the Gospel of the Birth of Mary, the Gospel of the Infancy of Christ, and many others, which were never generally acknowledged, and have now sunk into merited obscurity and almost oblivion; but at that time they possessed a certain degree of weight and circulation.

Such a posture of affairs might suggest to the contemplative and ardent mind of Mohammed the desirableness of winning over the contending factions to some common principle of essential truth, such as the Unity of the God-head, which, according to his views, seemed dreadfully obscured, if not in danger of total extinction. What were his original motives we cannot say, perhaps, however, at first, the idea of subjugating so vast a portion of the globe might not have entered his mind: he could not, with certainty, calculate on a successful issue, with whatever purity of intention; and must have

anticipated various impediments in his attempt to stem the torrent of conflicting opinions and interests. Whether enthusiasm or hypocrisy predominated in the commencement of his career is a question that admits of no easy solution, and must be left to that unerring Judge, to whom all hearts are open, and from whom no secrets are hid: thus much may be observed, that the diligence, zeal, and address, with which he prosecuted his enterprise, and pursued it through all its details, at Mecca, would have done credit to a better cause.

As John, the Baptist, prepared for his important office as Precursor of the Messiah, in the solitude of a desert, so Mohammed affected an almost total seclusion from the world, in a cave at Mount Hara, near Mecca, where he boasted of celestial revelations through the medium of the Angel Gabriel. The outlines of his plan were here formed,

or varied according to circumstances: this event occurred somewhere about the period when the grant of the Emperor Phocas had been obtained, conferring the title of Universal Pastor on the haughty Prelate of Rome. Phocas usurped the sceptre with enormous crimes; his state required support, and he laboured to gain Pope Gregory's interest, and in return the Pope, desirous of the Primacy, made application to Phocas to confirm his pretensions; but Gregory dying before the completion, Boniface, his successor, obtained the sanction, and assumed the style of Universal Bishop.

Without attempting minutely to fix the æra of these two remarkable occurrences, viz. Mohammed's retirement to the cave at Hara, and the assumption of such a title by the Roman Pontiff, they followed so closely together as justly to be considered a singular coincidence. The epocha was particularly

turbulent in the annals of history, marked with the formation of new kingdoms out of the mighty wreck of the Roman empire, jealousy and divisions in the neighbouring states, comparative tranquillity with no preponderating interest amongst the independent Arabian tribes, who were rising into importance, and required only a principle of union to become truly formidable. At this period, two mighty influences were at work in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, against civil and religious establishments, destined hereafter to acquire such extensive domination, each characterised by singular properties, unlimited pretensions, and enormous attempts. The one was avowedly Anti-Christ, the opponent of the person and glory of Messiah; the other was the same, not by the open profession of infidelity, but by secret and no less destructive arts, strengthening and upholding a system of usurpation, corruption and

fraud, which, while it tended to the aggrandizement of the popedom, virtually dethroned the Saviour, and converted the best gift of God, the religion of Jesus Christ, into the very reverse of all the ends for which it was designed. With regard to Mohammed, had he pretended no particular call, and restricted himself to the inculcation of the unity of the divine nature, he might have been transmitted to posterity as the head of a sect, but not as the founder or compiler of the code which now bears his name. Asserting a particular call exposes him to reprehension: there is no God but God, is an acknowledged truth, but that Mohammed is his prophet is a fiction. The natural and penal consequence of error is to produce itself in endless variety! This accounts for his tampering with Christianity and Judaism, it being necessary to the success of his projects to recognise those ancient and widely prevailing modes of faith,

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