aught save His own and self-measured decree, without son, companion, or counsellor, is no less barren of Himself than for His creatures, and His own barrenness and lone egoism in Himself is the cause and rule of His indifferent and unregarding despotism around.  The first note is the key of the whole tune, and the primal idea of God runs through and modifies the whole system and creed that centres in Him.”

Contrast this summary with the teaching of the Old Testament prophets, the following quotations of which are but a small sample:—­

     “Come, now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.  Though your
     sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be
     red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”

     “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God.  Speak ye
     comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her that her warfare is
     accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned.”

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me:  because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.  He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound, etc.”

     “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, saith
     the Lord.”

“Who is a god like unto Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?  He retaineth not His anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy.  He will turn again; He will have compassion upon us.  He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

     “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord
     require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
     humbly with thy God.”

     “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He
     knoweth them that trust in Him.”

In the light of such lofty teaching, the conceptions of Mohammed appear gross and degraded.  His asceticism and contemplation never brought him a vision of God that overwhelmed him and purified as by fire.  He knew the Creator only from what he heard from the lips of sinful, ignorant men, whose ideas of Deity were base and ignoble.  These ideas, and the passions that made up such a large portion of his life, obscured his vision, warped his judgment, and led him to postulate a God that inhabited not a Holy Spiritual Realm, but a grossly carnal and sensuous paradise.

Millions have been brought beneath his sway because his system panders to the natural inclinations of man.  Spiritual insight is blinded by carnal desire; conduct is influenced by unbridled license; bigotry and hatred are fostered by his policy of intoleration; and his followers are enslaved by a tyranny that blights the reason, because it discountenances inquiry, and places an insurmountable barrier in the way of all human progress.