positions of worldly influence and supremacy, contrasts strongly with the single-eyed and resolute determination of the Lord Jesus Christ in withdrawing Himself from the Jews, when He observed their resolve to make Him their king, and their readiness to resort even to force, in order to effect this purpose (John vi. 15).

(2.) Mohammed, by establishing Islam as the paramount power of Medina, displaces the previous Polytheism and forces the dissenting Arabs either to emigrate, or to simulate submission. In this sense he shows himself anti-Pagan.

Mohammed had now attained to the position of civil chief both amongst the Beni Najjar and amongst the refugees who had followed him from Mecca. He thus had at his disposal no inconsiderable amount of secular influence and power. This greatly aided him in gaining converts to his creed and in rapidly extending his authority as a prophet throughout the town. He now could take steps to consolidate Islam, and to establish it, with all its obligations, as a regular public institution, in the place of the hitherto prevailing religion.

Ibn Ishak continues his history in these significant words: 'When Mohammed had found a safe abode in Medina, when his friends, the refugees, had united around him, and when the concerns of his helpers (i.e. his converts from Medina) had been arranged, then Islam became firmly established. Public prayers were performed, fasts and poor-rates were instituted, penal laws were executed, things lawful and unlawful were determined, and Islam gained strength amongst the tribe of the helpers, both as regards faith and as regards the sure provision for its professors.' The new religion, not many months after its importation, had practically become the chief power in Medina, which not only swayed its avowed adherents in every relation of life, but was also strongly pressing on that portion of the population which wished to keep aloof from it.

Besides the enactments mentioned by Ibn Ishak in this passage, another decided onward step in the public assertion

of Islam was the introduction of the loud call to prayer from some elevated spot. In Mecca, as a matter of course, and also for some time in Medina, there was no public summons to prayer, and the intending worshippers simply came at certain times, without being specially called. But now, when the new religion claimed for itself the rank of a public institution, it naturally also adopted a public mode of invitation to its formal services.

We are told that for a time Mohammed wavered in his choice. He at first thought of using a trumpet, in imitation of the Jews; but he afterwards relinquished that idea in favour of the ringing of a bell, as was the custom with the Christians; and we learn that a bell was actually procured for the purpose. Eventually neither the method of the Jews nor that of the Christians was adopted; and Mohammed struck out a path of his own. It is reported that several believers had visions in which the loud call was recommended. Ibn Hisham says, 'Omar was already on the point of purchasing two beams for the scaffold of a bell, when he had a vision in which he was commanded not to introduce a bell, but to invite to prayer by a loud call. Omar went to Mohammed to apprise him of his vision. But Mohammed, having received the same direction by revelation, met him with the declaration, "Revelation has anticipated thee;" and Omar had hardly returned home, when Bilal was already shouting out the call to prayer.'

Thus Islam, so deficient in originality generally, avoided the appearance of dependence on either Judaism or Christianity, in this trifling particular. But after we have seen the Arab Prophet guided to his new quarters in Medina by an inspired camel, it can no longer surprise us to find his choice of the mode of announcing the time for public worship decided by a special revelation from heaven. Religion and revelation are evidently at this Prophet's beck and call for any purpose he chooses.

As soon as Islam had become the professed religion of the majority of the Arabs in Medina, it asserted its claim to supreme authority and exclusive domination with such unbending persistency against all those citizens who still kept aloof from it, that their position became increasingly