Literature, in the days of Mohammed, was as little regarded as was pure and practical Christianity. His followers everywhere met with an ignorant and easily deluded people. Both the monuments of science and the means of freedom had been abolished by the barbarians of the North. Philosophy and the liberal arts found no patrons among indolent and luxurious emperors and nobles. Superstition, therefore, naturally took possession of the minds of men, and, as neither fears nor hopes were moderated by knowledge, idle, preposterous, and unnecessary ceremonies easily obtained currency. Mohammed merely changed one set of ceremonies for another; and in this there was little difficulty, since, in the almost universal darkness of mankind, terror and credulity everywhere prevailed. The continuance of the religion of Mohammed in countries after the Arab dominion over them had ceased, may be also easily accounted for. "Everything in Asia is a matter of regulation; and freedom of opinion being but little permitted or encouraged in the despotic governments of the {235} East, Mohammedanism, when once received, became stationary. The human code is mingled with the divine, and the ideas of change and profanation are inseparable. As the unsettling of the political and social fabric might ensue from a change of modes of faith, all classes of men are interested in preserving the national religion." [2] Besides this, in their own nature religious doctrines are more permanent in their hold than forms of civil government: it may be questioned, for in stance, whether, whatever civil changes Scotland might undergo, Presbyterianism would ever cease to be the prevalent faith of its inhabitants. A people may, with the overthrow of usurped civil power, return to their ancient religion, whatever it is: but when once a religion has become, so to speak, indigenous, it is likely to be permanent. Such is the religion of the Koran both in Asia and Africa.