272 LIFE or MOHAMMED. 



sity which usurpation creates, the usurper must be 

 held responsible. That the stern Prophet was not 

 insensible to the tender feehngs of humanity is 

 attested by unquestioned evidence. His tears min- 

 gled with the general lamentation for the warriors 

 who fell at jMuta ; and over the neck of the daughter 

 of his friend Zaid he wept the loss of his most 

 faithful companion ; — his disciples expressing their 

 astonishment that earthly sympathies should dwell 

 in the bosom of a messenger from Heaven. 



If his inordinate ambition had been content with 

 that pre-eminence to which it might have aspired 

 without a crime,— had he been satisfied with the 

 grand national object of a moral and religious refor- 

 mation, — and employed his transcendent and com- 

 manding genius in civilizing his barbarous country- 

 men, and reclaiming them from their senseless super- 

 stition, without the impious pretensions of a Divine 

 revelation,— his vices and defects, palpable as they 

 were, might have been overlooked or forgotten 

 amid the splendour of his victories ; and he might 

 have earned a proud rank among the distinguished 

 friends and benefactors of mankind. But to those 

 who judge of individual worth apart from the pomp 

 and glare of constant triumph, — who investigate 

 coolly the causes of a nation's prosperity, the fame 

 of the Arabian Prophet will not stand the test either 

 of private excellence or of public usefulness. Rude 

 and imperfect as were the ethics of those times, his 

 moral character shrinks with guilty apprehension 

 even from his own standard of virtue ; and our admi- 

 ration for his astonishing talents and success is 

 quickly lost in abhorrence of the cruel and profane 

 purposes to which they became subservient. 



character and religion of Mohammed than is warranted by the 

 transactions of his life, or the benetits he conferred on his coun- 

 try. — Transact, of the Lit. Soc. of Bombay, vol. iii. 



