=Mohammed’s Character.=—Mohammed’s character has been described by many hands in the West, mostly hostile. The picture is naturally not always friendly. People do not easily put aside prejudices born of centuries of political and religious antagonism. It may, therefore, be of some interest to know the estimate of the Arabian Teacher formed by his immediate followers and disciples, many of whom were unquestionably men of great intelligence and moral vigour, who readily sacrificed for his Teachings, at a time when he was only a humble and persecuted preacher, wealth, position, and influence, and who, by their character and environment, were not likely to be influenced by light or common worldly motives. His singular elevation of mind, his extreme delicacy and refinement of feeling, his purity and truth, form the constant theme of the traditions. Courteous to the great, affable to the humble, indulgent to his inferiors, he won the love and admiration of all with whom he came in contact. The humble preacher had risen to be the arbiter of the destinies of a nation, but the same humility of spirit, the same nobility of soul, austerity of conduct and stern devotion to duty, which had won him from his compatriots the designation of _al-Amîn_, ever formed the distinguishing traits of his character. Whilst the virtual ruler of Arabia, the equal of Chosroes and the Cæsars, ‘he visited the sick, followed any bier he met, accepted the invitation of the lowliest, mended his own clothes, milked his goats, and waited upon himself.’ ‘He never first withdrew his hand out of another’s clasp and turned not before the other had turned. His hand was the most generous, his breast the most courageous, his tongue the most truthful; those who saw him were filled with reverence, those who came near him loved him. Modesty and kindness, patience, self-denial, and generosity pervaded his conduct and riveted the affections of all round him. With the bereaved and afflicted he sympathised tenderly ... he would stop in the streets listening to the sorrows of the humblest. He would go to the houses of the lowliest to console the stricken and comfort the heartbroken.’[35] ‘There is something so tender and womanly and withal so heroic about the man,’ says Mr. Stanley Lane-Poole, ‘that one is in peril of finding the judgment unconsciously blinded by the feeling of reverence and well nigh love that such a nature inspires. He who, standing alone, braved for years the hatred of his people, is the same who was never the first to withdraw his hand from another’s clasp; the beloved of children, who never passed a group of little ones without a smile from his wonderful eyes and a kind word for them, sounding all the kinder in that sweet-toned voice. The frank friendship, the noble generosity, the dauntless courage and hope of the man, all tend to melt criticism in admiration.’