MAHOMET 97 By the assistance of his uncle he became soon after the factor of a rich trad- ing widow in his native city. The animosity of his enemies has degraded the confidential agent into a driver of camels. It has been confidently and con- stantly asserted that he was a menial servant in the household of his mistress, Cadijah ; while, in truth, he was employed to carry on her mercantile transac- tions, and to superintend her affairs. In this situation of factor, his conduct and integrity gained him the affections of his mistress. Cadijah was not, in the eyes of her people, degraded by an alliance with the grandson of their prince ; and in her own estimation, by bestowing her hand and fortune upon Mahomet, she gained a y%ung, handsome, and affectionate husband. Twenty years of con- stancy, of kind and respectful attention, on the part of Mahomet, fully justified her choice. It may, indeed, be imagined, and we confess the supposition bears the appearance of some plausibility, that the affection of Cadijah was not unin- fluenced by the handsome person and insinuating eloquence of her youthful suitor. And we cannot refuse our applause to the conduct of Mahomet, who, whatever might have been her motives, never afterward forgot the benefits he had received from his benefactress, never made her repent having so bestowed her affection, or grieve at having placed her fortune and her person at his ab- solute disposal. Cadijah, at the time of her marriage, was forty ; Mahomet, twenty-five years of age. Till the age of sixty-four years, when she died, did Cadijah enjoy the undivided affection of her husband ; "in a country where polygamy was allowed, the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death he placed her in the rank of the four perfect women : with the sister of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatiina, the best beloved of his daughters. * Was she not old ? ' said Ayesha, with the insolence of a blooming beauty ; ' has not Allah given you a better in her place ? ' ' No, by Allah ! ' said Mahomet, with an effusion of honest grati- tude, ' there never can be a better ! She believed in me, when men despised me; she relieved my wants when I was poor and persecuted by the world.' ' Commerce now occupied his attention, and till the age of forty nothing re- markable happened in the life of the future prophet. His marriage with Cadijah raised him to an equality with the first citizens of Mecca, gave an importance to his opinions, and, combined with the power of his family, probably rendered it impossible to punish or interrupt the first steps he made toward the propagation of his new religion. When relieved from the pressure of indigence, his mind seems almost immediately to have been turned toward religious meditation. The result of this meditation was an opinion exceedingly unfavorable to the re- ligion of his countrymen. The first statement of this 1 conviction was met rather by ridicule than anger, being considered the fantasy of a dreaming enthusiast who was little to be dreaded, and unworthy of opposition. We are told that he retired to a cave in Mount Hara, near Mecca, where, as he assured his first pros- elyte, his wife, he regularly received the visits of the angel Gabriel. This talc his wife believed, or affected to believe. The next on the list of true believers were Zeid. the servant of the prophet, and Ali, the son of his uncle, Abu Taleb.
