en laid from time everlasting on what he
called the "preserved table," close to the throne of God in the highest
heaven.

And yet, during the greater part of his career, the utterances of this
strange, incomprehensible man were characterized by a seemingly real
glow of philanthropy and an earnest solicitude for the salvation of his
countrymen from the depths of moral and spiritual degradation into
which they had fallen. A missionary spirit seemed to be in him, in
strange contrast and incompatibility with the sacrilegious words that
often fell from his lips.

In all the records of history there is nothing more wonderful than the
marvelous success which attended Mohammed at Medina. Staid and sober
merchantmen, men with gray heads, fiery youths, proselytes from the
tribes of the desert, even women, flocked to him every day; and he soon
realized that he had a vast army of converts ready to live or die for
him, ready to fight for him until the last.

Amzi, alone, of all his followers, seemed to stand aloof,
half-believing, yet unwilling to proclaim his belief openly; simply
waiting, as he had waited all his life, to see the truth, yet too
indolent to set out bravely in the quest. He preferred to look on from
aside; to weigh and calculate motives, actions and results; to judge men
by their fruits, though the doing so called for long waiting.

Yet Amzi grew more and more dissatisfied. He felt, though he knew not
its cause, the want of a rich spiritual life, that empty hollowness
which pleasures of the world and the mere consciousness of a moral life
cannot satisfy.

More than once he was tempted to declare himself a follower of the
prophet, but he put it off until a riper season.

Poor Dumah noted Amzi's frequent visits to the mosque with a vague
dread. He had an instinctive dislike of Mohammed, whose assumptions of
superiority to Jesus he understood in a hazy way, and resented with all
his might.

One day he entered with a tablet of soft stone to which a cord was
attached. Putting the cord about Amzi's neck, he said:

"Amzi, promise your Dumah that you will wear this always, will you not?
Because Dumah might die, and could not say the words any more. Promise
me!"

"I promise you," smiled Amzi, and Dumah left the room contented.

Amzi turned the tablet over, and read the familiar words traced upon the
soft stone,--the words recognized as the corner-stone of Christianity:

"God so loved the world, that he gave his