weather?
Yes, it was hot; "but Hell will be hotter!" Sometimes a rough sarcasm
turns up: He says to the unbelievers, Ye shall have the just measure of
your deeds at that Great Day. They will be weighed out to you; ye shall
not have short weight!--Everywhere he fixes the matter in his eye;
he _sees_ it: his heart, now and then, is as if struck dumb by the
greatness of it. "Assuredly," he says: that word, in the Koran, is
written down sometimes as a sentence by itself: "Assuredly."

No _Dilettantism_ in this Mahomet; it is a business of Reprobation and
Salvation with him, of Time and Eternity: he is in deadly earnest about
it! Dilettantism, hypothesis, speculation, a kind of amateur-search for
Truth, toying and coquetting with Truth: this is the sorest sin. The
root of all other imaginable sins. It consists in the heart and soul
of the man never having been _open_ to Truth;--"living in a vain show."
Such a man not only utters and produces falsehoods, but is himself a
falsehood. The rational moral principle, spark of the Divinity, is sunk
deep in him, in quiet paralysis of life-death. The very falsehoods of
Mahomet are truer than the truths of such a man. He is the insincere
man: smooth-polished, respectable in some times and places; inoffensive,
says nothing harsh to anybody; most _cleanly_,--just as carbonic acid
is, which is death and poison.

We will not praise Mahomet's moral precepts as always of the superfinest
sort; yet it can be said that there is always a tendency to good in
them; that they are the true dictates of a heart aiming towards what is
just and true. The sublime forgiveness of Christianity, turning of the
other cheek when the one has been smitten, is not here: you _are_ to
revenge yourself, but it is to be in measure, not overmuch, or beyond
justice. On the other hand, Islam, like any great Faith, and insight
into the essence of man, is a perfect equalizer of men: the soul of one
believer outweighs all earthly kingships; all men, according to Islam
too, are equal. Mahomet insists not on the propriety of giving alms, but
on the necessity of it: he marks down by law how much you are to give,
and it is at your peril if you neglect. The tenth part of a man's annual
income, whatever that may be, is the _property_ of the poor, of those
that are afflicted and need help. Good all this: the natural voice of
humanity, of pity and equity dwelling in the heart of this wild Son of
Nature speaks _so_.

Mahomet's