is believed by the Moslems, and are as follows:  “O Lord!  I make my complaint unto thee of the feebleness of my strength, and the weakness of my plans.  I am insignificant in the sight of men.  O thou most merciful!  Lord of the weak!  Thou art my Lord!  Do not abandon me.  Leave me not a prey to these strangers, nor to my foes.  If thou art not offended, I am safe.  I seek refuge in the light of thy countenance, by which all darkness is dispersed, and peace comes.  There is no power, no help, but in thee.”  In that hour of prayer, the faith of Mohammed was the same as that of Luther praying for protection against the Pope.  It was a part of the universal religion of human nature.  Certainly this man was no impostor.  A man, going alone to summon an idolatrous city to repentance, must at least have believed in his own doctrine.

But the hour of success was at hand.  No amount of error, no bitterness of prejudice, no vested interest in falsehood, can resist the determined conviction of a single soul.  Only believe a truth strongly enough to hold it through good report and ill report, and at last the great world of half-believers comes round to you.  And usually the success comes suddenly at last, after weary years of disappointment.  The great tree, which seems so solid and firm, has been secretly decaying within, and is hollow at heart; at last it falls in a moment, filling the forest with the echoes of its ruin.  The dam, which seems strong enough to resist a torrent, has been slowly undermined by a thousand minute rills of water; at last it is suddenly swept away, and opens a yawning breach for the tumbling cataract.  And almost as suddenly came the triumph of Mohammed.

At Medina and in its neighborhood there had long been numerous and powerful tribes of Jewish proselytes.  In their conflicts with the idolaters, they had often predicted the speedy coming of a prophet like Moses.  The Jewish influence was great at Medina, and that of the idolaters was divided by bitter quarrels.  Now it must be remembered that at this time Mohammed taught a kind of modified Judaism.  He came to revive the religion of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He continually referred to the Old Testament and the Talmud for authority.  He was a prophet and inspired, but not to teach anything new.  He was to restore the universal religion which God had taught to man in the beginning,—­the religion of all true patriarchs and prophets.  Its essential doctrine was the unity of God, and his supremacy and providence.  Its one duty was Islam, or submission to the Divine will.  Its worship was prayer and almsgiving.  At this time he did not make belief in himself the main point; it was to profess the unity of God, and to submit wholly to God.  So that the semi-Judaized pilgrims from Medina to Mecca were quite prepared to accept his teachings.  Mohammed, at the time of the pilgrimage, met with many of them, and they promised to become his disciples.  The pledge they took was as follows:  “We will not