companion. To thee alone belongeth worship. Thine alone is the
kingdom. There is none to share it with thee."

With his own hand he offered up the camels in sacrifice. He considered
that primeval institution to be equally sacred as prayer, and that no
reason can be alleged in support of the one which is not equally strong
in support of the other.

From the pulpit of the Caaba he reiterated, "O my hearers, I am only a
man like yourselves." They remembered that he had once said to one who
approached him with timid steps: "Of what dost thou stand in awe? I am
no king. I am nothing but the son of an Arab woman, who ate flesh dried
in the sun."

He returned to Medina to die. In his farewell to his congregation, he
said: "Every thing happens according to the will of God, and has its
appointed time, which can neither be hastened nor avoided. I return to
him who sent me, and my last command to you is, that ye love, honor, and
uphold each other, that ye exhort each other to faith and constancy in
belief, and to the performance of pious deeds. My life has been for your
good, and so will be my death."

In his dying agony, his head was reclined on the lap of Ayesha. From
time to time he had dipped his hand in a vase of water, and moistened
his face. At last he ceased, and, gazing steadfastly upward, said, in
broken accents: "O God--forgive my sins--be it so. I come."

Shall we speak of this man with disrespect? His precepts are, at this
day, the religious guide of one-third of the human race.

DOCTRINES OF MOHAMMED. In Mohammed, who had already broken away from the
ancient idolatrous worship of his native country, preparation had been
made for the rejection of those tenets which his Nestorian teachers
had communicated to him, inconsistent with reason and conscience. And,
though, in the first pages of the Koran, he declares his belief in what
was delivered to Moses and Jesus, and his reverence for them personally,
his veneration for the Almighty is perpetually displayed. He is
horror-stricken at the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus, the Worship of
Mary as the mother of God, the adoration of images and paintings, in
his eyes a base idolatry. He absolutely rejects the Trinity, of which
he seems to have entertained the idea that it could not be interpreted
otherwise than as presenting three distinct Gods.

His first and ruling idea was simply religious reform--to overthrow
Arabian idolatry, and put an end to the wild sectarian