What a noble religion would Islam have been, if Mohammed could have gone on as he began!  He accepted all the essential truths of Judaism, he recognized Moses and Christ as true teachers.  He taught that there was one universal religion, the substance of which was faith in one Supreme Being, submission to his will, trust in his providence, and good-will to his creatures.  Prayer and alms were the only worship which God required.  A marvellous and mighty work, says Mr. Muir, had been wrought by these few precepts.  From time beyond memory Mecca and the whole peninsula had been steeped in spiritual torpor.  The influences of Judaism, Christianity, and philosophy had been feeble and transient.  Dark superstitions prevailed, the mothers of dark vices.  And now, in thirteen years of preaching, a body of men and women had risen, who rejected idolatry; worshipped the one great God; lived lives of prayer; practised chastity, benevolence, and justice; and were ready to do and to bear everything for the truth.  All this came from the depth of conviction in the soul of this one man.

To the great qualities which Mohammed had shown as a prophet and religious teacher were now added those of the captain and statesman.  He had at last obtained a position at Medina whence he could act on the Arabs with other forces than those of eloquence and feeling.  And now the man who for forty years had been a simple citizen and led a quiet family life—­who afterward, for thirteen years, had been a patient but despised teacher of the unity of God—­passed the last ten years of his strange career in building up a fanatical army of warriors, destined to conquer half the civilized world.  From this period the old solution of the Mohammedan miracle is in order; from this time the sword leads, and the Koran follows.  To this familiar explanation of Mohammedan success, Mr. Carlyle replies with the question:  “Mohammedanism triumphed with the sword?  But where did it get its sword?” We can now answer that pithy inquiry.  The simple, earnest zeal of the original believers built up a power, which then took the sword, and conquered with it.  The reward of patient, long-enduring faith is influence; with this influence ambition serves itself for its own purpose.  Such is, more or less, the history of every religion, and, indeed, of every political party.  Sects are founded, not by politicians, but by men of faith, by men to whom ideas are realities, by men who are willing to die for them.  Such faith always triumphs at last; it makes a multitude of converts; it becomes a great power.  The deep and strong convictions thus created are used by worldly men for their own purposes.  That the Mohammedan impulse was thus taken possession of by worldly men is the judgment of M. Renan.[394] “From all sides,” says he, “we come to this singular result:  that the Mussulman movement was started almost without religious faith; that, setting aside a small number of faithful disciples, Mahomet really wrought very