THE END APPROACHES.

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were exceedingly weakening; but it seems that they would have shown some thing of their effect before he had arrived at the age of more than three score years. The same may be said of the epileptic fits or hysterical attacks to which he is said by some to have been subject, for they did not interfere with the sound development of his bodily system, nor keep him from the exposures and fatigue of active campaigns.

Mohammed now knew that the end of his earthly pilgrimage was rapidly approaching, and he said: "Verily Allah hath offered unto one of his servants the choice between this life and the one that is near unto him, and he hath chosen that which is nigh unto Allah." It is said that he often repeated the one hundred and tenth sura, which is interpreted to mean that when many should press to Islam, then the career of the prophet should be near at end:

"When the help of Allah comes, and victory,

And thou shalt see men entering Islam by troops,

Then sing thou the praises of Allah, and ask forgiveness

of him, for verily, he is merciful."

For a while Mohammed, though feeble, continued to lead the public devotions in the mosque, but at last he found himself too much weakened to perform the duty, and even the doors of the building were closed to keep the hum of busy life away from his apartment. He then appointed Abu Bekr to take his place in the mosque, perhaps intimating in this way that he desired his priestly and political authority to fall upon his tried friend when he should himself be no more.

His pains increased, and in his agony he cried out: "By him in whose hands my life is, there is not upon earth a believer afflicted with calamity or disease, but Allah by it causeth his sins to fall from him, yea, even as leaves shed from the trees in autumn!" At another time he called for pen and paper, saying that he would write a book that would preserve his followers from error. There seems to be an indication here that the prophet wished to revise the Koran to fit it to be a guide for his people when their numbers should be increased in different portions of the world. In a former illness he had prayed for recovery, but now he cried, O my soul, why seekest thou refuge other than Allah only?"

Once he rallied and suddenly appeared in the mosque when the assembly was in the act of prayer, and as he entered he said in a whisper to an attendant, "Verily Allah hath granted me cooling of the eyes in prayer!" He then moved to the side of Abu Bekr and remained there on the ground until the services were finished. Then he sat a little while in the courtyard and spoke in faint tones to the throng, but the exertion weakened him, and he sought his couch in the apartment of Ayesha.

There he sighed, "O Allah, succour me in the agonies of death!" "Gabriel, come thou close to thy servant!" Ayesha prayed the whiles, and the prophet in his last throes muttered, “O Allah, grant thy servant pardon, and join him to the companionship on high Eternity in paradise Pardon

Yes

of the blessed on high!"

The companionship
The head was

THE DEATH OF THE PROPHET.

heavy on Ayesha's bosom.

207

Peace had come to him. after his stress and storm. It was Monday, June 8, 632 A.D., and in the tenth year after the Hejra.

Thus died the only man mentioned by history, who was at once legislator and poet, the founder of a religion and of an empire.

CAN we put ourselves in the place occupied by these volatile Arabs as they heard that the prophet was dead? Can we tell what they thought of him and his mission in their inmost hearts? For ten years he had gone in and out before the people of Medina, and they knew the secrets of his unassuming life; his simple dress, his spare table, his lack of parade, his charity, his sobriety, his abstemiousness, his fasts, his prayers, his noble counsel and tenderness, his goodfellowship. They did not forget how he gave gifts to his old nurse, Halima, when she visited him in his manhood, nor his tears at the grave of gentle Amina, when he passed by it on the way from Mecca; they remembered with loving sympathy his tender outburst of sorrow when little Ibrahim, his hope and his treasure, was torn from his arms.

Could they forget his public teachings? How he counselled children to cultivate love, honor, and humility towards their mothers,* no less than towards their fathers; how he declared that husband and wife had equal rights to love and affection from

* He said, beautifully, "The son gains Paradise at the feet of the mother."