THE SOURCE OF THE NILE, 5 i 9 



A most fhameful proftitution of manners prevailed in 

 the Greek church, as alfo innumerable herefies, which wore 

 iirft received as true tenets of their religion, but were foon 

 after perfecuted in a moil uncharitable maimer, as being 

 erroneous. Their lies, their legends, their faints and mi- 

 racles, and, above all, the abandoned behaviour of the 

 prielthood, had brought their characters in Arabia almoft 

 as low as that of the detefled Jew, and, had they been confi- 

 dered in their true light,. they had been ftill lower. 



The dictates of nature in the heart of the honefl Pagan, 

 conftantly employed in long, lonely, and dangerous voyages, 

 awakened him often to reflect: who that Providence was 

 that invifibly governed him, fupplied his wants, and often 

 mercifully faved him from the detraction into which his 

 own ignorance or raihnefs were leading him. Poifoned by 

 no fyftem, perverted by no prejudice, he wifhed to know 

 and adore his Benefactor, with purity and limplicity of heart,, 

 free from thefe fopperies and follies with which ignorant 

 priefts and monks had difguifed his worfhip. PoflefTed of 

 charity, Heady in his duty to his parents, full of veneration 

 for his fuperiors, attentive and merciful even to his beafts ; 

 in a word, containing in his heart the principles of the firft 

 religion, which God had inculcated in the heart of Noah, 

 the Arab was already prepared to embrace a much more per- 

 fect one than what Christianity, at that time, disfigured by 

 folly and fuperflkion, appeared to him to be, 



Mahomet, of the tribe of Beni Koreifh (at whofe infli- 

 gation is uncertain) took upon himfelf to be the apoflle of 

 a new religion, pretending to have, for his only object, the 

 worfhip of the true God. Oftenfibly full of the morality o£ 



i the 



