When the exhortation was ended Mahomet departed to Mecca, and there he encircled the Kaaba and entered its portals for prayer. But of this last act he repented later, inasmuch as it would not be possible hereafter for every Muslim to do so, and he had desired to perform in all particulars the exact ceremonies incumbent upon the Faithful for all the future years. He now made an ending of all his observances, and with every rite fulfilled, at the head of his vast concourse, summoned by his tireless will and held together by his overmastering zeal, the Prophet returned to his governmental city, ready to take up anew the reins of his temporal ruling, with the sense of fine things fittingly achieved, a great purpose accomplished, which rendered him as much at peace as his fiery temperament and the flame of his activity could compass. Fulfilment had come with the performance of the Greater Pilgrimage, but still his state demanded his personal government. Death alone could still his ardent pulses and bring about his relinquishment of command over the kingdom that was his--death that was even now winging his silent way nearer, and whose shadow had almost touched the fount of the Prophet's earthly life. In such manner the Greater Pilgrimage was fulfilled, and the burden of its accomplishing is the Muslim reverence for ceremony. The ritual in all its forgotten superstition and immemorial tradition appealed most potently to the emotions of every Believer, all the more so because it had not been imposed upon him as a new and untried ceremony by a religious reformer, but came to him with all its hallowed sanctity fresh upon it, to be bound up inseparably with his religious life by its purification under the Prophet's guidance. Its use by the founder of Islam bears witness at once to his knowledge of the earlier faith and traditions and his reverence for them, as well as his keen insight, which placed the rite of pilgrimage in the forefront of his religious system. He knew the value of ritual and the force of age-long association. The Farewell Pilgrimage is the last great public act he performed. He felt that it strengthened Islam's connection with the beliefs and ceremonies of his ancestors, legendarily free from idolatry under the governance of Abraham and Ishmael. He realised, too, that it rounded off the ceremonial side of his faith, giving his followers an example and a material union with himself and his God. It was the knowledge that this union would always be a living fact to his descendants, so long as the sacred ceremony was performed, that caused him to assert its necessity and to place it among the few unalterable injunctions to all the Faithful.