plane of instrumentality and inertness, God is One in the totality of omnipotent and omnipresent action, which acknowledges no rule, standard or limit, save His own sole and absolute will. He communicates nothing to His creatures, for their seeming power and act ever remain His alone, and in return He receives nothing from them; for whatever they may be, that they are in Him, by Him, and from Him only. And, secondly, no superiority, no distinction, no pre-eminence, can be lawfully claimed by one creature ever its fellow, in the utter equalisation of their unexceptional servitude and abasement; all are alike tools of the one solitary Force which employs them to crush or to benefit, to truth or to error, to honour or shame, to happiness or misery, quite independently of their individual fitness, deserts, or advantages, and simply because 'He wills it,' and 'as He wills it . . . .'

"One might at first sight think that this tremendous Autocrat, this uncontrolled and unsympathising Power, would be far above anything like passions, desires, or inclinations. Yet such is not the case, for He has, with respect to His creatures, one main feeling and source of action, namely, jealousy of them, lest they should perchance attribute to themselves something of what is His alone, and thus encroach on His all engrossing kingdom. Hence He is ever more prone to punish than to reward; to inflict pain than to bestow pleasure; to ruin than to build. It is His singular satisfaction to let created beings continually feel that they are nothing else than His slaves, His tools, and contemptible tools also; that thus they may the better acknowledge His superiority, and know His power to be above their power, His cunning above their cunning, His will above their will, His pride above their pride—or, rather, that there is no power, cunning, will, or pride save His own.

"But He Himself, sterile in His inaccessible height, neither loving nor enjoying aught save His own and self-measured decree, without son, companion, or counsellor, is no less barren of Himself than for His creatures, and His own barrenness and lone egoism in Himself is the cause and rule of His indifferent and unregarding despotism around. The first note is the key of the whole tune, and the primal idea of God runs through and modifies the whole system and creed that centres in Him."

Contrast this summary with the teaching of the Old Testament prophets, the following quotations of which are but a small sample:—

"Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

"Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned."

"The spirit of the Lord God is upon me: because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 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 child was born, was a member of the Banu Hashim clan. His family, although well connected, was a humble one, possessing but little wealth. On the death of his mother some six years later, the child was taken by his grandfather, 'ABD-EL-MUTTALIB, who took care of him for two years. Then he was adopted by his uncle, ABU TALIB, who employed him to look after his flocks and herds.

From his earliest years, Mohammed must have been brought into contact with the religious life of Mecca, for his grandfather was custodian of the Kaaba, or temple, and would frequently take the boy with him on his official visits to the place. The numerous images of the gods set up in the temple would be familiar objects to the future prophet, whose iconoclastic zeal was eventually to bring about their destruction. His lonely shepherd life favoured the cultivation of the contemplative habits of his manhood, and played no unimportant part in the development of those characteristics which eminently fitted him for the life he was to lead. Nature had endowed him with the essential abilities of a commander of men, and his early environment provided a training that enabled him to exercise those gifts most advantageously.

The population of Arabia at this time consisted of numerous independent nomadic tribes, who were often at enmity one with another. Political unity there was none, while each tribe had its own patron, or god, which was considered to be responsible for everything concerning the tribe's welfare. Where tribes were united, or at peace, there the individual gods were supposed to be friendly. Even in Mecca, which for many years had been occupied by a settled community, there was no political or judicial organisation. The existing order was maintained by a form of patriarchal government, under which system it was possible for the head of a tribe or clan, to protect the life of any individual he chose to befriend.

The religious beliefs and customs were evidently gross materialistic corruptions of what had once been a purely spiritual worship. Mohammed had been preceded by men who had from time to time, in spite of the moral and intellectual darkness, been so endowed with spiritual perception as to recognise and bewail the hollowness and degradation of the Pagan system. Some, indeed, had been conscientious enough to utter words of condemnation; others had gone so far as to despise and ridicule its claims. So that when Mohammed was born the people were in a condition of religious