Mahomet allowed many things to remain in his law which he had found established among the Arabs--as circumcision, fasting, the pilgrimage to Mecca, which was instituted four thousand years before his time; ablutions, so necessary to health and cleanliness in a burning country, where linen was unknown; and the idea of a last judgment, which the magi had always inculcated, and which had reached the inhabitants of Arabia. It is said that on his announcing that we should rise again quite naked, his wife. _Aishca_, expressed her opinion that the thing would be immodest and dangerous. "Do not be alarmed, my dear," said he, "no one will then feel any inclination to _laugh_." According to the Koran, an angel will weigh both men and women in a great balance; this idea, too, is taken from the magi. He also stole from them their narrow bridge which must be passed over after death; and their elysium, where the Mussulmans elect will find baths, well-furnished apartments, good beds, and houris with great black eyes. He does, it is true, say that all these pleasures of the senses, so necessary to those that are to rise again with senses, will be nothing in comparison with the pleasure of contemplating the Supreme Being. He has the humility to confess that he himself will not enter paradise through his own merits, but purely by the _will_ of God. Through this same _pure Divine will_ he orders that a fifth part of the spoil shall always be reserved for the prophet. It is not true that he excludes women from paradise. It is hardly likely that so able a man should have chosen to embroil himself with that half of the human race by which the other half is led. Abulfeda relates that an old lady one day importuned him to tell her what she must do to get into paradise. "My good lady," said he, "paradise is not for old women." The good woman began to weep, but the prophet consoled her by saying, "There will be no old women because they will become young again." This consolatory doctrine is confirmed in the fifty-fourth chapter of the Koran. He forbade wine because some of his followers once went intoxicated to prayers. He permitted a plurality of wives, conforming in this point to the immemorial usage of the orientals. In short, his civil laws are good; his doctrine is admirable in all which it has in common with ours; but his means are shocking--villainy and murder! He is excused by some, on the first of these charges, because, say they, the Arabs had a hundred and twenty-four thousand prophets before him, and there could be no great harm in the appearance of one more; men, it is added, require to be deceived. But how are we to justify a man who says, _"Believe that I have conversed with the angel Gabriel, or pay me tribute!"_