otection till the death of the last member, or the final
dissolution of the party. It was in the same camp that the deputy of
Mecca was astonished by the attention of the faithful to the words and
looks of the prophet, by the eagerness with which they collected his
spittle, a hair that dropped on the ground, the refuse water of his
lustrations, as if they participated in some degree of the prophetic
virtue. "I have seen," said he, "the Chosroes of Persia and the Caesar
of Rome, but never did I behold a king among his subjects like Mahomet
among his companions." The devout fervor of enthusiasm acts with more
energy and truth than the cold and formal servility of courts.

[Footnote 121: Prideaux (Life of Mahomet, p. 44) reviles the wickedness
of the impostor, who despoiled two poor orphans, the sons of a
carpenter; a reproach which he drew from the Disputatio contra
Saracenos, composed in Arabic before the year 1130; but the honest
Gagnier (ad Abulfed. p. 53) has shown that they were deceived by the
word Al Nagjar, which signifies, in this place, not an obscure trade,
but a noble tribe of Arabs. The desolate state of the ground is
described by Abulfeda; and his worthy interpreter has proved, from Al
Bochari, the offer of a price; from Al Jannabi, the fair purchase; and
from Ahmeq Ben Joseph, the payment of the money by the generous Abubeker
On these grounds the prophet must be honorably acquitted.]

[Footnote 122: Al Jannabi (apud Gagnier, tom. ii. p. 246, 324) describes
the seal and pulpit, as two venerable relics of the apostle of God; and
the portrait of his court is taken from Abulfeda, (c. 44, p. 85.)]

In the state of nature, every man has a right to defend, by force of
arms, his person and his possessions; to repel, or even to prevent, the
violence of his enemies, and to extend his hostilities to a reasonable
measure of satisfaction and retaliation. In the free society of the
Arabs, the duties of subject and citizen imposed a feeble restraint; and
Mahomet, in the exercise of a peaceful and benevolent mission, had been
despoiled and banished by the injustice of his countrymen. The choice of
an independent people had exalted the fugitive of Mecca to the rank of
a sovereign; and he was invested with the just prerogative of forming
alliances, and of waging offensive or defensive war. The imperfection
of human rights was supplied and armed by the plenitude of divine power:
the prophet of Medina assumed, in his new reve