arched and joined; the countenance thin, but ruddy. His large eyes, intensely black and piercing, received additional lustre from their long dark eyelashes. The nose was high and slightly aquiline, but fine, and at the end attenuated. The teeth were far apart. A long black bushy beard, reaching to the breast, added manliness and presence. His expression was pensive and contemplative. The face beamed with intelligence, though something of the sensuous also might be there discerned. The skin of his body was clear and soft. The only hair that met the eye was a fine thin line which ran down from the neck towards the navel. His broad back leaned slightly forward as he walked; and his step was hasty, yet sharp and decided, like that of one rapidly descending a declivity.-Vol. ii. pp. 28, 29. There certainly should be something solid, real, forcible, in a man whose exterior should correspond with this description. And placing beside it our remembrance of the assured habits and religiousness of Mahomet, we are not surprised to find that his perpetual reflectiveness was concerned with religion, and that his persistent and quietly (but perhaps not at first self-consciously) resolute will, was to arrive at something more satisfactory than the quasi-theological dogmas upon which the idolatry of the Meccans was built. With that idolatry we are certified that he had long been secretly dissatisfied. He had learnt, while yet a boy, that even of his own countrymen were many in the more northern parts of Arabia who had rejected it. He must since that time have had repeated opportunities of informing himself as to the religion of the Jewish tribes of Arabia; he cannot have lived for forty years without frequently hearing of the Jews of Yathrib, the rival of Mecca; and we know that at the fair of Okatz he listened to the preaching of Coss, or Qoss, a Christian missionary who repeatedly went thither to declare the falseness of Polytheism and the unity of God. We know too that Mahomet very carefully observed the month of fasting and prayer prescribed by the Meccan religion, and that, not satisfied with this, he would often at other times betake himself, with a few days' provisions, to a cave in the neighbouring Mount Hira, now called Jebel Nur, and address himself with renewed devotion to the task of finding out a religion in which he could rest. Of his sincerity at this period we confess that we entertain no doubt, and are unable to discover the reasons which justify such doubt where entertained. That his sincerity was absolutely such, or that his ardour of religious inquiry was always pure of self and ambition, we neither say nor are concerned about. No man can escape from himself; and all that is needful to be urged in favour of Mahomet is that self and ambition were in no wise prominent, and, Feeling after God. 259 so far as appearances may warrant a conclusion, were unfelt, and perhaps unknown. For the Prophet's thoughts were passionate and profound. Alone, amid the ineffable silence and vast solitudes of Mount Hira and the desert, he watched the darkening sky, unresponsive to his prayers, and the nightly brilliance of the stars which he knew had shone down upon his fathers of forgotten age, and he wondered why they had worshipped Aldebaran, and whether Sirius, or Canopus, or Jupiter could really aid him. He was enraptured at the breaking day as it surged up the crimsoning east with its glory at the flood, and felt that the world must have a Maker, and might one day have a Judge. He was feeling after God, if haply he might find him. Miserable figments and distorted facts of a dead Judaism and of a hopelessly corrupted Christianity, only added to his perplexity. They suggested inquiries it was impossible they should answer, while they added to the reasons for regarding with scepticism the religion of his youth. A man not sadly and resolutely in earnest would have given up this strife. It was itself most assuredly no gladness, but otherwise. For Mahomet was not pursuing truth, but only endeavouring to find out where that pursuit might begin. The pursuing of truth, indeed, may be a life-long pleasure; but how shall a man pursue that of which he has no trace, and towards which he knows no path? Lessing, quoted by Sir Wm. Hamilton, said, 'Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand Truth, and in his left hand Search after 'Truth, deign to tender me the one I might prefer, in all humility, 'but without hesitation, I should request, Search after Truth. And the fullest justification of such a choice, it is obvious, would be found in that peculiar constitution of man which renders him ever happier in pursuit than in possession. But in Mahomet's case things were wholly different from this; and we need not wonder, therefore, if his inquiries, instead of bringing quiet, brought wretchedness, and if his philosophy, instead of being Divine and sustaining, conducted him to melancholy and despair. So must it be with every man with whom the question is the same as that which was presented to the Prophet; the question, in effect, of Theism or of Atheism; of a Polytheism which was certainly false, or of a Scepticism which could not be true. This was the question with which it seems clear the Prophet of Islam was, year after year, doing battle. Things of morality, of abstract right, of duty in daily life, were probably enough revolved; but the great, mastering, and central question was, doubtless, in effect the one we have supposed. Happy he, indeed, who knows the causes of things-Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas— and also happy he, who, feeling his equal ignorance and impo tence, can let them alone. Mahomet belonged to neither class, and, being driven to despair, contemplated suicide. Sometimes again an erratic and uncertain light would gleam across the chaos of doubt, and in strong but irregular rhapsody the tormented soul cried out, " By the declining day I swear! And stir up one another to truth and steadfastness.' -Sura ciii.