aved, "Mohammed, the
messenger of God."

VICTORIES OF MOHAMMED. It is well known among physicians that prolonged
fasting and mental anxiety inevitably give rise to hallucination.
Perhaps there never has been any religious system introduced by
self-denying, earnest men that did not offer examples of supernatural
temptations and supernatural commands. Mysterious voices encouraged the
Arabian preacher to persist in his determination; shadows of strange
forms passed before him. He heard sounds in the air like those of a
distant bell. In a nocturnal dream he was carried by Gabriel from Mecca
to Jerusalem, and thence in succession through the six heavens. Into the
seventh the angel feared to intrude and Mohammed alone passed into the
dread cloud that forever enshrouds the Almighty. "A shiver thrilled his
heart as he felt upon his shoulder the touch of the cold hand of God."

His public ministrations met with much resistance and little success at
first. Expelled from Mecca by the upholders of the prevalent idolatry,
he sought refuge in Medina, a town in which there were many Jews and
Nestorians; the latter at once became proselytes to his faith. He had
already been compelled to send his daughter and others of his disciples
to Abyssinia, the king of which was a Nestorian Christian. At the end of
six years he had made only fifteen hundred converts. But in three little
skirmishes, magnified in subsequent times by the designation of the
battles of Beder, of Ohud, and of the Nations, Mohammed discovered that
his most convincing argument was his sword. Afterward, with Oriental
eloquence, he said, "Paradise will be found in the shadow of the
crossing of swords." By a series of well-conducted military operations,
his enemies were completely overthrown. Arabian idolatry was absolutely
exterminated; the doctrine he proclaimed, that "there is but one God,"
was universally adopted by his countrymen, and his own apostleship
accepted.

DEATH OF MOHAMMED. Let us pass over his stormy life, and hear what
he says when, on the pinnacle of earthly power and glory, he was
approaching its close.

Steadfast in his declaration of the unity of God, he departed from
Medina on his last pilgrimage to Mecca, at the head of one hundred
and fourteen thousand devotees, with camels decorated with garlands of
flowers and fluttering streamers. When he approached the holy city, he
uttered the solemn invocation: "Here am I in thy service, O God! Thou
hast no