all contradiction is removed by the saving maxim, that any text of scripture is abrogated or modified by any subsequent passage. The word of God and of the apostle was diligently recorded by his disciples on palm leaves and the shoulder-blades of mutton; and the pages, without order and connexion, were cast into a domestic chest in the custody of one of his wives. Two years after the death of Mahomet, the sacred volume was collected and published by his friend and successor Abubeker."* During the life of Mahomet, the Koran thus existed only in sentences. And these also were dark, forming an "endless incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which seldom excite a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds."+ Though excessive artfulness be sometimes hid under the veil of mysticism, yet, compared with the light of the gospel or the dictates of reason, the sentences of the Koran are dark and incoherent, like a sick man's dreams, as if they really had been fancied in the moments of half-returning reason, on revival from epileptic fits, to which, perhaps falsely, it has been said that he was subject, and which, it has also been alleged, were the pretended seasons of his inspiration. Of light from heaven there is not a ray in the Koran. And the crescent is all darkness except where it dimly emits the reflected light of scripture, like the moon that brightens but to wane, and borrows all its far fainter radiance from the sun. Yet the Koran is the book" on the merit of which Mahomet rested the belief of his mission," and by which half the world has been ruled for more than a thousand years.

His power was mighty, but not by his own power. He possessed not any hereditary dominion, or authority, or wealth. "In his early infancy, he was

* Gibbon's Hist. Ibid. p. 268. + Ibid. p. 269. + Ib.

deprived of his father, his mother, and his grandfather: his uncles were strong and numerous; and in the division of the inheritance, the orphan's share was reduced to five camels and an Ethiopian maidservant. "As soon as he was of fit age, he was sent with his camels into Syria."+ "In his twentyfifth year, he entered into the service of Cadijah, a rich and noble widow of Mecca, who soon rewarded his fidelity with the gift of her hand and fortune. The marriage-contract stipulates a dowry of twelve ounces of gold and twenty camels, which was supplied by the liberality of his uncle. In the fortieth year of his age, he assumed the title of a prophet, and proclaimed the religion of the Koran." Three years were silently employed in the conversion of fourteen proselytes, the first fruits of his mission."|| A mighty power arose from nothing. He won an empire over the minds of men, such as mocked the ephemeral and evanescent kingdom of Alexander the Great. And without a single adherent at first, after he announced his mission, Mahomet soon gave the law to millions. The roving Arabs were attracted to his standard by the hope of plunder, and the license to slay the enemies of the faith. Mahometanism, in its rise, progress, extent, and fall, occupies that prominency, and distinctiveness of character, in prophecy, which it has maintained in the world. It is the contrast between his original powerlessness and the might and influence which he attained, which is here marked; and no contrast could be greater. In this, as in all other respects, he stands forth distinguished from all the kings that went before him. The camel-driver, a poor Arabian trader, and the

† Life of Mahomet, pre

Gibbon's Hist. vol. ix. p. 255. fixed to De Ryer's Alcoran, p. 5. † Gibbon's Hist, vol. ix. p. 255, 256. c. 50. || Ibid. p. 284.

servant of Cadijah, are forgotten in the name of Mahomet.

prosper

And he shall destroy wonderfully, and prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.-Ver. 24. No historical fact is better known, over the wide world, than that Mahometanism, identified with the name and the faith, and maintaining the principles, of its founder, has ed and practised. At first, and for a long period, it destroyed wonderfully. The blood of martyrs was the seed of the Christian church; but the progress of the Mahometan faith was tracked by the blood of its enemies, and marked out by their destruction. Fanaticism went forth armed with carnal weapons of warfare. And Mahomet and his successors have to be ranked among the greatest conquerors. So won

derful was the destruction which they wrought, the prosperity which attended on their arms and their creed, and the success of the arts which they practised, that the sway of the Saracen caliphs extended from India to Spain. After the power of the caliphate of Bagdad was undermined by luxury, a new series of conquerors arose, in the race of Othman, to renew the terrors and extend the destruction which were wrought on Christendom, under the name and authority of the prophet of Mecca.

The little horn, that became thus exceeding great, not only destroyed wonderfully and prospered, but practised also; and artifice effected what the sword alone could not accomplish. In the field of battle," says Gibbon, in describing (chap. li.) the propagation of Mahometanism," the forfeit lives of the prisoners were redeemed by the profession of Islam; the females were bound to embrace the religion of their masters; and a race of sincere proselytes was gradually multiplied by the education of the infant captives. But the millions of African and Asiatic

converts, who swelled the native band of the faithful Arabs, must have been allured, rather than constrained, to declare their belief in one God and the apostle of God. By the repetition of a sentence, and the · loss of a foreskin, the subject or the slave, the captive or the criminal, arose in a moment the free and equal companion of the victorious Moslems. Every sin was expiated, every engagement was dissolved; the vow of celibacy was superseded; the active spirits who slept in the cloister were wakened by the trumpet of the Saracens; and in the convulsion of the world, every member of a new society ascended to the level of his capacity and courage. The minds of the multitude were tempted by the temporal as well as invisible blessings of the Arabian prophet." Through his policy also shall he cause craft to prosper in his hand.

It waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. He shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. When transgressions were come to the full, an impostor triumphed over the nominal professors of the Christian faith. The highest stations in church and state fell to the ground before him. Principalities and bishoprics were cast down. The shaven heads were peculiarly marked out to be cloven. They who should have shone as lights in the world, and held, like the angels of the seven churches of Asia, the name and the place of stars, were cast down; these stars were stamped upon; and the mollahs of Mahomet supplanted the ministers of Jesus, who had become lords over God's heritage, and who taught their people to bow down to stocks. The place of the sanctuary was cast down. The cross was displaced, and the crescent was planted on the site of the temple of Jerusalem.

He shall magnify himself in his heart, and by

peace shall he destroy many. He shall also stand up against the Prince of princes. Acknowledging the mission of Christ as a prophet, he announced himself as a greater. "The disciples of Abraham, of Moses, and of Jesus, were solemnly invited to accept the more perfect revelation of Mahomet; but if they preferred the payment of a moderate tribute, they were entitled to the freedom of conscience and religious worship." He magnified himself in his heart above all the sons of men, and above all the prophets of God. The summary of his creed, ever in the mouth of his blinded followers, is, "there is no God but one; and Mahomet is the prophet of God." He blasphemously professed that he was the Paraclete or Comforter, whose coming Christ had foretold; that no other revelation would be given; and that he was the last and greatest of the prophets. He established his faith on the ruins of a corrupted Christianity, which man had planted, and not God. But he stood up against the Prince of princes, and set himself to subvert the Christian religion, by the substitution of his own, as if the cause of Jesus was to perish with its corruptions, or as if the kingdom of God was to be subverted by a mortal.

By peace shall he destroy many. Accommodating his creed to the opinions, and, by the promises of a sensual paradise, to the passions of men, he called up, from many a heart, an advocate for an unholy faith. The peace which he promised to the vanquished Christians, was one of the arts of proselyting which he so insidiously and successfully practised, and whereby many were destroyed, by abjuring the truth and giving heed to delusion. But even as indicating destruction in a natural sense, by peace has Mahometanism destroyed many. The peaceful

Gibbon, chap. li.