the faithful were to confine themselves had been fixed at four; the Prophet, however, is exempted from this and every other restriction on his connubial caprices; while his harem is secured from the attempts or wishes of his followers by the divine declaration, that the Prophet's wives must be regarded as mothers by the rest. This revolting interposition of heaven in his domestic arrangements is carried a step farther; and the word of God is at last employed to reprehend two of his wives-for resenting, with the sacred pride of women, an act of infidelity in which they had detected him.

It would be well if the effect of Mahomet's weakness in all that concerned his favourite passion had been confined to the days in which he lived; but society still suffers from another instance of it. His favorite wife Ayesha had been separated from the camp, under circumstances which gave him much uneasiness; from

this he was relieved by the 24th chapter, which assured him of her innocence, and ordained that no respectable female should suffer in character till four witnesses could be found to depose to the fact; and any one who called it in question on insufficient grounds was to be publickly scourged. A worse law was never promulgated. No woman who is criminal enough to bring herself under its scope, will be clumsy enough to allow these means of proof to be forthcoming. The offence is necessarily secret; and suspicion, instead of meriting the scourge, is a useful substitute for the legal punishment that must generally be escaped. Such as it was, however, it was most unjustly enforced in the very case that suggested it; and the stripes of Ayesha's accusers furnished a most edifying and convincing evidence of her innocence. Yet the moslims confess that the most virulent was suffered to escape, because he was a person of consideration and influence so inconceivable are the inconsistencies which fanaticism can reconcile to itself.

If there were ever moments in which, according to the immortal historian of declining Rome, the victorious impostor smiled at his early credulity, they were certainly these, in which he unblushingly legislated for his own dignity and his own indulgence. The supposition, however, is one on which it will be difficult to account for Mahomet's behaviour in every other particular during the sequel of his life; and if we attentively consider his situation, we shall perhaps be able to form a more consistent conclusion. Nearly twenty years had elapsed since he experienced the illusions in which his convictions originated; and after that period, the form in which his regulations were issued must have become habitual. Success, which was to him the confirmation of all he imagined, had been immediately owing, he must have felt, to his own energy and conduct-to his own actions and his own feelings. What wonder if at length he considered a union so long undissolved as indissoluble, and forgot in the casuistry of self for self, the sober limits by which divine interposition must be confined?

The very next incident to which the Korann (ch. 48) alludes, shows that Mahomet was still governed by his imaginations. Having been all along engaged in war with the Meccans it was impossible for the moslims to perform the sacred pilgrimage to the Caaba, which Mahomet had made a fundamental part of his religion. In the sixth year, however, he informed them of a dream with which he had been been favoured, according to the obvious interpretation of which, he assured them, that they would that year gain admittance to the temple, and perform all the sacred ceremonies prescribed on the occasion. On the faith of this, with unexampled simplicity, he set out at the appointed time, accompanied by the chiefs only of his followers, unpre