that he should dedicate his life to the preaching of that truth.
Again and again, in his sermons and in the Koran, he declared: "I
am nothing but a public preacher.... I preach the oneness of
God." Such was his own conception of his so-called apostleship.
Henceforth, to the day of his death, he wore on his finger a
seal-ring on which was engraved, "Mohammed, the messenger of
God."

VICTORIES OF MOHAMMED. It is well known among physicians that
prolonged fasting and mental anxiety inevitably give rise to
hallucination. Perhaps there never has been any religious system
introduced by self-denying, earnest men that did not offer
examples of supernatural temptations and supernatural commands.
Mysterious voices encouraged the Arabian preacher to persist in
his determination; shadows of strange forms passed before him. He
heard sounds in the air like those of a distant bell. In a
nocturnal dream he was carried by Gabriel from Mecca to
Jerusalem, and thence in succession through the six heavens. Into
the seventh the angel feared to intrude and Mohammed alone passed
into the dread cloud that forever enshrouds the Almighty. "A
shiver thrilled his heart as he felt upon his shoulder the touch
of the cold hand of God."

His public ministrations met with much resistance and little
success at first. Expelled from Mecca by the upholders of the
prevalent idolatry, he sought refuge in Medina, a town in which
there were many Jews and Nestorians; the latter at once became
proselytes to his faith. He had already been compelled to send
his daughter and others of his disciples to Abyssinia, the king
of which was a Nestorian Christian. At the end of six years he