ng him from death and darkness; that he therefore
was bound to make known the same to all creatures: this is what was
meant by 'Mahomet is the Prophet of God;' this too is not without its
true meaning.--

The good Kadijah, we can fancy, listened to him with wonder, with
doubt: at length she answered: Yes, it was _true_ this that he said.
One can fancy too the boundless gratitude of Mahomet; and how of all
the kindnesses she had done him, this of believing the earnest
struggling word he now spoke was the greatest. 'It is certain,' says
Novalis, 'my Conviction gains infinitely, the moment another soul will
believe in it.' It is a boundless favour.--He never forgot this good
Kadijah. Long afterwards, Ayesha his young favourite wife, a woman who
indeed distinguished herself among the Moslem, by all manner of
qualities, through her whole long life; this young brilliant Ayesha
was, one day, questioning him: "Now am not I better than Kadijah? She
was a widow; old, and had lost her looks: you love me better than you
did her?"--"No, by Allah!" answered Mahomet: "No, by Allah! She
believed in me when none else would believe. In the whole world I had
but one friend, and she was that!"--Seid, his Slave, also believed in
him; these with his young Cousin Ali, Abu Thaleb's son, were his first
converts.

He spoke of his Doctrine to this man and that; but the most treated it
with ridicule, with indifference; in three years, I think, he had
gained but thirteen followers. His progress was slow enough. His
encouragement to go on, was altogether the usual encouragement that
such a man in such a case meets. After some three years of small
success, he invited forty of his chief kindred to an entertainment;
and there stood-up and told them what his pretension was: that he had
this thing to promulgate abroad to all men; that it was the highest
thing, the one thing: which of them would second him in that? Amid the
doubt and silence of all, young Ali, as yet a lad of sixteen,
impatient of the silence, started-up, and exclaimed in passionate
fierce language, That he would! The assembly, among whom was Abu
Thaleb, Ali's Father, could not be unfriendly to Mahomet; yet the
sight there, of one unlettered elderly man, with a lad of sixteen,
deciding on such an enterprise against all mankind, appeared
ridiculous to them; the assembly broke-up in laughter. Nevertheless it
proved not a laughable thing; it was a very serious thing! As for this
young Ali