the Prophet to sit upon the Prophet's throne. Their presents, their wealth, their simple need of the common necessaries of life, would have filled the purses of the tradesman and the householder, passed thence to the coffers of the tax-gatherer, and thence swelled the revenue of the king. Against the monarch of this favoured city no distant Mahometan dependency would have ventured to rebel, from his opinion no sect would have presumed to differ; because his word could have closed against all such offenders the gates of a temple which all nations were commanded to visit, which all sects were enjoined to revere. But the destiny of Ishmael's descendants did not permit them to become a settled nation. Restless as the ever-shifting sands of the desert over which they roved, capable of enduring privation as the camel which provided them with all the necessaries of life, they had had the desert and the camel assigned to them as an everlasting portion, and not even the genius of their legislator could annul the decree which had been in force for so many ages. It had of old been written that they should ever be dwellers in tents, with their hand against every man, and every man's hand against them. Up to the time of Mahomet their predatory habits had made every town in Arabia little better than a large camp; and, as they were then, they have been since, and are even at the present day. The avarice or ambition of succeeding rulers rendered them blind to the designs of Mahomet; in the multitude of their undertakings they lost sight of his plan, and made Bagdad, Cairo, and Constantinople successively the capitals of the Mohammedan empire. The pilgrims, indeed, have always flocked, according to his command, to visit the scenes of his mission; but his plan has been shorn of half its proportions, and the blood of the empire, instead of circulating through its heart, has flowed towards one extremity, leaving the rest of the member's lifeless and cold. And to the Arabs, those singular descendants of the bondwoman, there has been allotted an existence not altogether different from that of the descendants of the wife. For as in Jerusalem, the rightful possessor of that city, for whom the gospel was first preached, is the greatest stumbling-block in the path of the Christian missionary; so in Arabia, when the pilgrim-crowds wend their way towards the sacred city, they find that the greatest dangers of their road are caused by the Arabs of the desert, to whose ancestors the Koran was first revealed. But the subject of pilgrimages bids me return to Mahomet, whose earthly pilgrimage was now well-nigh ended. Whilst he had in his exile perfected and promulgated those laws, a brief sketch of which I have endeavoured to lay before you, he had at the same time exerted himself most successfully to enforce obedience to them upon the Arabs. He had defeated his enemies repeatedly; and though his own troops had once been routed, yet he had availed himself so skilfully of this defeat as to make them believe that it was the result of their lukewarmness, whereby he stimulated them to increased exertions. He had compelled Mecca to surrender; he had twice entered her gates in triumph-the last time at the head of 114,000 pilgrims; he had entirely destroyed the idols which disgraced the temple, and arranged according to his own liking all the ceremonies to be observed in future pilgrimages. Kings had not disdained to receive his ambassadors with favour, and on every side fortune seemed to smile upon him. And now, having seen the full accomplishment of his designs, it was time for him to yield up a life which disease had long rendered painful. He had, even in his hour of triumph, favoured Medina with his presence; for he naturally loved the city which had sheltered the exile, more than the city which had banished the native. And now, in Medina, feeling that his death was fast approaching, he ascended the pulpit from which he had so often preached, and thus addressed himself to the surrounding crowd: "Oh! ye Faithful, if any one of you have reason to complain that I have ill-treated him by blows, here is my body, let him return them; if I have wounded the reputation of any one, let him treat me in the same manner; if I have taken silver from any one, I am ready to restore it on the spot.” A man here interrupting him, and demanding payment of a debt amounting to three drachms, Mahomet paid him, and said, “It is more easy to suffer shame in this world than in the other." This task finished, he betook himself to his bed, which he never more quitted. The evening before his death he would fain have dictated a new chapter of the Koran; but the friends who stood round him would not allow it, thinking that his weakened mind might perplex his followers with some strange doctrine. It were better if they had permitted him; for, as the traveller, when he gains the summit of a hill, looks back and perceives not only the road by which he has come, but also its position in and relation to the surrounding country, so Mahomet, at that critical moment, set free from the influence of prejudice or passion, may have seen more clearly how far his own conduct had harmonized with that plan which his conscience pointed out as the plan of the Creator. Haply, if he had been permitted to speak, he might have modified much and suppressed some of the doctrines which have since then so troubled and perplexed the world. But they would not let him speak, so the night passed in weeping and watching; and when the morning dawned, there was a sound of lamentation on the