he opening of the prison to them that are bound, etc."

"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, saith
the Lord."

"Who is a god like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth
by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth
not His anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy. He will
turn again; He will have compassion upon us. He will subdue our
iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the
sea."

"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord
require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God."

"The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He
knoweth them that trust in Him."

In the light of such lofty teaching, the conceptions of Mohammed
appear gross and degraded. His asceticism and contemplation never
brought him a vision of God that overwhelmed him and purified as by
fire. He knew the Creator only from what he heard from the lips of
sinful, ignorant men, whose ideas of Deity were base and ignoble.
These ideas, and the passions that made up such a large portion of his
life, obscured his vision, warped his judgment, and led him to
postulate a God that inhabited not a Holy Spiritual Realm, but a
grossly carnal and sensuous paradise.

Millions have been brought beneath his sway because his system panders
to the natural inclinations of man. Spiritual insight is blinded by
carnal desire; conduct is influenced by unbridled license; bigotry and
hatred are fostered by his policy of intoleration; and his followers
are enslaved by a tyranny that blights the reason, because it
discountenances inquiry, and places an insurmountable barrier in the
way of all human progress.

In studying the life of Mohammed, the cause of his failure to uplift
humanity will be clearly seen. His early sincerity, if sincerity it
can be named, was absorbed by his consuming ambition. Had it been
otherwise he might have had his name inscribed with the honourable
ones of the earth--those men whose claims are ratified by their happy
effects. As it is, his name is linked with those whose deeds cause a
shudder of horror and repulsion to all who love honesty, purity, and
truth.

I.--EARLY LIFE.

Mohammed was born in Mecca, a town in Arabia, about seventy miles
inland from the Red Sea. His father, who died 570 A.D., a few months
before the c