How superior is _Confucius_--the first of mortals who have not been favored with revelations! He employs neither falsehood nor the sword, but only reason. The viceroy of a great province, he causes the laws to be observed and morality to flourish; disgraced and poor, he teaches them. He practises them alike in greatness and in humiliation; he renders virtue amiable; and has for his disciples the most ancient and wisest people on the earth. In vain does Count de Boulainvilliers, who had some respect for Mahomet, extol the Arabs. Notwithstanding all his boastings, they were a nation of banditti. They robbed before Mahomet, when they adored the stars; they robbed under Mahomet in the name of God. They had, say you, the simplicity of the heroic ages; but what were these heroic ages?--times when men cut one another's throats for a well or a cistern, as they now do for a province? The first Mussulmans were animated by Mahomet with the rage of enthusiasm. Nothing is more terrible than a people who, having nothing to lose, fight in the united spirit of rapine and of religion. It is true there was not much art in their proceedings. The contract of marriage between Mahomet and his first wife expresses that, while _Cadisha_ loves him, and he in like manner loves _Cadisha_, it is thought meet to join them. But is there the same simplicity in having composed a genealogy which makes him descend in a right line from Adam, as several Spanish and Scotch families have been made to descend? The great prophet experienced the disgrace common to so many husbands, after which no one should complain. The name of him who received the favors of his second wife was _Assam_. The behavior of Mahomet, on this occasion, was even more lofty than that of Cæsar, who put away his wife, saying, "The wife of Cæsar ought not to be suspected." The prophet _would not_ suspect his. He sent to heaven for a chapter of the Koran, affirming that his wife was faithful. This chapter, like all the others, had been written _from all eternity_. He is admired for having raised himself from being a camel-driver to be a pontiff, a legislator, and a monarch; for having subdued Arabia, which had never before been subjugated; for having given the first shock to the Roman Empire in the East, and to that of the Persians; and _I_ admire him still more for having kept peace in his house among his wives. He changed the face of part of Europe, one half of Asia, and nearly all Africa; nor was his religion unlikely, at one time, to subjugate the whole earth. On how trivial a circumstance will revolutions sometimes depend! A blow from a stone, a little harder than that which he received in his first battle, might have changed the destiny of the world! His son-in-law Ali asserted that when the prophet was about to be inhumed, he was found in a situation not very common to the dead. The words of the Roman sovereign might be well applied in this case: _"Decet imperatorem stantem mori."_