t respectable citizens of Mecca were introduced to the private
lessons of Islam; they yielded to the voice of reason and enthusiasm;
they repeated the fundamental creed, "There is but one God, and Mahomet
is the apostle of God;" and their faith, even in this life, was rewarded
with riches and honors, with the command of armies and the government
of kingdoms. Three years were silently employed in the conversion of
fourteen proselytes, the first-fruits of his mission; but in the fourth
year he assumed the prophetic office, and resolving to impart to his
family the light of divine truth, he prepared a banquet, a lamb, as it
is said, and a bowl of milk, for the entertainment of forty guests of
the race of Hashem. "Friends and kinsmen," said Mahomet to the assembly,
"I offer you, and I alone can offer, the most precious of gifts, the
treasures of this world and of the world to come. God has commanded me
to call you to his service. Who among you will support my burden? Who
among you will be my companion and my vizier?" No answer was returned,
till the silence of astonishment, and doubt, and contempt, was at length
broken by the impatient courage of Ali, a youth in the fourteenth year
of his age. "O prophet, I am the man: whosoever rises against thee, I
will dash out his teeth, tear out his eyes, break his legs, rip up his
belly. O prophet, I will be thy vizier over them." Mahomet accepted his
offer with transport, and Abu Taled was ironically exhorted to respect
the superior dignity of his son. In a more serious tone, the father of
Ali advised his nephew to relinquish his impracticable design. "Spare
your remonstrances," replied the intrepid fanatic to his uncle and
benefactor; "if they should place the sun on my right hand, and the moon
on my left, they should not divert me from my course." He persevered
ten years in the exercise of his mission; and the religion which has
overspread the East and the West advanced with a slow and painful
progress within the walls of Mecca. Yet Mahomet enjoyed the satisfaction
of beholding the increase of his infant congregation of Unitarians,
who revered him as a prophet, and to whom he seasonably dispensed the
spiritual nourishment of the Koran. The number of proselytes may be
esteemed by the absence of eighty-three men and eighteen women, who
retired to AEthiopia in the seventh year of his mission; and his party
was fortified by the timely conversion of his uncle Hamza, and of the
fierce and