minaret and the housetop, whilst couriers went forth on swift-footed camels to proclaim amongst the tribes of the desert that their lawgiver was dead. Let me say a few more words of his mission. To say that he did not preach Christianity is only to say that he did not teach that which he did not know; for, though he certainly knew the name of Christ, and perhaps the general tenour of his doctrines, yet there is no reason to believe that he had read, or could have read, the writings of the Evangelists, much less that he ever met with any man so well acquainted with the true spirit of Christianity as to be able to convert others. To say that he had faults is somewhat superfluous, because he had great abilities, great power, great opportunities for error, and, consequently, great temptations to err; so that these, coupled to his great excitability of temperament, warrant the assertion, that if he had not been faulty he could not have been mortal. We shall best serve the cause of humanity in general, and Christianity in particular, if we take him for nothing more nor less than he professed to be, viz. a Reformer. The word Prophet, as we understand it, was never applied by him to himself. He never professed to foresee anything, save and except some trifling events which the ordinary penetration of an acute man might readily have divined. He did not even pretend to teach his followers a new creed, but repeatedly declared that he only told them that which had been preached by many before him. His professed aim was to bring them back to the religion which Abraham had practised; and though his ideas of this religion may have been erroneous as far as Abraham was concerned, yet his moral precepts were generally such as Abraham or any other sincerely honest man might have owned without a blush. The knowledge of a higher, purer dispensation does indeed debar us from regarding his mission with the full measure of admiration which is accorded to it by Mahometans; yet, when we think of what he had to do, and what he did, of the poverty of his materials, and the greatness of his success, we may perhaps acknowledge a mingled feeling of respect and compassion for the exertions, the sufferings, and the failings of the Arabian sage. FRANK IVES SCUDAMORE. HOPE. OH Hope! thou art life's blessed star, To th' Eden we would all inherit. Thou art the nursling of our youth, The painter of our hearts' gay dreams- Ere clouds have dimm'd our morning beams. When early youth has passed away, Thou art the sweet'ner of our path, A brightening, elevating ray, A sunbeam of our souls alway When comes the winter of our years And holds at bay discordant fears Oh Hope! thou art religion's child, Thou had'st thy birth when Godhead smiled, Man through his toil-spirit days. Oh Hope! thou art the sweetest power Thou art their best, their richest dower; All human hearts to bless. OF THE PUBLIC MEETING OF THE METROPOLITAN DRAPERS' ASSOCIATION, Held at Exeter Hall, on Tuesday Evening, Nov. 11th, 1845, IN AID OF THE £5000 FUND, THE RIGHT HON. LORD ROBERT GROSVENOR, M.P., IN THE CHAIR A PUBLIC MEETING was held by the Metropolitan Drapers' Association on Tuesday evening, Nov. 11th, 1845, for the purpose of assisting to raise a Fund of £5000 to carry out still further the object of the Association. Lord Robert Grosvenor presided; and amongst the gentlemen on the platform were Mr. Wakley, M.P.; Mr. Grainger, of St. Thomas's Hospital; the Rev. W. Curling, Minister of St. Saviour's, Southwark; the Rev. Dr. Archer, C. Cochrane, Esq., Dr. Hewlett, and numerous other influential gentle men and employers. The Chair was taken shortly after seven o'clock, and soon after that period the room was well filled by a most respectable audience. The CHAIRMAN, in opening the proceedings, spoke as follows:-Ladies and Gentlemen, there is something overawing which involuntarily creeps over me on finding myself, all at once, in the presence of so vast an assembly; and I am at this moment sensibly impressed with the difficulties and responsibilities of the duty of which I have ventured to undertake the performance: I must, however, congratulate you that so it is; because if any reason were asked for the necessity of holding such a meeting as this, the members that do attend, and especially who attend on such a night as this, will furnish a mest unanswerable reply (cheers.) Now, Gentlemen, it is a main feature in the institutions of this country, that the utmost latitude is allowed in the discussion of all questions bearing upon our social, moral, political, and religious interests; and we may take some pride in the thought, that whilst our neighbours are compelled to enact and maintain laws that not more than twenty persons shall meet together for the purpose of such discussion, we are able to make use of unlimited privileges, not only without detriment to the welfare of the state, but with the utmost possible advantage to all classes of the community(loud cheers.) The cause which has brought us together this evening furnishes us with an excellent example-(hear, hear.) I should also say, that the truth will come out at such meetings as these sooner or later, whether palatable or unpalatable to those whom it may concern; and they present the only means with which I am acquainted of checking those evils; which are necessarily incident to a great commercial community, before they shall have grown up to such a height as to be quite intolerable-(hear, hear.) Now, as I have already said, the meeting on this occasion furnishes us with an excellent example. We are met together