any rapturous resolution by the converts of a foreign city
to defend the Prophet with their blood."--The Life of Mahomet by Sir W.
Muir, Vol. II, page 274.]

[Footnote 131: "Let us for a moment look back to the period when a ban
was proclaimed at Mecca against all the citizens, whether professed
converts or not, who espoused his cause; when they were shut up in the
_Sheb_ or quarter of Abu Talib, and there for three years without
prospect of relief endured want and hardship. Those must have been
steadfast and mighty motives which enabled him amidst all this
opposition and apparent hopelessness of success, to maintain his
principles unshaken. No sooner was he relieved from confinement, than,
despairing of his native city, he went forth to Tayif and summoned its
rulers and inhabitants to repentance; he was solitary and unaided, but
he had a message, he said, from his Lord. On the third day he was driven
out of the town with ignominy, blood trickling from the wounds inflicted
on him by the populace. He retired to a little distance, and there
poured forth his complaint to God: then he returned to Mecca, there to
carry on the same outwardly hopeless cause with the same high confidence
in its ultimate success. We search in vain through the pages of profane
history for a parallel to the struggle in which for thirteen years the
Prophet of Arabia in the face of discouragement and threats, rejection
and persecution retained his faith unwavering, preached repentance, and
denounced God's wrath against his godless fellow-citizens. Surrounded by
a little band of faithful men and women, he met insults, menaces,
dangers, with a high and patient trust in the future. And when at last
the promise of safety came from a distant quarter, he calmly waited
until his followers had all departed, and then disappeared from amongst
his ungrateful and rebellious people."--Muir, Vol. IV, pages 314-15.]

[Footnote 132: "That he was the impostor pictured by some writers is
refuted alike by his unwavering belief in the truth of his own mission,
by the loyalty and unshaken confidence of his companions, who had ample
opportunity of forming a right estimate of his sincerity, and finally,
by the magnitude of the task which he brought to so successful an issue.
No impostor, it may safely be said, could have accomplished so mighty a
work. No one unsupported by a living faith in the reality of his
commission, in the goodness of his cause, could have maintained