* At length there dawned on his mind the conviction of a personal Deity, supreme and infinite, neither begotten nor begetting. And then Mahomet rejoiced and said, 'Praise be to God, the Lord of Creation, The All-merciful, the All-compassionate! Ruler of the day of reckoning! Thee we worship, and Thee we invoke for help. Lead us in the straight path ; The path of those to whom Thou hast been gracious, Not of those that are the objects of wrath or that are in error.' -Sura i. Great as was the advance which is here indicated, it did not suffice. New difficulties arose to take the place of the old ones, and having attained the conviction of a Supreme Deity, Mahomet came, as others had come before him, and as yet others are coming constantly, to be utterly perplexed as to the relations sustained or sustainable to such Supreme. Vague traditions of Abrahamic legend had come down to him; and sundry most pitiful and cruel strifes about a greater than Abraham he had not only heard of, but, especially in Syria, had seen the bitter fruits of. It was no wonder if these schisms and logomachies led to anything but Him about the mystery of whose person and work they were chiefly concerned. Indeed this, we find, is the epoch and phase in Mahomet's life which, once apprehended, explains, though it does not apologise for, the fundamental distinction of the religion he founded. He could discover no certainty as to the way in which he might best approach God. From the travestied Syrian accounts of the one Mediator * Except in one or two instances specified, all our quotations from the Koran are as given in the occasional translations by Mr. Muir. As a rule they are substantially the same as those in Sale. The chronological sequence of the Suras, it is to be noted, is not according to the arrangement in any extant edition of the Koran, and is now only conjecturable. Mr. Muir has paid the greatest attention to this subject, and, after repeated reviewings of it, has given in an Appendix to his third volume a probable arrangement, which we are content to accept. If haply he might find Him. 261 between God and man-himself possessing the nature of bothhe was unable to eliminate the countless and impious refinements of Arian, and Athanasian, and Nestorian zealots, agreeing in nothing save the fervour with which they out-preached, outcursed, and spoiled and slew each other. That sort of thing could not be true, thought Mahomet. Trinitarian discussionespecially when it made Mary, the mother of Christ, to be the Third Person of the Trinity-perplexed even less than it offended him. All that he felt really clear about was the existence and the government over His creatures of an infinitely wise, and just, and powerful God. Hence the cardinal distinction of the Mahometan religion,-the entire absence of the doctrine of mediation. Islam proper, accordingly, though we may concede it to be in some sort a gospel, inasmuch as it is essentially and intensely anti-idolatrous, is a gospel with almost no good tidings. To the sensual it permits sensualism without calling it sin; to the ignorant and selfish it offers formalism and mechanical rules of piety; to the intellectual an intellectual theism; to all men a tiresome but not wholly useless ceremonial; and for the rest this: When the earth shall tremble with her quaking; In that day shall mankind advance in ranks, that they may behold their works; And whoever shall have wrought good to the weight of a grain shall behold it; And whoever shall have wrought evil to the weight of a grain shall behold it.' -Sura xcix. It was at this stage of his inquiries apparently, that Mahomet's real or pretended inspiration was interrupted. For nearly three years Gabriel never came near him, and he was driven anew to misery and despair. Meanwhile he had become a marked man to his fellow citizens. Persuaded of his Divine call to such a task, he strove in what way he could to show to all who would listen, but especially to the members of his own family and tribe, the wrong of idolatry and the unity of God. They laughed him to scorn, pointed the finger at him, called after him in the streets as a half-witted fellow, and considered him withal an intolerable bore. Sometimes, indeed, this treatment of contempt and scoffing got the better of him, and the poorer part of a merely human nature showed freely out beneath the professions of heavenly zeal. One day, for example, he called a meeting of the leading citizens of Mecca. They came; but when Abu Lahab, an ill-natured uncle of the Prophet's, found it was merely to hear another harangue on the now familiar topic of the sin of idolatry, he listened till his patience was exhausted, and then announced the extremity of his disgust by briefly and contemptuously damning his nephew. And the much-forbearing Mahomet could forbear no longer. The fierce wrath leaped out of his heart, and though Abu Lahab was the father-in-law of two of his daughters, as well as his own paternal uncle, he both cursed him and placed his curse on record as an inspiration from God. 'Damned be Abu Lahab's hands; and let himself be damned! About her neck shall be a rope of palm-fibre.'-Sura cxi. Others too opposed Mahomet no less scornfully and harshly than did Abu Lahab; and altogether the would-be prophet and reformer had but an evil time of it. The occurrence of the Fatrah, or intermission of revelations, was a serious addition to his troubles. In what way he contrived to pass the three years of its continuance is not recorded. It suffices that at the end of that time the command to preach became imperative and irresistible. Mahomet preached accordingly. His first disciple was his own wife. Soon after followed Abu Bakr, a wealthy and prudent citizen, whose name and character were a tower of strength. Zeid, formerly the prophet's slave, subsequently his freedman and adopted son, and Ali, his impetuous and warlike nephew, were among his earliest adherents, and too notable not to be specially mentioned. Other converts followed, especially from among the slaves of Mecca; and Islam, notwithstanding discouragements and obstacles, was steadily and slowly becoming a fact. The opposition of the Coreish, which appears to have been slumbering for a while, was suddenly aroused afresh, stung into activity by the growing audacity of the Prophet. Only for his being under the special protection of the faithful Abu Talib, and so under the protection of the whole Hashemite family, he would certainly have fallen a victim to the freedom with which he declared himself the antagonist of idolatry and the Apostle of the Most High. It was about three years after the open declaration of his apostleship that Mahomet hired a house near the middle of the |