nate agents, or their motives. "Is there evil in the city, saith the Lord, and I have not done it?" i. e. the evil of suffering, not of sin. It cannot be doubted that, as a matter of fact, the rise and reign of Mohammedanism has resulted in the infliction of a most terrible scourge upon the apostate churches in the East, and in other portions of Christendom; and, unless we exclude the Judge of the world from the exercise of his judicial prerogatives in dealing with his creatures, we cannot err, provided we do not infringe upon man's moral agency, in referring the organ of chastisement to the will of the Most High. The life and actions of Mohammed himself, and his first broaching the religion of the Koran, are but the incipient links in a chain of political revolutions, equal in magnitude and importance to any which appear on the page of history-revolutions, from which it would be downright impiety to remove all idea of providential ordainment. If then we acknowledge a peculiar providence in the astonishing success of the Saracen arms subsequent to the death of Mohammed, we must acknowledge it also in the origination of that system of religion which brought them under one head, and inspired them to the achievement of such a rapid and splendid series of conquests.

The pretended prophet, having at length, after years of deliberation, ripened all his plans, proceeded in the most gradual and cautious manner to put them in execution. He had been, it seems, for some time in the habit of retiring daily to a certain cave in the vicinity of Mecca, called the cave of

Hera, for the ostensible purpose of spending his time in fasting, prayer, and holy meditation. The important crisis having now arrived, he began to break to his wife, on his return home in the evening, the solemn intelligence of supernatural visions and voices with which he was favoured in his retirement. Cadijah, as might be expected, was at first incredulous. She treated his visions as the dreams of a disturbed imagination, or as the delusions of the devil. Mohammed, however, persisted in assuring her of the reality of these communications, and rising still higher in his demands upon her credulity, at length repeated a passage which he affirmed to be a part of a divine revelation, recently conveyed to him by the ministry of the angel Gabriel. The memorable night on which this visit was made by the heavenly messenger is called the " night of Al Kadr," or the night of the divine decree, and is greatly celebrated, as it was the same night on which the entire KORAN descended from the seventh to the lowest heaven, to be thence revealed by Gabriel in successive portions as occasion might require. The Koran has a whole chapter devoted to the commemoration of this event, entitled Al Kadr. It is as follows: "In the name of the most merciful God. Verily, we sent down the Koran in the night of Al Kadr. And what shall make thee understand how excellent the night of Al Kadr is? This night is better than a thousand months. Therein do the angels

This is the account given by Prideaux. Sale, however, says, "I do not remember to have read in any Eastern author, that Cadijah ever rejected her husband's pretences as delusions, or suspected him of any imposture."-Prelim. Disc. a. 58, nate.

99*

66

descend, and the spirit Gabriel also, by the permission of their Lord, with his decrees concerning every matter. It is peace until the rising of the morn. On this favoured night, between the 23d and 24th of Ramadan, according to the prophet, the angel appeared to him, in glorious form, to communicate the happy tidings of his mission. The light issuing from his body, if the apostle-elect may be believed, was too dazzling for mortal eyes to behold; he fainted under the splendour; nor was it till Gabriel had assumed a human form, that he could venture to approach or look upon him. The angel then cried aloud, "O MOHAMMED, THOU ART THE APOSTLE OF GOD, AND I AM THE ANGEL GABRIEL !" "Read!" continued the angel; the prophet declared that he was unable to read. "Read!" Gabriel again exclaimed, " read, in the name of thy Lord, who hath created all things; who hath created man of congealed blood. Read, by thy most beneficent Lord, who hath taught the use of the pen; who teacheth man that which he knoweth not."t The prophet, who professed hitherto to have been illiterate, then read the joyful tidings respecting his ministry on earth, when the angel, having accomplished his mission, majestically ascended to heaven, and disappeared from his view. When the story of this surprising interview with a celestial visitant was related to Cadijah in connexion with the passage repeated, her unbelief, as tradition avers, was wholly overcome, and not only so, but she was wrought by it into a kind of ecstasy, declaring, "By Him in whose

* Koran, ch xcvii.

Ch. xcviii

hands her soul was, that she trusted her husband would indeed one day become the prophet of his nation." In the height of her joy she immediately imparted what she had heard to one Waraka, her cousin, who is supposed by some to have been in the secret, and who, being a Christian, had learned to write in the Hebrew character, and was tolerably well versed in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. He unhesitatingly assented to her opinion respecting the divine designation of her husband, and even affirmed, that Mohammed was no other than the great prophet foretold by Moses, the son of Amram. This belief that both the prophet and his spurious religion were subjects of inspired prediction in the Old Testament Scriptures, is studiously inculcated in the Koran. "Thy Lord is the mighty, the merciful. This book is certainly a revelation from the Lord of all creatures, which the faithful spirit (Gabriel) hath caused to descend upon thy heart, that thou mightest be a preacher to thy people in the perspicuous Arabic tongue; and it is borne witness to in the Scriptures of former ages. Was it not a sign unto them that the wise men among the children of Israel knew it ?""*

Having succeeded in gaining over his wife, he persevered in that retired and austere kind of life which tends to beget the reputation of pre-eminent sanctity, and ere long had his servant, Zeid Ebn Hareth, added to the list of proselytes. warded the faith of Zeid by manumitting him from

He re

* Koran, ch. xxiii.

servitude, and it has hence become a standing rule among his followers always to grant their freedom to such of their slaves as embrace the religion of the prophet. Ali, the son of Abu Taleb, Mohammed's cousin, was his next convert, but the impetuous youth, disregarding the other two as persons of comparatively little note, used to style himself the first of believers. His fourth and most important convert was Abubeker, a powerful citizen of Mecca, by whose influence a number of persons possessed of rank and authority were induced to profess the religion of Islam. These were Othman, Zobair, Saad, Abdorrahman, and Abu Obei, dah, who afterward became the principal leaders in his armies, and his main instruments in the establishment both of his imposture and of his empire. Four years were spent in the arduous task of winning over these nine individuals to the faith, some of whom were the principal men of the city, and who composed the whole party of his proselytes previously to his beginning to proclaim his mission in public. He was now fortyfour years of age.

It has been remarked, as somewhat of a striking coincidence, that the period of Mohammed's retiring to the cave of Hera for the purpose of fabricating his imposture corresponds very nearly with the time in which Boniface, bishop of Rome, by virtue of a grant from the tyrant Phocas, first assumed the title of Universal Pastor, and began to lay claim to that spiritual supremacy over the church of Christ, which has ever since been arrogated to themselves by his successors, "And from this