26 G THE GENTLE PROPHET. 



Had Mahomet been killed in that celebrated flight, 

 he would have been classed by historians among the 

 glorious martyrs and the gentle saints. His character 

 before the Hegira resembled the character of Jesus. 

 In both of them we find the same sublime insanity, 

 compounded of loyalty to God, love for man, 

 and inordinate self-conceit ; both subject to savage 

 fits of wrath, and having no weapons but their 

 tongues, consigning souls by wholesale to hell-fire. 

 Both also humbling themselves before God, preaching 

 the religion of the heart, leading pure, unblemished 

 lives, devoting themselves to a noble cause, uttering 

 maxims of charity and love at strange variance with 

 their occasional invectives. Of the life of Jesus it is 

 needless to speak : if he had any vices they have not 

 been recorded. But the conduct of Mahomet at Mecca 

 was apparently not less pure. He was married to an 

 old woman : polygamy was a custom of the land ; his 

 passions were strong, as was afterwards too plainly 

 shown ; yet he did not take a second wife as long as 

 his dear Khadijah was alive. He never frequented 

 the wine-shop, or looked at the dancing-girls, or 

 talked abroad in the bazaars. He was more modest 

 than a virgin behind the curtain. When he 

 met children he would stop and pat their cheeks ; 

 he followed the bier that passed him in the street ; 

 he visited the sick ; he was kind to his inferiors ; 

 he would accept the invitation of a slave to dinner; 

 he was never the first to withdraw his hand when 

 he shook hands ; he was humble, gentle, and kind ; 

 he waited always on himself, mending his own 

 clothes, milking his own goats ; he never struck any 

 one in his life. When once asked to curse some one, 



