“_Did He not find thee an orphan, and hath He not taken care of thee? Did He not find thee wandering in error, and hath He not guided thee into the truth? Did He not find thee needy, and hath He not enriched thee? Wherefore oppress not the orphan, neither repulse the beggar, but declare the goodness of the Lord._” Sura XCVI. There is in the story of Islam an interest quite unique; it is the work of one unaided mind, the mind of a man unlettered and ignorant, who came of an isolated people, and who gained such knowledge as he had of the great world from hearsay as he travelled between Central Arabia and Syria in charge of the merchant caravan of his mistress. This man, morally very frail to our thinking, is all but divine to two hundred millions of men and women. His word is final to them; it alone reveals God, it alone guides life, it alone commands all Muslim rulers, and it defies Christianity as no other power has done. Muhammad lived six hundred years after Christ, his Faith came into existence in full view of Christianity, it publicly claims to be a higher revelation and to supersede Christianity; and the Christian nations have not yet disproved the claim. The attempt has not indeed been made, unless we reckon the chivalrous and ill-fated missions of the Crusades to redeem the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the Muslim. Whether Christianity realizes the fact of her failure in this respect, or not, Islam is fully conscious of it. [Sidenote: Muhammad] Muhammad—the Praised One—was born at Mecca on August 29th, 570 A.D. He was left an orphan while still a little child, and was adopted by an uncle. Later he became steward to a lady of Mecca, Khadija, who asked him to become her husband, and was, until her death, his faithful and loving wife. This marriage procured for Muhammad that which he coveted above all things, leisure for the study of the things of God. [Sidenote: The Call] The time was past when the idolatrous worship of his tribe—the religious tribe of Arabia—had any meaning for him. He had had glimpses of a purer, a more satisfying Faith. Both Jews and Christians had crossed his path, who had spoken of the one God: Creator, Ruler, Provider; and the idea had seized and held his imagination. Upon this idea he now meditated in his chosen retreat, a cave near Mecca, until it possessed him; he dreamed dreams and saw visions, and at length came forth to make them known, being assured that he had been called to proclaim the reign of the one only God upon earth. [Sidenote: Rejection] But the people of Mecca, custodians of the religious traditions of Arabia, would have none of this new doctrine; they fiercely opposed the preacher, and very soon drove him and his little company of disciples (of whom his wife had been the first) from the city. [Sidenote: Flight]