"God! There is no God but he; the living, the self-subsisting; neither slumber nor sleep seizeth him; to him belongeth whatsoever is in heaven, and on earth. Who is he that can intercede with him but through his good pleasure? He knoweth that which is past, and that which is to come. His throne is extended over heaven and earth, and the preservation of both is to him no burden. He is the High, the Mighty." If the above passage contained a single _original_ thought, it might entitle it to higher praise than it can now receive. But as there is no thought expressed, but may be found in the book of Job, or among the inimitable Psalms of David, written from sixteen hundred to two thousand years before Mohammed, and which this pretended prophet had before him--and as we can hardly allow their originality of expression--the only praise that can be bestowed upon its author is, that of having studied the Jewish scriptures pretty closely, a fact that is exhibited throughout his famous production. But while we acknowledge that this is a brilliant passage, it evidently does not surpass, nor even equal, either of the following, selected from our own times. "Eternal Spirit! God of truth! to whom All things seem as they are. Thou who of old The prophet's eye unsealed, that nightly saw While heavy sleep fell down on other men, In holy vision tranced, the future pass Before him, and to Judah's harp attuned Burdens which make the pagan mountains shake, And Zion's cedars bow,--inspire my song; My eye unscale; me what is substance teach, And shadow what, while I of things to come, As past rehearsing, sing the course of time. --Hold my right hand, Almighty! and me teach To strike the lyre----to notes Which wake the echoes of Eternity."--_Pollok._ In the above extracts there is this remarkable difference: Mohammed, in his description of Deity, has _no thought_ that refers to a _moral perfection_ of God! And indeed gross sensuality, and a destitution of high and spiritual views, characterize his whole work. But with Pollok, the first thought is SPIRIT--a second, TRUTH. And aside from this peculiarity, although you turn over every leaf of the koran, we affirm that you cannot find so sublime a conception as the following: "Hold my right hand, Almighty! and me teach To strike the lyre,----to notes That wake the echoes of eternity." But how infinitely, both in grandeur and simplicity, do all these fall short of the inimitable _original_ of most of these, penned by David of the Old, or Paul of the New Testament.