that he fed the hungry, cured the sick,
and raised the dead; that a beam groaned to him; that a camel complained
to him; that a shoulder of mutton informed him of its being poisoned;
and that both animate and inanimate nature were equally subject to the
apostle of God. His dream of a nocturnal journey is seriously described
as a real and corporeal transaction. A mysterious animal, the Borak,
conveyed him from the temple of Mecca to that of Jerusalem: with his
companion Gabriel he successively ascended the seven heavens, and
received and repaid the salutations of the patriarchs, the prophets,
and the angels, in their respective mansions. Beyond the seventh heaven,
Mahomet alone was permitted to proceed; he passed the veil of unity,
approached within two bow-shots of the throne, and felt a cold that
pierced him to the heart, when his shoulder was touched by the hand
of God. After this familiar, though important conversation, he again
descended to Jerusalem, remounted the Borak, returned to Mecca, and
performed in the tenth part of a night the journey of many thousand
years. According to another legend, the apostle confounded in a national
assembly the malicious challenge of the Koreish. His resistless word
split asunder the orb of the moon: the obedient planet stooped from her
station in the sky, accomplished the seven revolutions round the Caaba,
saluted Mahomet in the Arabian tongue, and, suddenly contracting her
dimensions, entered at the collar, and issued forth through the sleeve,
of his shirt. The vulgar are amused with these marvellous tales; but the
gravest of the Mussulman doctors imitate the modesty of their master,
and indulge a latitude of faith or interpretation. They might speciously
allege, that in preaching the religion it was needless to violate the
harmony of nature; that a creed unclouded with mystery may be excused
from miracles; and that the sword of Mahomet was not less potent than
the rod of Moses.

The polytheist is oppressed and distracted by the variety of
superstition: a thousand rites of Egyptian origin were interwoven
with the essence of the Mosaic law; and the spirit of the gospel had
evaporated in the pageantry of the church. The prophet of Mecca was
tempted by prejudice, or policy, or patriotism, to sanctify the rites
of the Arabians, and the custom of visiting the holy stone of the
Caaba. But the precepts of Mahomet himself inculcates a more simple and
rational piety: prayer, fasting, and