etimes it is as the ringing of a bell, which rends me
in pieces, and grievously afflicts me." One day, when Abu Bakr and Omar
sat in the Mosque at Medina, Mohammed came suddenly upon them, lifting up
his beard and looking at it; and Abu Bakr said, "Ah thou, for whom I would
sacrifice father and mother; white hairs are hastening upon thee!" "Yes,"
said the prophet, "Hud" (Sura 11) "and its sisters have hastened my white
hairs." "And who," asked Abu Bakr, "are its sisters?" "The _Inevitable_"
(Sura 56) "and the _Striking_" (Sura 101), replied Mohammed. These three
are called the "terrific Suras."

But these last Suras came later than the period now referred to. At this
time his visions and revelations possessed _him_; he did not possess nor
control _them_. In later years the spirit of the prophet was more subject
to the prophet. But the Koran is an unintelligible book unless we can
connect it with the biography of its writer. All the incidents of his life
took shape in some revelation. A separate revelation was given to
encourage or to rebuke him; and in his later years the too subservient
inspiration came to appease the jealousy of his wives when a new one was
added to their number. But, however it may have been afterward, in the
beginning his visions were as much a surprise to him as to others. A
careful distribution of the Suras, according to the events which befell
him, would make the Koran the best biography of the prophet. As we said of
David and his Psalms, so it may be said of Mohammed, that his life hangs
suspended in these hymns, as in votive pictures, each the record of some
grave experience.[389]

Now, it is impossible to read the detailed accounts of this part of the
life of Mohammed, and have any doubt of his profound sincerity. His
earliest converts were his bosom-friends and the people of his household,
who were intimately acquainted with his private life. Nor does a man
easily begin an ambitious course of deception at the age of forty; having
lived till that time as a quiet, peaceful, and unobtrusive citizen,[390]
what was he to gain by this career? Long years passed before he could make
more than a handful of converts. During these weary years he was the
object of contumely and hatred to the ruling tribe in Mecca. His life was
hardly safe from them. Nothing could be more hopeless than his position
during the first twelve years of his public preaching. Only a strong
conviction of the reality of his missio