they would not hearken to his words. And the people of the Cities of the Plain? And Pharaoh and his host? And the old tribes of the Arabs who would not hear the warnings of their prophets? One answer follows each--there came upon them a great calamity. “These are the true stories,” he cries, “and there is only One God! and yet ye turn aside.” Eloquent appeals to the signs of nature, threats of a day of reckoning to come, warnings drawn from the legends of the prophets, arguments for the truth and reality of the revelation, make up the substance of this first division of the Korān. In the earliest group of speeches delivered at Mekka, forty-eight in number, belonging to what is called the First Period, extending over the first four years of Mohammad’s mission, we feel the poetry of the man. Mohammad had not lived among the sheep-folds in vain, and spent long solitary nights gazing at the silent heaven and watching the dawn break over the mountains. This earliest portion of the Korān is one long blazonry of nature’s beauty. How can you believe in aught but the One omnipotent God when you see this glorious world around you and this wondrous tent of heaven above you? is Mohammad’s frequent question to his countrymen. “All things in heaven and earth supplicate Him; then which of the bounties of your Lord will ye deny?” There is little but this appeal to nature in the first part of the speeches at Mekka. The prophet was in too exalted a state during these early years to stoop to argument; he rather seeks to dazzle the sense with brilliant images of God’s workings in creation. “Verily in the creation of the heavens and the earth are signs to you, if ye would understand.” His sentences have a rhythmical ring though they are not in true metre. The lines are very short, yet with a musical cadence. The meaning is often but half expressed. The poet seems impatiently to stop as if he despaired of explaining himself: he has essayed a thing beyond words, has discovered the impotence of language, and broken off with the sentence unfinished. The style is throughout fiery and impassioned. The words are those of a man whose whole heart is bent on convincing, and they carry with them even now the impression of the burning vehemence with which they were originally hurled forth. These earliest speeches are generally brief. They are pitched too high to be long sustained. We feel we have here to do with a poet as well as a preacher, and that his poetry costs him too much to be spun out.