dawned upon them with such a recognition of the hereditary sanctuary and its guardians as might prove helpful in gaining over a majority of the people to the intended compromise, and thus prepare the way for more extended national projects.

As a matter of fact, such a division between the leading advocates of religious reform actually took place. Ibn Ishak narrates that Waraka and Othman became Christians. Obeid Allah at first joined his cousin Mohammed, but afterwards likewise entered the Christian Church in Abyssinia, where also he remained till his death. Zeid, however, neither embraced Judaism nor Christianity, but professed to hold the Faith of Abraham and boldly repudiated all idol-worship. He openly rebuked his countrymen for their idolatry and evil practices, and strenuously sought to make propaganda for his views. In consequence of his zeal, he was persecuted and had to take up his abode outside the city on Mount Hira, where he probably remained for the rest of his life and was buried at the foot of the mount, though some traditions have it that he finally left his country and was killed amongst the Lachmites.

Mohammed, it appears, chiefly moulded himself after the pattern of Zeid, and, like him, professed to hold and teach nothing but the ancient Faith of Abraham. Though not really a great mind or original thinker, and rather of a soft, impressible nature, yet Mohammed possessed a good deal of tenacity; and what he had once mentally seized upon, he held fast, ruminated over it, and strove to carry it out with as much firm perseverance as shrewd calculation. Men of Mohammed's hysterical disposition are often found to have such an unexpected amount of strong will and quiet resolve, bordering on stubborn obstinacy, that their whole soul becomes absorbed in their aspirations and they seem more possessed by their ideas than possessing them. Mohammed venerated Zeid, and quietly, but tenaciously, took up his views and aims. We are informed by Ibn Ishak that, on being asked after Zeid's death whether his soul might be prayed for, Mohammed unhesitatingly declared such prayer lawful, adding, 'In the resurrection he will be raised up as a distinct religious community.' Wakidy, another of his bio-

graphers, narrates that the Prophet gave Zeid the salutation of peace, an honour vouchsafed only to Moslems; that he invoked God's grace on him and affirmed, 'I have seen him in Paradise: he is drawing a train after him.' Sprenger, one of his most learned biographers, says, 'Mohammed openly acknowledged Zeid as his precursor, and every word known as Zeid's we find again in the Koran.'

An indirect proof of Mohammed's veneration for the Hanif Zeid, before he claimed to be a prophet, may also be discerned in the fact that the young slave whom he received as a present from his wife Khadija, and whom he manumitted and adopted for his own son, was named Zeid. For as Ibn Hisham tells us that he had been brought from Syria, where Christianity was already dominant, he most probably was of Christian parentage and bore a Christian name. Now if his Meccan master gave him instead the new name of Zeid, he obviously did so in honour of the esteemed Hanif reformer of the same name whom he revered as his own spiritual guide.

Neither Zeid nor Mohammed was spiritually prepared, nor had their conscience been sufficiently stirred by an adequate sense of their fallen condition and sinfulness, thankfully to accept the salvation and earnestly to long for the sanctification offered in the Gospel of Christ. They both were and remained mere 'natural men,' unable to discern 'the things of the Spirit of God' (I Cor. ii. 14); and, as far as we know, they died without having experienced the second birth and the renewing of their mind by that same blessed Spirit. But notwithstanding this, both were equally persuaded and sincerely believed that it would be a desirable thing, making for their country's good, to have its irrational idolatry replaced by the more reasonable profession of a deistic Monotheism. Had Mohammed been actuated by truly ethical motives, and had he aimed at purely religious objects only, there would have been no reason why he should not have followed a Waraka, an Othman and others in embracing the religion of the God-man Christ Jesus, which offers to fallen man salvation from sin and communion with the reconciled 'Father in heaven.' But as he yielded to the allurements of the world and the attractions of secular power, and as he