Sometimes a rough sarcasm turns-up: He says to the unbelievers, Ye
shall have the just measure of your deeds at that Great Day. They will
be weighed-out to you; ye shall not have short weight!--Everywhere he
fixes the matter in his eye; he _sees_ it: his heart, now and then, is
as if struck dumb by the greatness of it. 'Assuredly,' he says: that
word, in the Koran, is written-down sometimes as a sentence by itself:
'Assuredly.'

No _Dilettantism_ in this Mahomet; it is a business of Reprobation and
Salvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in deadly earnest
about it! Dilettantism, hypothesis, speculation, a kind of
amateur-search for Truth, toying and coquetting with Truth: this is
the sorest sin. The root of all other imaginable sins. It consists in
the heart and soul of the man never having been _open_ to
Truth;--'living in a vain show.' Such a man not only utters and
produces falsehoods, but _is_ himself a falsehood. The rational moral
principle, spark of the Divinity, is sunk deep in him, in quiet
paralysis of life-death. The very falsehoods of Mahomet are truer than
the truths of such a man. He is the insincere man: smooth-polished,
respectable in some times and places: inoffensive, says nothing harsh
to anybody; most _cleanly_,--just as carbonic acid is, which is death
and poison.

We will not praise Mahomet's moral precepts as always of the
superfinest sort; yet it can be said that there is always a tendency
to good in them; that they are the true dictates of a heart aiming
towards what is just and true. The sublime forgiveness of
Christianity, turning of the other cheek when the one has been
smitten, is not here: you _are_ to revenge yourself, but it is to be
in measure, not overmuch, or beyond justice. On the other hand, Islam,
like any great Faith, and insight into the essence of man, is a
perfect equaliser of men: the soul of one believer outweighs all
earthly kingships; all men, according to Islam too, are equal. Mahomet
insists not on the propriety of giving alms, but on the necessity of
it; he marks-down by law how much you are to give, and it is at your
peril if you neglect. The tenth part of a man's annual income,
whatever that may be, is the _property_ of the poor, of those that are
afflicted and need help. Good all this: the natural voice of humanity,
of pity and equity dwelling in the heart of this wild Son of Nature
speaks _so_.

Mahomet's Paradise is sensual, his Hell sensual: true; in t