ect his steps." Of
all acts, is not, for a man, _repentance_ the most divine? The deadliest
sin, I say, were that same supercilious consciousness of no sin;--that
is death; the heart so conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility,
and fact; is dead: it is "pure" as dead dry sand is pure. David's life
and history, as written for us in those Psalms of his, I consider to be
the truest emblem ever given of a man's moral progress and warfare here
below. All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful struggle
of an earnest human soul towards what is good and best. Struggle often
baffled, sore baffled, down as into entire wreck; yet a struggle never
ended; ever, with tears, repentance, true unconquerable purpose, begun
anew. Poor human nature! Is not a man's walking, in truth, always that:
"a succession of falls"? Man can do no other. In this wild element of a
Life, he has to struggle onwards; now fallen, deep-abased; and ever,
with tears, repentance, with bleeding heart, he has to rise again,
struggle again still onwards. That his struggle _be_ a faithful
unconquerable one: that is the question of questions. We will put-up
with many sad details, if the soul of it were true. Details by
themselves will never teach us what it is. I believe we misestimate
Mohammed's faults even as faults: but the secret of him will never be
got by dwelling there. We will leave all this behind us; and assuring
ourselves that he did mean some true thing, ask candidly what it was or
might be.

These Arabs Mohammed was born among are certainly a notable people.
Their country itself is notable; the fit habitation for such a race.
Savage inaccessible rock-mountains, great grim deserts, alternating with
beautiful strips of verdure: wherever water is, there is greenness,
beauty; odoriferous balm-shrubs, date-trees, frankincense-trees.
Consider that wide waste horizon of sand, empty, silent, like a
sand-sea, dividing habitable place from habitable. You are all alone
there, left alone with the Universe; by day a fierce sun blazing down on
it with intolerable radiance; by night the great deep Heaven with its
stars. Such a country is fit for a swift-handed, deep-hearted race of
men. There is something most agile, active, and yet most meditative,
enthusiastic in the Arab character. The Persians are called the French
of the East; we will call the Arabs Oriental Italians. A gifted noble
people; a people of wild strong feelings, and of iron restraint