'footprints in the sands of time,' we must not regard him as a mere individual, but in his organic connection with the world around him, in his family relationship and social ties, in short, as a child of the age and country by which he was moulded, and which he influenced in return.

Mohammed was not only the Ruler of a State, but pre-eminently also the Founder of a Religion. Though not ignorant of Jesus Christ and the Divine adoration paid Him by the Christians, yet was he bold enough to claim for himself a heavenly mission as the last and greatest of all God's messengers for the guidance of mankind. His utterances, as God's mouthpiece or prophet, were to be unquestioningly received by his Arab countrymen and by the world at large. It is in this extraordinary character and with these astounding pretensions that he presents himself to us in history; and as such he is still reverenced by the world of Moslem believers. Hence, in seeking rightly to apprehend Mohammed as an historical phenomenon, the first great question confronting us with a demand for solution, is this: How and by what moving influences came Mohammed of Mecca to conceive the lofty pretension of being God's highest Apostle, God's final Prophet? And the second, of no less moment, and necessarily following from the first, is this double question: What was the actual life and work of Mohammed? and how did it bear out his extraordinary claims?

The succeeding biographical sketch of the Arabian Prophet and Potentate is intended to materially assist the intelligent reader in forming a correct answer to these important questions; and its division into two chapters is naturally suggested by the subject-matter itself.

CHAPTER I.

MOHAMMED DEVELOPING INTO THE PROPHET HE BECAME, OR HIS HISTORY UP TO THE FORTIETH YEAR OF HIS LIFE.

ACCORDING to the principles just mentioned, we have here to bring to light the different elements entering into the composition of the Arabian Prophet; or to point out how Mohammed's claim of prophetship is the product of a variety of factors, which we shall distinguish as a political, a religious, an ancestral, and a personal factor.

I. The Political Factor.

The physical character of Arabia as a Peninsula with extensive deserts and high mountain-ranges; the common descent and national affinity of its Semitic inhabitants; the peculiar language or dialects spoken by them; their passionate love of liberty and their war-like disposition — had cooperated for several thousand years in preserving national independence and in preventing the invasion of foreign conquerors. Neither the Egyptians and Assyrians, nor the Babylonians and ancient Persians, nor finally the Macedonians in their rapid march of Asiatic conquests, subjugated and held any part of Arabia. But at last the want of national union and the greatly increasing internal discords which frequently led to sanguinary inter-tribal feuds gradually prepared the way for foreign invaders. After ages of independence, the liberty-loving roamers of the desert and the proud dynasties of warlike kingdoms had to bend their necks repeatedly to Roman, Abyssinian, and Persian domination, though they sought, by desperate but mostly isolated efforts, to regain their independence as soon as favourable circumstances seemed to offer them any prospect of success.