for the purpose of devising some means of checking a very serious evil. Before, however, I advert more especially to that evil, I would beg your attention for a few moments to the position in which we stand. We live, Ladies and Gentlemen, in very extraordinary times-times, in my opinion, of great national peril—(hear, hear.) We all know, from an authority that we dare not dispute, that the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth place a man's morality and virtue in the catest danger. That which is true of an individual is equally true of the nation; and if we will only take a short retrospect of our own domestic history, we shall see, I fear, how fearfully we have verified the truth of that declaration to which I have just ventured to refer. The accumulations of wealth in this country since the peace of 1815 are without a parallel in the annals of history; but with these accumulations there has grown up a spirit of indifference and disregard to the producers of this very wealth, which, if men could only forget their business for a moment, if they could only stand still for a while and commune with their own hearts, they would, I am certain, start back from with amazement--(hear, hear.) Now the fruits of this, Ladies and Gentlemen, are to be seen in the long-time system in our manufacturing districts-(hear, hear)—in the late-hour system in our shops in the miserably scanty and deficient wages of many of our agricultural labourers and artizans-(cheers) and, above all, in a state of spiritual aud educational destitution which is most alarming, thousands being suffered to grow up uninstructed and sink into the grave uncared for (hear, hear.) Unmindful of former prosperity, men seem really inclined to act as if they thought there were no Moral Governor of the universe, and that, whatever may be their individual conduct, the country will go on and prosper by itself. Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I feel convinced that you will agree with me, that we have no such security, but that the hardening and corrupting influence of this money-getting, the mania for which at this present moment seems to be inflicted upon this country as a punishment for former ingratitude, will, if not counteracted, sap the foundations of our national prosperity-(hear, hear.) This general view of the case, however, presents a very wide and fruitful topic, and one which might tempt me into a digression that would be highly inconsistent on the part of a short-time speaker-(laughter.) I will now, therefore, turn from it, and call your attention more especially to that subject which is peculiarly to engross our attention this evening, and which has, in fact, now convened us in this room. I said before, that we are assembled for the purpose of endeavouring to contrive some means of counteracting a great social evil-an evil, not perhaps so striking as some of those to which I have before adverted, but still not on that account the less subtle or insidious-an evil which injures a class of persons upon whose moral condition may be said to depend the great framework of society--I allude to the youth of our middle class (hear, hear.) Consider for a moment what the British middle class is. It is a class whose activity, intelligence, and enterprise are almost unexampled; it is a class of whom the history of other countries furnishes us with no example; it is a class who, having travailed to the birth of the Great American Republic, are still stretching their gigantic arms across the widest seas, and are now calling into life, in hourly and increasing action, new communities in the remotest habitable parts of the globe-(cheers.) I ask you then, Ladies and Gentlemen, is not the moral condition of this class of the highest importance to the country?-(hear, hear.) I therefore rejoice to see the movement come from this source. I hailed the establishment of the Metropolitan Drapers' Association with extreme satisfaction. I hastened to enrol myself as one of its members-(loud applause)—and I have watched its subsequent proceedings with ever-increasing interest -(renewed applause.) Now the principles upon which this Society is formed, I hold to be perfectly unexceptionable; and the managers of this institution have, I must say, ever since it was formed, adhered to them with the most praiseworthy firmness-(cheers.) There were injuries inflicted upon the class to which they belonged of which they might, not unnaturally, have loudly complained; there were grievances experienced by them for the redress of which they might undoubtedly have most loudly clamoured; but, instead of assailing the great body of their employers, or any particular members of that body, of whose method of conducting business they had cause to complain, they had the wisdom to perceive that the evil was not in the individuals-(hear, hear)--but in a bad and pernicious system which had been permitted to grow up by degrees, and, further, that the only rational, philosophical, and Christian method of combating this evil was by inviting the employers to the calm and temperate discussion of a matter in which the happiness and prosperity of both parties was so materially involved-(loud cheers.) Much good, doubtless, has been effected since this Association was formed, and evidences are not wanting of an improved state of public opinion on this subject-(hear, hear, and cheers.) But, amidst much that is of an agreeable nature, we must not forbear to look at some things which are rather of a contrary tendency; and I will frankly confess that I rose |