privy to the Impostor's design, and greatly assisting him in bring ing it to maturity, came opportunely in with his asseverations, justified Mohammed in all he advanced, and finally made a convert of the once incredulous Khadijah. What will not patience and perseverance accomplish? They ought to be his companions, who is concerned in any laudable undertaking which is the work of time, but in the support of a bad, they are eminently useful. They who embark in the defence of error and delusion require a command of temper, and an astonishing presence of mind, as they must expect to meet with much irony and ridicule, and have to grapple with a multitude of objections for which they cannot always be prepared. This was the case with Mohammed, in propagating his imposture, who, from his first attempt to convince his wife of the divinity of his mission, to the time at which he took up the sword in its defence, a period of no less than thirteen years, was continually exposed to scoffing and ridicule, to laughter and contempt. Yet he never once appeared to be angry, bearing all the indignities that were offered him, without seeming to repine. As ungovernable sallies of passion in support of truth never fail to injure its reception in the world, so it is no less certain, that even error itself loses its native deformity by degrees, when supported with mildness, composure, and diffidence. We are not warranted in saying, from any historical information to which we have had access, that he inherited from nature this government of himself. From the most minute attention to his life, considered as a connected whole, we are led to believe that he was either of a morose and sullen, or of a hasty, passionate temper; for the propagation of his religion by the sword has nearly as much the air of rancor and revenge, as a determined resolution to push the advantages he had obtained. But before he sounded the minds of his countrymen, on which depended the probability of his success, his cunning and ready wit no doubt pointed out the necessity of disguising his temper.

Men of an ominous disposition, who are fond of allusion and allegory, think they discover some portentous event in every accidental circumstance. To people of this turn of mind it will be a rich treat to understand, that Mohammed withdrew to the cave near Mecca, the very year in which the tyrant Phocas granted liberty to the Bishop of Rome, to assume the title of universal pastor. At the time when Antichrist was climbing to the summit of his impious dignity in the northern, a monster was forging the chains of delusion for the southern hemisphere. Whether such things are brought about by the immediate interference of God, or happen according to the established laws of nature, it is not our design at present fully to investigate. The Supreme Being, we should humbly apprehend, is as much concerned in them, as in other works of his hands, when by the wonderful law of vegetation, ne makes a tree to germinate, blossom, and bear fruit. If Moham

med went to the cave in the very year in which the grant of Phocas was obtained, we do not see that it proves anything more than such an assertion as this: :- - that some person or other was born in the very year, the very month, and perhaps on the very day on which the author of these pages was born. Unfortunately, how ever, for those who wish to make more of this story than a natural occurrence, the dates affixed to the two events will not bring them together. Mohammed was born in the year of our Lord five hundred and seventy-one; the grant of Phocas is dated six hundred and six, and the Impostor took up his residence in the cave at the age of thirty-eight. Now, 38+571-609, which carries the one three years beyond the other. If he was born in the begin ning of 571, the odd year will make one year of his age; and then it will be 571+37, or 570+38=608, two years after the grant of Phocas. Finally, as the Arabs computed by lunar years, Mohammed was only 36 years old, and something more than ten months at the time of his retirement; that is, almost 37. If then you add this to 570 or 571, it will give 607 or 608 nearly, none of which periods will agree with the other. If these two events must be made to coincide exactly in point of time, one of three conclusions must be admitted; either that Mohammed was not born in 571, or that the grant of Phocas was not obtained in 606, or that the Impostor did not retire to the cave at the age of thirty-eight. But as all the above dates have the concurring testimony of the most reputed authors extant, it is the fairest and most rational conclusion, that the two events did not happen at the same time.

