one foreign element of endless moment to him: the Christian Religion. I
know not what to make of that "Sergius, the Nestorian Monk," whom Abu
Thaleb and he are said to have lodged with; or how much any monk could have
taught one still so young. Probably enough it is greatly exaggerated, this
of the Nestorian Monk. Mahomet was only fourteen; had no language but his
own: much in Syria must have been a strange unintelligible whirlpool to
him. But the eyes of the lad were open; glimpses of many things would
doubtless be taken in, and lie very enigmatic as yet, which were to ripen
in a strange way into views, into beliefs and insights one day. These
journeys to Syria were probably the beginning of much to Mahomet.

One other circumstance we must not forget: that he had no school-learning;
of the thing we call school-learning none at all. The art of writing was
but just introduced into Arabia; it seems to be the true opinion that
Mahomet never could write! Life in the Desert, with its experiences, was
all his education. What of this infinite Universe he, from his dim place,
with his own eyes and thoughts, could take in, so much and no more of it
was he to know. Curious, if we will reflect on it, this of having no
books. Except by what he could see for himself, or hear of by uncertain
rumor of speech in the obscure Arabian Desert, he could know nothing. The
wisdom that had been before him or at a distance from him in the world, was
in a manner as good as not there for him. Of the great brother souls,
flame-beacons through so many lands and times, no one directly communicates
with this great soul. He is alone there, deep down in the bosom of the
Wilderness; has to grow up so,--alone with Nature and his own Thoughts.

But, from an early age, he had been remarked as a thoughtful man. His
companions named him "_Al Amin_, The Faithful." A man of truth and
fidelity; true in what he did, in what he spake and thought. They noted
that _he_ always meant something. A man rather taciturn in speech; silent