Mary;
the Collyridians worshiped the Virgin as a divinity, offering her
sacrifices of cakes; the Nestorians, as we have seen, denied that God
had "a mother." They prided themselves on being the inheritors, the
possessors of the science of old Greece.

But, though they were irreconcilable in matters of faith, there was one
point in which all these sects agreed--ferocious hatred and persecution
of each other. Arabia, an unconquered land of liberty, stretching from
the Indian Ocean to the Desert of Syria, gave them all, as the tide
of fortune successively turned, a refuge. It had been so from the old
times. Thither, after the Roman conquest of Palestine, vast numbers of
Jews escaped; thither, immediately after his conversion, St. Paul
tells the Galatians that he retired. The deserts were now filled with
Christian anchorites, and among the chief tribes of the Arabs many
proselytes had been made. Here and there churches had been built. The
Christian princes of Abyssinia, who were Nestorians, held the southern
province of Arabia--Yemen--in possession.

By the monk Bahira, in the convent at Bozrah, Mohammed was taught the
tenets of the Nestorians; from them the young Arab learned the story of
their persecutions. It was these interviews which engendered in him a
hatred of the idolatrous practices of the Eastern Church, and indeed of
all idolatry; that taught him, in his wonderful career, never to speak
of Jesus as the Son of God, but always as "Jesus, the son of Mary." His
untutored but active mind could not fail to be profoundly impressed not
only with the religious but also with the philosophical ideas of
his instructors, who gloried in being the living representatives of
Aristotelian science. His subsequent career shows how completely their
religious thoughts had taken possession of him, and repeated acts
manifest his affectionate regard for them. His own life was devoted to
the expansion and extension of their theological doctrine, and, that
once effectually established, his successors energetically adopted and
diffused their scientific, their Aristotelian opinions.

As Mohammed grew to manhood, he made other expeditions to Syria.
Perhaps, we may suppose, that on these occasions the convent and its
hospitable in mates were not forgotten. He had a mysterious reverence
for that country. A wealthy Meccan widow Chadizah, had intrusted him
with the care of her Syrian trade. She was charmed with his capacity
and fidelity, and