Mohammed, at the age of forty, after completing the period of his probation in the cell, assumed the title of Apostle of God, with none but Khadijah as the fruit of his exertions, only venturing, however, to practise on the credulity of his domestics and very near relations, since their influence, if it could be obtained, would give him additional encouragement to try his success with the public. For the space of four years, the converts to his new religion were only nine in number. This gloomy prospect required a degree of patience too big for the shock of disappointment. And here we beseech all zealous, hot-headed Christians to remember, that his having obtained so few proselytes for such a length of time, can be no proof, abstractly considered, of the badness of his cause; for even truth itself when it is entirely new, will be received at first with shyness and suspicion. We speak thus, because we never wish to refute error but by solid arguments, undeniably rational, and not by the spawn of fancy, whim, or ill-nature. We shall presently find him abundantly wicked, without the pitiful subterfuge of shift or evasion.

Recollecting the recluse and austere life he had led in the cave, and expecting to feel the good effects of it, from the reputation for sanctity which it had probably acquired him, he opened his imposture to the people, at the age of forty-four. The leading ideas

of all his discourses were, that God is one; that he him self was the prophet of God, sent to declare his will to men; and that they who affirm the Almighty to have sons or daughters, are chargeable with impiety, and ought to be detested. It was unquestionably his design to inveigh against the doctrine of the Trinity by one part of this assertion, and to condemn the idolatry of his countrymen by the other. They were strongly addicted to the worship of three female deities, known by the names of Allat, Menat, and Al Uzza, whom they impiously denominated the daughters of God. As was to be expected, the ridicule and opposition he met with from his hearers put his counterfeit patience to many severe trials. People did not hesitate to pronounce him a sorcerer. They openly called him a liar, and viewed everything he uttered as impertinent and fabulous. It is almost impossible to conceive how mortifying it must have been to his native pride and ambition, to be treated with less ceremony than a ballad-singer. As the fictitious mildness of his temper prevented him from betraying the wickedness of his intentions, or giving ground to suspect him as the author of a forgery, by flying out into gusts of passion; so his ready wit, of which he must be acknowledged to have had a very large share, seldom deserted him altogether on any critical emergency. Yet, amidst the innumerable objections he had to encounter on all hands, many of which he could not always be in readiness to obviate, he was sometimes left in absolute silence, to the no small diversion of those who opposed him. The cause he had espoused being so desperately wicked, and so utterly incapable of being supported by argument, we cannot wonder if he was sometimes at a loss for a fetch of cunning, to ward off the rational objections that fell so thick upon him from every quarter, on his first appearance in public. When a man undertakes the talk of a Mohammed, it would require the artifice of the devil himself to bear him always through. Yet astonishing to relate, he did go through with it, and for the space of thirteen years, employed nothing like compulsion. His wonderful patience under persecution, and his forbearing to revenge any insult, though he could certainly have wished to do it, had a very considerable share in blunting the edge of opposition. Add to this, that he had a peculiar talent of flattery, which he levelled against the weak side of the great and opulent with such a masterly hand, that he procured their protection, and made many of them converts. It is so extremely natural for mankind to love commendation, that few are always proof against its most formidable attacks. If any are so, it must be the man who has not only an extensive education, but a penetrating judgment, and an enlarged understanding. To such a man flattery always appears either as the disguise of wickedness, or a design to ridicule. The partition between flattery and honest

praise is so very thin, that a wise man will reject all commenda tion bestowed upon him to his face, that he may not run the hazard of being imposed on, nor carried out of himself by the sugges tions of vanity. But those with whom Mohammed was concerned, were not proof against flattery under his artful management. He gained the ascendancy over many of the first rank in life, which he no doubt considered as a favorable prelude to the surrender of the poor. Although he labored four years for four converts to his cause, yet the next year of his pretended mission added thirty to their number. The influence of example is always very powerful, but that of the opulent over their dependents and inferiors can seldom be resisted. His affluent circumstances put it also in his power to bribe the needy, which he brought in to assist the example of the great; and the united force of these two accomplished his design.

