Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of... the Law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
His talk was like a spring, which runs With rapid change from rocks to roses:... It slipped from politics to puns, It passed from Mahomet to Moses; Beginning with the laws which keep The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He has the earnestness of a prophet. In an age of pedantry and dilettantism, he has no grain of these in his composition. There is... nowhere else, surely, in recent readable English, or other books, such direct and effectual teaching, reproving, encouraging, stimulating, earnestly, vehemently, almost like Mahomet, like Luther.... His writings are a gospel to the young of this generation; they will hear his manly, brotherly speech with responsive joy, and press forward to older or newer gospels.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our histories, how little exercised we have been in our minds, how few expe...riences we have had. I would fain be assured that I am growing apace and rankly, though my very growth disturb this dull equanimity,--though it be with struggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom. It would be well if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of this trivial comedy or farce. Dante, Bunyan, and others appear to have been exercised in their minds more than we: they were subjected to a kind of culture such as our district schools and colleges do not contemplate. Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a good deal more to live for, aye, and to die for, than they have commonly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »