high calling by lofty yet practical communion with God--men whose
message was inspired by a vision of Divine Majesty, and an impressive
conception of the justice and awful purity of Jehovah. Men who called
the nation to righteousness of life by a stirring appeal to
conscience, and an unfaltering denunciation of the evils of the time.
Their spiritual aspirations, therefore, by far surpass the loftiest
ideals of the prophet of Islam, while their ethical conceptions
infinitely transcend all that Mohammed dreamed of. The voice of the
Eternal is clearly heard in the earnest utterances that fell from
their lips, and through all their prophecies the willingness of Divine
Mercy to reason with men in spite of their erring ways, is apparent.

Three characteristic elements are perceived in their preaching--a very
keen and practical conscience of sin; an overpowering vision of God;
and a very sharp perception of the politics of their day. Of these
elements, Mohammed's teaching possesses only the last.



MOHAMMED'S CONCEPTION OF GOD


His conception of God is essentially deistical. The intimate personal
communion, so characteristic of the Old Testament, is unknown and
unrealised: hence there is little, if anything, in his system that
tends to draw men nigh to God. Attempts to remedy this characteristic
defect have been vainly made by the dervish orders, which, while
acknowledging the claims of Mohammed and his book, have introduced
methods not sanctioned by the system, by which they attempt to find
the communion with the Unseen, for which their souls crave. These