It has often been said that poverty is a foe to honesty, and per haps it is capable of doing as much mischief to a man's religious creed. The offer of plenty to him who is plunged into the extremity of want, is a strong temptation to make a sacrifice of conscience. This effect it produced in the deserts of Arabia, where men of little religion had the less sacrifice to make. A craving stomach spoke louder than reason, and the loaves and fishes wrought wonders in his favor. In addition to all the arts we have already mentioned, he incessantly applied to those passions of the human mind in his promises and threatenings, which were chiefly consulted in the regulation of their conduct. Their hopes and fears felt his heaviest artillery, as the heaven and hell of his own manufacturing will abundantly evince. In his paradise, he said there were many rivers and curious fountains, continually sending forth pleasing streams. Near these, he told his followers, they should repose themselves on most delicate and sumptuous beds, adorned with gold and precious stones, under the shadow of the trees of paradise, yielding them all manner of pleasant fruits; and that there they should enjoy most beautiful women, who would not cast an eye on any but themselves. He likewise assured them of receiving most delicious liquors and pleasant wines, without having their enjoyment interrupted by intervals of intoxication. This fulsome stuff was a tidbit for the stomach of an Arabian, constitutionally addicted to the love of pleasure, and entirely suited to the palate of its voluptuous author. It is not difficult to make men believe what they wish to be true, and of consequence no picture of human happiness to be enjoyed in futurity could have been drawn, so completely capable of subduing their opposition, inflaming their desires, and of triumphing over the dictates of reason and conscience. In the barren, parched sands of Arabia, what could be so much an object of desire as a cooling shade from the almost vertical rays of the meridian sun, or copious draughts

of refreshing, cooling liquors, to men burning with thirst? Such images increased the native impetuosity of their passions, and hurried them into the vortex of his impious delusion.

But if his description of heaven was peculiarly enchanting to those whom he aimed to deceive, his hell was no less terrible to the same description of men. He affirmed that such as would not receive his divine message, should drink boiling and stinking water, breathe nothing but hot winds, dwell forever in continual fire, and be surrounded with a black, salt smoke; eat briers and thorns, and the fruit of the tree zacon, which would be in their bellies like burning pitch. It is astonishing with what artifice and cunning these portraits are delineated. How terrible must it have been to a native of the torrid zone, visited with the intolerable heat of the sun, reflected from the burning sands, as from the mouth of an oven, and whose very zephyrs were fire, to think that such would be his state through everlasting ages, if he should continue to reject the inspiration of the Koran! By the perpetual sounding of such rewards and punishments in the ears of his countrymen, Mohammed terrified some and allured others into the belief of his mission. But he had still another engine for battering down opposition, and that was, his threatening the most dreadful judgments here upon earth, in case of non-compliance with his favorite scheme. He gave them to understand, that the old world was destroyed by a deluge, for their disobedience to Noah; that Sodom was consumed by fire and brimstone from heaven, for its treatment of Lot, and the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, for rejecting the mission of Moses. To these and such like instances of the divine displeasure against the workers of iniquity, he added a fiction of his own, about the destruction of Ad and Thamod, totally destroyed for similar reasons. Now, if land be an object of desire to the shipwrecked mariner, drink to the parched tongue, or ease to such as are tormented with the gout, all the promises and threatenings of Mohammed must have been equally the objects of desire and aversion. And here it is obvious to remark, that there was no sort of analogy between the above judgments, which reason would soon have pointed out to the Arabs, had not their hopes and fears been their principles of action. It was a sophistical inference, that because the Egyptians and Sodomites were made the visible monuments of the wrath of insulted Heaven, therefore all those who rejected his claim to a divine commission would also be punished; for they were rendered inexcusable by their open contempt of the warnings of Jehovah, or the miracles which were performed to subdue their unbelief; whereas the Arabians rejected the lunatic pretences of a man who could only assert, without a single evidence of the truth of his assertion.

In the above manner he continued to propagate his imposture, which acquired additional strength so fast, that many, whom no promises could as yet allure, nor threatenings intimidate, began to