so completely wicked could bid fair to suit the palates of every description of men at the period when, and in the country where the scene was laid, that of Mohammed was undoubtedly the system. Yet we have seen that the first thirteen years of his pretended mission were spent to little purpose, considering how he labored, and the arts he employed, for it could not bear the touchstone of reason and argument. This made him finally resolve to adopt the method already taken notice of, and which he so faithfully used for the last ten years of his life - to give speedy and extensive circulation to his opinions by the invincible logic of the sword. Nay, it is still customary with Mohammedan preachers to deliver their discourses to the people with a sword by their side, not only as expressive of the sublime manner in which that religion was first propagated, but as eyincing also what every man has to expect, if he ventures to dispute its divinity, or recede from its defence. This accounts for its extensive spread, and the long duration of its existence, since no man dares venture to renounce it, without the certain prospect of making his escape to some land of liberty, or of meeting death in its most dreadful forms.

Mohammed, whose time-serving disposition made him readily humor every whim, caprice, or superstitious attachment of his countrymen, if calculated to accelerate the accomplishment of his designs, changed his first resolution of making his disciples turn towards Jerusalem in performing their mummery worship, and gratified their wishes to give Mecca the honor. At this place there was a temple long before the time of Mohammed, consecrated to idolatry, and converted by him to purposes not less wicked and impious. It is said by the Arabians, that it was originally built in the celestial regions, sacred to the devotional exercises of angelic spirits. According to them, paradise was situated in heaven, and Adam also worshipped in this temple before his fall. Even in his lapsed condition, it seems he retained a very high veneration for it, and therefore humbly entreated the Almighty to let him have one like it upon earth. In compliance with his importunity, the Supreme Being sent him down one in a curtain of light, which fell in the beloved city of Mecca, the place of the prophet's nativity. But the third son of Adam, called Seth, wishing to have a building something more substantial, erected one upon the spot, composed of stones and clay, retaining, however, the exact model of the visionary fabric.

It is deeply affecting to a philanthropic heart, to consider how many millions of rational beings are degraded to the rank of brutes by the consummate artifice and wickedness of a single individual. They go about their religious farrago, as if they worshipped God in the best possible manner, resulting from a well-informed judg ment, and an explicit, indubitable revelation of his mind and will. Superstitious to a most extravagant height, they are often employed in sobbing and sighing, entreating Allah to forgive their iniquities,

and all on a sudden they are as merry as pipers, feasting and revelling like an assembly of Bacchanalians. Every year they retire to a hill, called in their language, Gibbel el orphat, or the mountain of knowledge, two months and nine days after the fast of Ramadan, to receive from the Iman or priest the supposed honorable title of Hadgee. On their way to Mecca from this mountain, each gathers forty-nine small stones, which they throw by sevens at a time at three pillars in the vicinity of the mountain, calling out, stone the devil and them that please him.

Within the temple of Mecca, said to be about ten times as large in circumference as the Royal Exchange of London, stands a solid square edifice, called the Beat Allah, to which the Arabs pay such an enthusiastic regard, that they deem it unspeakable happiness to be soaked with the rain which comes from the roof of it. The temple is without any ornaments or images, as they abhor idolatry, at least in profession; it is destitute of pews or seats, and the floor is covered with mats. They believe that the patriarch Abraham or Ibrahim built the Beat at the divine command, and his own sepulchre, according to them, is but a few paces from it. The city of Mecca is but a mean place, without any walls as a defence, and the houses are despicable. It is situated in one of the most barren spots of Arabia, about a day's journey from the Red Sea.

