throughout the East. They are a pleasure-loving and imaginative
people: why not promise the victors of thy faith a sensual bliss in
Paradise? They will not be subverters of your grand truths; they
will simply extend them, and jealously, if they have a reward in
what their passions crave. In short, use the proper means for a
great end. The end justifies the means."

Whether influenced by such specious sophistries, or disheartened by
his former method, or corrupted in his own heart, as Solomon was,
by his numerous wives,--for Mohammed permitted polygamy and
practised it himself,--it is certain that he now was bent on
achieving more signal and rapid victories. He resolved to adapt
his religion to the depraved hearts of his followers. He would mix
up truth with error; he would make truth palatable; he would use
the means which secure success. It was success he wanted, and
success he thus far had not secured. He was ambitious; he would
become a mighty spiritual potentate.

So he allowed polygamy,--the vice of Eastern nations from remote
periods; he promised a sensual Paradise to those who should die in
defence of his religion; he inflamed the imagination of the
Arabians with visions of sensual joys. He painted heaven as a land
whose soil was the finest wheaten flour, whose air was fragrant
with perfumes, whose streams were of crystal water or milk or wine
or honey, flowing over beds of musk and camphor,--a glorious garden
of fruits and flowers, whose inhabitants were clothed in garments
of gold, sparkling with rubies and diamonds, who reclined in
sumptuous palaces and silken pavilions, and on couches of
voluptuous ease, and who were served with viands which could be
eaten without satiety, and liquors which could be drunk without