A man's age is not reckoned by his years, but by the life he has lived. The last twenty-three years of Mohammed's life had been enough to shatter the strongest of constitutions. Privation, persecution, struggle, anxiety, fear, and still more, the lust, excitement, and excesses of victory, {90} and, as he said, 'the toil of inspiration and the striking' had streaked his hair with grey, and made him old when he was sixty-three. But he was game to the end, and fought his fever inch by inch. When it was sore upon him he struggled to the mosque to lead the Friday service. Throughout Sunday he was unconscious. On the Monday he rallied so far as to be able to walk feebly into the mosque next door, where Abu Bakr led the prayers at his request. He returned exhausted by the effort, and quietly sank to rest in Ayesha's loving arms, muttering a few broken prayers for forgiveness 'for the former and the latter sins,' and exclaiming 'The blessed companionship on high!' Around him were gathered his wives and those who had been his closest friends and comrades through good report and ill--Abu Bakr, Omar, and Zaid. We may, in fancy, stand with that little company and gaze deep into that quiet face, for thereon is written not only a life that is past, but a forecast of a history that is yet to be. Yes, Mohammed, the story of thy life is there, a story unique in glory and in shame; in glory because, rising {91} above thy fellows and realizing God, thou didst preach Him to men; in shame, because, being greater than thy fellows, thou didst think thyself almost a god. And in the pages of world-history thy life is written large across the nations, for, as is the prophet so are the people, and where the shepherd leads the sheep follow. And so thy life, its glory and its shame, its moral earnestness, its sordid ambitions; its rugged sincerity, its obvious self-deception; its high moral teaching, its gross sensual sins; its gentleness, its cruelty; its faithfulness, its broken oaths; its daring, its cowardice; its saintliness and its brigandage; will live again in the lives of thy followers wherever men call themselves Mohammedans. [Sidenote: Mohammed claimed a final Revelation.] With the passing of the Prophet, Moslem revelation is for ever closed, the last word has been said, no more is possible. At his death there can be no successor to his office as mediator and Prophet. The two assets upon which the huge and complex structure of Islam have been built are the historical records of _the Prophet's life_ and _the Korân_, and it is important that we grasp the meaning of this fact. Zwemer {92} has described the magic of the Prophet's influence.