obscure and uncertain,
but there is no doubt that his advent was hailed with delight by the
"helpers" and "refugees." Hospitality was freely offered, and, owing
to the prophet's independent spirit, reluctantly accepted. One of his
earliest actions after arrival was to consolidate his forces by
strengthening the brotherhood, making the obligations of his followers
to one another, and himself, more binding than the ties of blood.

IV.--GROWTH AND PROGRESS.

He now found himself the acknowledged head of a large growing community,
which looked to him for guidance in all its affairs--religious, social,
and political. Proudly, and with true Eastern despotism, he took upon
himself the dignities of prophet, priest, and king. He needed no one with
whom to share these functions. His was the sole right--his alone. His
ambitions were being realised. The striving of years, the disappointment,
doubts, and fears that had so tormented him were well repaid, and could be
forgotten in the glamour that now surrounded him. Enthusiastic and
fanatical votaries crowded around him with loyal acclamation. Pampered and
petted with excessive adulation, can it be wondered that he had visions of
power hitherto undreamed of? His scheme of national reform paled into
insignificance in the light of possibility. He saw himself the leader of a
world-wide conquest--the promoter of a prodigious scheme of universal
reform. He was not merely the messenger of the Arab people, but the
mouthpiece of God to the whole wide world. And by the Divine Power that
possessed him would receive the humble homage of proud and mighty nations,
whose haughty monarchs would bow in lowly submission to his imperious
will! Prophetic insight, regal authority, judicial administration were his
by divine right, to be enforced, if needs be, at the point of the Islamic
sword.

As his position improved, so his ideals deteriorated. His early piety
was modified by the lust of worldly power. In place of patient pacific
methods of propagation, he adopted a cruel, ruthless, warlike policy,
and it was not long--perhaps owing to the extreme poverty which
afflicted the new community--before the would-be prophet became the
leader of a robber host. Yet even in spite of the glamour that
surrounded him, and the questionable behaviour that characterised this
period of his life, we catch occasional glimpses of that which reveals
the working of nobler instincts in his mind. Had his environme