Studies in a Mosque - The Search For Mecca

MOHAMMAD. 81
and in Mohammad's time ifc was raucli easier to
believe in one's self. N"ow, one never lacks a friend
to remind him of his weakness; then, there wore
hundreds who wouhl fain have made the man think
himself God. It is wonderful, with his temptations,
how great a humiHty was ever his, how little he
assumed of all the god-like attributes men forced
npon him. His whole life is one long argument for
his loyalty to truth. He had but one answer for his
worshippers, " I am no more than a man, I am only
human." " Do none enter Paradise save by the mercy
of God ? " asked Aisha. " None, none, none," he
answered. "Not even thou by thy own merits?"
" Neither shall I enter Paradise unless God cover me
with His mercy." He was a man like unto his brethren
in all things save one, and that one difference served
only to increase his humbleness, and render him the
more sensitive to his shortcomings. He was sub-
limely confident of this single attribute, that he was
the messenger of the Lord of the Worlds, and that
the words he spake came verily from Him. He was
fully persuaded—and no man dare dispute his right to
the belief—that God had sent him to do a great work
among his people in Arabia. Nervous to the verge of
madness, subject to hysteria, given to wild dreamings
in solitary places, his was a temperament that easily
lends itself to religious enthusiasm. He felt a subtle
influence within him which he believed to be the
movings of the Spirit : he thought he heard a voice
it became real and audible to him, awed and terrified
him, so that he fell into frantic fits. Then he would
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