Having formerly mentioned the journey of Mohammed to heaven, and commented upon it as it deserved, it may here be necessary to assign his reason for the fabrication of such an absurd story. He found that many of his assertions were deemed ridiculous, and that it would be an endless task to compose a chapter for the confirmation of everything he might have occasion to advance. He therefore tried how his trip to heaven would take with the multitude, to the belief of which he found means to gain their assent, by bringing in Almighty God to vouch for its truth. To have invented this story sooner than he did, would have spoiled all, but after it was believed that he was divinely inspired, it was easy to give it currency by the composition of a chapter. This made oral tradition as much respected among the Arabs as it was among the Jews, who often raised it to a level with the Scriptures, and thus Mohammed gained the object which he certainly had in view. The volumes of tradition, made up of his sayings and remarks, are called the Sonnah.

As Mohammed always admitted the inspiration of the Old and New Testament, or the divine mission of Moses and Jesus Christ, he thereby stole insensibly on the affections of Jews and Christians. To have considered them as impostors, and publicly to have avowed that these were his sentiments, might have procured him their warmest opposition; but to insinuate that God only designed his mission to be more effectual than theirs, and finally to accomplish what they had not brought about, was a masterly snare, which they could not well avoid. To combat the preconceived opinions

of mankind with success, can only be done by a real messenger from heaven, while artful villany may delude the most penetrating by granting all they desire. But this acknowledgment of Mohammed pointed still farther, and was designed to establish the belief of a proposition more interesting to him- that these very Scriptures predicted his coming as prophet from on high. If the Impostor himself pretended that he was the subject of prophecy, the idea must have been suggested to him by the united cunning of Abd'allah and Bahira, although we do not find it very explicitly laid to his charge; but it has not wanted advocates among his ablest adherents. We are assured that God cannot predict the coming of a deceiver, as a prophet sent by him, consistently with the honor of his glorious attributes, which he must ever defend, because he would thereby confound the distinction between good and evil, and render it impossible for his rational creatures to discriminate between truth and falsehood. While acquainted with the character and doctrines of Mohammed, it would be impossible to believe a revelation as coming from heaven, should it contain the most distant hint that he was a prophet of God. Such an idea would destroy every mark of divine originality, except we could demonstrate that it was a wicked interpolation. But as both the Old and New Testaments have been quoted in proof of the justice of his claim, it will not be deemed impertinent to examine such quotations.

When Moses was about to bless the children of Israel a little before his death, he thus spoke, Deut. xxxiii. 2: "The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints; from his right hand went a fiery law for them." It is nc doubt an unquestionable fact, that the Lord's coming from Sinai is descriptive of the giving of the law to the children of Israel, when in terrific majesty he descended to its burning top, and when the mountain, enveloped with smoke, seemed a magazine of fire. It may also be allowed that Seir is a mountain in the vicinity of ancient Salem, and thus Moses and Christ may be represented. But when the advocates for the mission of Mohammed indulge in their sophistry, and wish to consider Mecca as the place intended by Paran, they either show their ignorance of its geographical situation, or expect that it is a very easy matter to impose upon mankind. Paran being situated on the confines of Palestine, in Arabia Petræa, no less than five hundred miles from Mecca, the undoubted birthplace of the Impostor, makes it a very unlucky circumstance for the credit of his religion. As well might we prove that Euclid was buried in Ireland, from the first chapter of Genesis, as that Mohammed, who was born at Mecca, drew his first breath at Paran. But the abettors of a desperate cause are often obliged to hazard a desperate proof of its goodness.

In Psalm I. 2, it is thus written: "Out of Zion, the perfection

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of beauty, God hath shined." In one particular version of the book of Psalms, it runs thus: "Out of Zion God hath showed a glorious crown;" which last words are by some translators turned into Arabic by eclilan mahmudan, an honorable crown, and last of all by a most wonderful metempsychosis, it is made the crown of Mohammed! When or how God showed the crown of the Impostor out of Zion, is a nice speculation, except with the touch of a magician's wand, we could convert Zion into Mecca, which, by the way, would be no more difficult or impracticable, than to change Mecca into Paran.

