PREACHES. 261 



versing ; and then he gave forth the oracle or sudra. 

 Sometimes he would fall, like a man intoxicated, to 

 the ground ; but the ordinary conclusion of the fit was 

 a profuse perspiration, by which ; he appeared to be 

 relieved. His sufferings were at times unusually 

 severe ; he used often to speak of the three terrific 

 sudras which had given him grey hairs. 



His friends were alarmed at his state of mind. Some 

 ascribed it to the eccentricities of poetical genius ; others 

 declared that he was possessed of an evil spirit ; others 

 said he was insane. When he began to preach against 

 the idols of the Caaba, the practice of female infanti- 

 cide, and other evil customs of the town ; when he 

 declared that there was no divine being but God, and 

 that be was the messenger of God ; when he related 

 the ancient legends of the prophets which he said had 

 been told him by the angel Gabriel, there was a gen- 

 eral outburst of merriment and scorn. They said he 

 had picked it all up from a Christian who kept a 

 jeweller's shop in the town. They requested him to 

 perform miracles ; the poets composed comic ballads, 

 which the people sang when he began to preach ; the 

 women pointed at him with the finger ; it became an 

 amusement of the children to pelt Mahomet. This 

 was perhaps the hardest season of his life : ridicule is 

 the most terrible of all weapons. But his wife encour- 

 aged him to persevere, and so did the Voice, which 

 came to him and sang : " By the brightness of the 

 morn that rises, and by the darkness of the night that 

 descends, thy God hath not forsaken thee, Mahomet. 

 For know that there is a life beyond the grave, and it 

 will be better for thee than thy present life ; and thy 

 Lord will give thee a rich reward. Did he not find 

 thee an orphan, and did he not care for thee 1 Did 



