"His death produced great distress and an immense excitement among his followers. Even before he was dead the struggle began, and an influential official had prevented him from naming his successor by preventing him from obtaining the use of writing materials; but Abu Bekr was preferred, and received the homage of the chief men of Medina. Undoubtedly Mohammed was a man of great ability, and the possessor of some extraordinary gifts. There was much that was good in the person and his religion; much that Christianity preaches as the true faith to-day. He believed in the one God, however much he failed to comprehend his attributes.
"He claimed to be the Prophet of God, and preached piety and righteousness, and recommended chiefly that his followers should protect the weak, the poor, and the women, and to abstain from usury. In his private character he was an amiable man, faithful to his friends, and tender in his family. In spite of the power he finally obtained, he never appeared in any state, with pomp and parade; for he lived in the utmost simplicity, and when at the height of his power he dwelt like the Arabs in general in a miserable hut. He mended his own clothes, and freed his slaves when he had them.
"He was a man of strong passions, of a nervous temperament, and his ecstatic visions were perhaps the result of his inherited malady. He is not to be judged by our standard any more than King Solomon is; but there was a great deal of good in him, with a vast deal that was emphatically bad; for he was cunning and deceitful when it suited his purpose, extremely revengeful, as shown in his dealings with the Meccans and the Jews, and a wholesale murderer in the spirit of retaliation.
"He had read the Christian Bible, and not a little of his religion was borrowed from that. Glancing over the world, we cannot help seeing that Christian nations have been the most progressive, while those of the Mohammedan faith have been far behind them, and have borrowed their principal improvements from those whose emblem is the Cross. To the end of time the Crescent will be overshadowed by the Cross."
The passengers had been much interested in the story of the Prophet, and the professor was warmly applauded as he gathered up his papers and retired from the stand.