In the book of the prophet Isaiah, chapter xxi. verse 7, we find the following declaration: "He saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels." In some old versions it is, a rider upon an ass, and a rider upon a camel. From the manner of Christ's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, Arabic writers conceive him to be intended by the rider on an ass, and as their countrymen use camels for beasts of burden, to be sure Mohammed is the champion, which here rode upon a camel! According to this mode of interpreting Scripture, there is no absurdity which it may not be made to prove. You have only to change the primary signification into a second diametrically opposite, this second into a third, and so on through a thousand stages, if need be, till you bring it to the meaning required. Thus you may prove that the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal to each other, by the music of the spheres, or the eternity of the world from the nature of cause and effect.

Once more, our Saviour informs his disciples, in his valedictory discourse; "If I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you;” John xvi. 7. The deluded votaries of Mohammed, wishing to make the world believe that their beloved prophet is here intended, have taken care to call him Paraclete, which is derived from a Greek word, signifying the comforter, a most easy and expeditious method of applying the whole Bible to him. So it seems Jesus said, that if he did not go away, the holy, the just, the merciful and benevolent Mohammed would not make his appearance, to have his chaste ears grated by the filthy conversation of the wicked, which would have been a loss to mankind not easily made up. Although it is almost impossible to abstain from the indulgence of irony upon such a subject, yet as some may deem it inconsistent with the dignified gravity of historical diction, we shall set it wholly aside, and challenge the sober reason of the whole human race to point out the comfort arising from the religion of Mohammed to a single individual. Could it originate from his rapine and plunder, or the rivers of blood which he has been the instrument of shedding? Did it flow from the conduct which he allowed men to exhibit here upon earth, from the tremendous punishments of his new invented hell, or the fulsome enjoyments of his fool's paradise? All this was incompatible with substantial

comfort, incapable of yielding satisfaction to a reflecting mind, and fit only to be imparted by an Arabian Paraclete. There are no doubt seasons, especially among ignorant barbarians, when the veriest phantom may have the power to terrify, and every silly, sinful gratification possess charms to allure; but when the soul is once thoroughly alive to a sense of its danger, or inspired with just notions of its original dignity, it must be something more than burning pitch that can make it truly alarmed, and more refined fruition than a bacchanalian heaven can present, that will be found sufficient to gratify its desires. The blasphemy and absurdity of Mohammed's claim to a share in the predictions of the sacred prophets, can only be surpassed by the stupidity of the people who can set their seal to its truth and justice.

As we are now treating of the cunning and artifice of Mohammed, the above instances of which must have originated from Abd'allah and Bahira, we shall here take occasion to mention another which was purely his own. Being afflicted with that incurable malady, the epilepsy or falling sickness, he made even this subservient to the promotion of his designs, with the most consummate address. When the convulsions came upon him, of which it is probable he had previous information, he declared that he was then so much overpowered by the abundance of the revelations imparted to him, that he could not contain himself. The effulgence of the Angel Gabriel agitated him in a manner delightfully violent, by the celestial visions he was commanded to bring him from heaven. This was every way similar to the numine aflatus of some of the ancient oracles, and both were most eminently the work of the devil. They equally imposed on the credulity of mankind, and were leagued against the salvation of their immortal souls, though unacquainted with each other.

We formerly mentioned the undoubted evidence we have that Mohammed had wicked men to assist him in the composition of his Koran, but we omitted a circumstance which is a further corroboration of the same fact. In his journey to heaven, he saw a cock of a most stupendous size, whose very wings covered the surface of the sun, and caused an eclipse of that glorious luminary. He is, it seems, the angel of the cocks, who intercedes with Heaven in behalf of the whole tribe, and when the Almighty sings a morning hymn, he harmoniously joins in concert, so very loud and shrill, that all creatures in the universe hear it, except men and fairies. But on the day of judgment he will crow no more, which will be a warning to every creature, except the two forementioned classes. Mohammedans reckon three voices which God always delights to hear the first is the voice of him who is constantly employed in reading the Koran; the second, the voice of that man who gets up early to pray; and the third the voice of this huge cock. It was a capital stroke of policy to exclude all men from hearing this creature's crowing, since no other animal or insect could call