vities, the rise and fall of Persia, Greece, and Rome, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; but for them, too, a prophet was to arise and effect a change in the destiny of the race—a change which was to influence the whole of the civilized world, bringing about even in our own time wars and rumours of wars between the Powers of Europe, and trouble, danger, and disgrace in the unknown heart of Africa.
There was a man by name Abdallah, a descendant of Cussai, guardian of the Kaaba, and sixth in descent from Fehr Coreish, of the race of Ishmael. Abdallah married a wife, Amina, but shortly afterwards died, leaving behind him the moderate fortune of a flock of goats, four camels, and a slave girl. Soon after his death a son was born to his widow, and named Mahomet. Before his birth the oracles, they say, were dumb, the sacred fire of Zoroaster, guarded for centuries by the Magi, was extinguished, and the spirits of evil hid themselves in the depths of the sea.
Eastward over Mecca rises a mountain chain, and under its rocks stood the old house where Mahomet was born. His aged grandfather bore him to the Kaaba in his arms, like Simeon in the temple, and blessed God, and called him Mohammad, or, as we usually spell it, Mahomet. The child, according to custom, was sent to be nursed among the outlying Bedouin tribes by a woman named Halima. There the flocks and herds were blessed for his sake, the water and grasses never failed, and the angel Gabriel was specially sent, says the legend, to take Mahomet's heart from his breast and wring from it the one black drop of original sin, which is in the hearts of all, so as to make him pure and fit to be the prophet of God.
