to it, it totally fails. Its
astronomy, cosmogony, physiology, are so puerile as to invite our
mirth, if the occasion did not forbid. They belong to the old times of
the world, the morning of human knowledge. The earth is firmly
balanced in its seat by the weight of the mountains; the sky is
supported over it like a dome, and we are instructed in the wisdom and
power of God by being told to find a crack in it if we can. Ranged in
stories, seven in number, are the heavens, the highest being the
habitation of God, whose throne--for the Koran does not reject
Assyrian ideas--is sustained by winged animal forms. The shooting
stars are pieces of red-hot stone, thrown by angels at impure spirits
when they approach too closely. Of God the Koran is full of praise,
setting forth, often in not unworthy imagery, his majesty. Though it
bitterly denounces those who give him any equals, and assures them
that their sin will never be forgiven; that in the Judgment Day they
must answer the fearful question, "Where are my companions about whom
ye disputed?"--though it inculcates an absolute dependence on the
mercy of God, and denounces as criminals all those who make a
merchandise of religion,--its ideas of the Deity are altogether
anthropomorphic. He is only a gigantic man, living in a paradise. In
this respect, though exceptional passages might be cited, the reader
rises from a perusal of the one hundred and fourteen chapters of the
Koran with a final impression that they have given him low and
unworthy thoughts; nor is it surprising that one of the Mohammedan
sects reads it in such a way as to find no difficulty in asserting
that "from the crown of the head to the breast God is hollow, and
from the breast downward he is solid;" that he "has curled black hair,
and roars like a lion at every watch of the night." The unity asserted
by Mohammed is a unity in special contradistinction to the Trinity of
the Christians, and the doctrine of a Divine generation. Our Savior is
never called the Son of God, but always the Son of Mary. Throughout
there is a perpetual acceptance of the delusion of the human destiny
of the universe. As to man, Mohammed is diffuse enough respecting a
future state, speaking with clearness of a resurrection, the Judgment
Day, Paradise, the torment of hell, the worm that never dies, the
pains that never end; but with all this precise description of the
future, there are many errors as to the past. If modesty did not
rend