occurred to him, that by skilful management he might share with his countryman in the glory of a divine mission; and accordingly, in the ensuing year, began to put his project in execution. He gave out that he also was a prophet sent of God, having a joint commission with Mohammed to recall mankind from idolatry to the worship of the true God. He moreover aped his model so closely as to publish written revelations like the Koran, pretended to have been derived from the same source. Having succeeded in gaining a considerable party from the tribe of Honeifa, he^at length began to put himself still more nearly upon a level with the prophet of Medina, and even went so far as to propose to Mohammed a partnership in his spiritual supremacy. His letter commenced thus: "From Moseilama, the apostle of God, to Mohammed, the apostle of God. Now let the earth be half mine and half thine," But the latter, feeling himself too firmly established to stand in need of an associate, deigned to return him only the following reply: "From Mohammed, the apostle of God, to Moseilama, the liar. The earth is God's: he giveth the same for inheritance unto such of his servants as he pleaseth; and the happy issue shall attend those who fear him." During the few months that Mohammed lived after this revolt, Moseilama continued, on the whole, to gain ground, and became, at length, so formidable, as to occasion extreme anxiety to the prophet, now rapidly sinking under the effects of his disease. An expedition under the command of

Caled," the Sword of God," was ordered out to suppress the rival sect, headed by the spurious apostle, and the bewildered imagination of Mohammed, in his moments of delirium, was frequently picturing to itself the results of the engagement between his faithful Moslems and these daring apostates.

The army of Caled returned victorious. Moseilama himself and ten thousand of his followers were left dead on the field; while the rest, convinced by the shining evidence of truth that gleamed from the swords of the conquerors, renounced their errors, and fell quietly back into the bosom of the Mohammedan church. Several other insurgents of similar pretences, but of minor consequence, were crushed in like manner in the early stages of their defection.

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CHAPTER XIV.

The Religion of the Prophet firmly established-The principal Countries subjected by him-The effects of the Poison make alarming Inroads upon his Constitution-Perceives his End approaching Preaches for the last Time in Public-His last Illness and Death-The Moslems scarcely persuaded that their Prophet was dead-Tumult appeased by Abubeker-The Prophet buried at Medina-The Story of the hanging Coffin false.

We have now reached the period at which the religion of Mohammed may be considered to have become permanently established. The conquest of Mecca and of the Koreish had been, in fact, the signal for the submission of the rest of Arabia; and though several of the petty tribes offered, for a time, the show of resistance to the prophet's arms, they were all eventually subdued. Between the taking of Mecca and the period of his death, somewhat more than three years elapsed. In that short period he had destroyed the idols of Arabia; had extended his conquests to the borders of the Greek and Persian empires; had rendered his name formidable to those once mighty kingdoms; had tried his arms against the disciplined troops of the former, and defeated them in a desperate encounter at Muta. His throne was now firmly established; and an impulse given to the Arabian nations, which induced them to invade, and enabled them to conquer, a large portion of the globe. India, Persia, the Greek empire, the whole of Asia

Minor, Egypt, Barbary, and Spain, were eventually reduced by their victorious arms. Mohammed himself did not indeed live to see such mighty conquests achieved, but he commenced the train which resulted in this wide-spread dominion, and before his death had established over the whole of Arabia, and some parts of Asia, the religion which he had devised.

And now, having arrived at the sixty-third year of his age, and the tenth of the Hejira, A. D. 632, the fatal effects of the poison, which had been so long rankling in his veins, began to discover themselves more and more sensibly, and to operate with alarming virulence. Day by day he visibly declined, and it was evident that his life was hastening to a close. For some time previous to the event, he was conscious of its approach, and is said to have viewed and awaited it with characteristic firmness. The third day before his dissolution, he ordered himself to be carried to the mosque, that he might, for the last time, address his followers, and bestow upon them his parting prayers and benedictions. Being assisted to mount the pulpit, he edified his brethren by the pious tenor of his dying counsels, and in his own example taught a lesson of humility and penitence, such as we shall scarcely find inculcated in the précepts of the Koran. "If there be any man," said the apostle, "whom I have unjustly scourged, I submit my own back to the lash of retaliation. Have I aspersed the reputation of any Mussulman? let him proclaim my faults in the face of the con

gregation. Has any one been despoiled of his goods? the little that I possess shall compensate the principal and the interest of the debt.""Yes," replied a voice from the crowd," thou owest me three drachms of silver." Mohammed heard the complaint, satisfied the demand, and thanked his creditor, that he had accused him in this world rather than at the day of judgment. He then set his slaves at liberty, seventeen men and eleven women; directed the order of his funeral; strove to allay the lamentations of his weeping friends, and waited the approach of death. He did not expressly nominate a successor, a step which would have prevented the altercations that afterward came so near to crushing in its infancy the religion and the empire of the Saracens; but his appointment of Abubeker to supply his place in the function of public prayer and the other services of the mosque, seemed to intimate indirectly the choice of the prophet. This ancient and faithful friend, accordingly, after much contention, became the first Caliph of the Saracens, though his reign was closed by his death at the end of two years. The death of Mohammed was hastened by the force of a burning fever, which deprived him at times of the use of reason. In one of these paroxysms of delirium, he demanded pen and paper, that he might compose or dictate a divine book. Omar, who was watching at his side, refused his

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* Saracen is the name bestowed by the ancient foreign writers upon the Arabs. They may have tolerated the title, but it is not one of their own imposition or of their liking.