ined a young, handsome, and affectionate husband. Twenty years of
constancy, of kind and respectful attention, on the part of Mahomet,
fully justified her choice. It may, indeed, be imagined, and we confess
the supposition bears the appearance of some plausibility, that the
affection of Cadijah was not uninfluenced by the handsome person and
insinuating eloquence of her youthful suitor. And we cannot refuse our
applause to the conduct of Mahomet, who, whatever might have been her
motives, never afterward forgot the benefits he had received from his
benefactress, never made her repent having so bestowed her affection, or
grieve at having placed her fortune and her person at his absolute
disposal. Cadijah, at the time of her marriage, was forty; Mahomet,
twenty-five years of age. Till the age of sixty-four years, when she
died, did Cadijah enjoy the undivided affection of her husband; "in a
country where polygamy was allowed, the pride or tenderness of the
venerable matron was never insulted by the society of a rival. After her
death he placed her in the rank of the four perfect women: with the
sister of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of
his daughters. 'Was she not old?' said Ayesha, with the insolence of a
blooming beauty; 'has not Allah given you a better in her place?' 'No,
by Allah!' said Mahomet, with an effusion of honest gratitude, 'there
never can be a better! She believed in me, when men despised me: she
relieved my wants when I was poor and persecuted by the world.'"

Commerce now occupied his attention, and till the age of forty nothing
remarkable happened in the life of the future prophet. His marriage with
Cadijah raised him to an equality with the first citizens of Mecca, gave
an importance to his opinions, and, combined with the power of his
family, probably rendered it impossible to punish or interrupt the first
steps he made toward the propagation of his new religion. When relieved
from the pressure of indigence, his mind seems almost immediately to
have been turned toward religious meditation. The result of this
meditation was an opinion exceedingly unfavorable to the religion of his
countrymen. The first statement of this conviction was met rather by
ridicule than anger, being considered the fantasy of a dreaming
enthusiast, who was little to be dreaded, and unworthy of opposition. We
are told that he retired to a cave in Mount Hara, near Mecca, where, as
he assured his first pr