To speak candidly then, Mahomet might be a religious and a moral man. His father left him in rather penurious circumstances, but profiting to the utmost by the education his friends could afford him, and always preserving a most unexceptionable character, he rose to be factor of a rich widow, whom he afterwards married; and becoming, by this connection, a person of some consequence in his country, he felt it his duty to devote himself to its welfare. He saw, with the utmost concern, that the Jews and the Christians were constantly at variance, and that Idolatry was daily gaining ground. To check the progress of a practice so unworthy the human mind, and so degrading to our Divine Maker, appeared to him an object worthy his whole attention. Filled with this idea, it became the constant subject of his thoughts, and after long revolving it in his mind, he, at length, conceived it impossible to attain his end by any other method, but by that of uniting the Jews and the Christians in one religion. And this he knew could only be effected by admitting part of the tenets of both. For this purpose, he acknowledged Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, whom the Jews regarded as their chief Prophets, to whom he added our Blessed Saviour; in commemoration of whose mildness and beneficence, he called him the Breath of God--the most flattering appellation he could offer, confident with the delicacy it was necessary to observe towards the Jews. Nevertheless, a Christian cannot sufficiently lament, that he was obliged to make concessions to a people execrated by God. But as his only object was to restore the divine worship to its original purity, he conceived that the Almighty would not be displeased at the means he was about to adopt to attain so laudable an end. The first person to whom he communicated his design, was her in whom, as a good man, he was most interested, I mean his wife. She readily embraced his sentiments, and, in a short time, many of their relations adopted their opinions. Nevertheless, the Arabs in general continued obstinate in their superstition and idolatry; and as Mahomet as yet only made use of the gentle methods of persuasion, his proselytes increased so slowly, that he had reason to despair of success, unless he could make it be believed that he received supernatural assistance.