His Religion is not
an easy one: with rigorous fasts, lavations, strict complex formulas,
prayers five times a day, and abstinence from wine, it did not "succeed
by being an easy religion." As if indeed any religion, or cause holding
of religion, could succeed by that! It is a calumny on men to say that
they are roused to heroic action by ease, hope of pleasure,
recompense,--sugar-plums of any kind, in this world or the next! In the
meanest mortal there lies something nobler. The poor swearing soldier,
hired to be shot, has his "honor of a soldier," different from
drill-regulations and the shilling a day. It is not to taste sweet
things, but to do noble and true things, and vindicate himself under
God's Heaven as a god-made Man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly
longs. Show him the way of doing that, the dullest daydrudge kindles
into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced by ease.
Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death are the _allurements_ that act
on the heart of man. Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a
flame that burns-up all lower considerations. Not happiness, but
something higher: one sees this even in the frivolous classes, with
their "point of honor" and the like. Not by flattering our appetites;
no, by awakening the Heroic that slumbers in every heart, can any
Religion gain followers.
Mohammed himself, after all that can be said about him, was not a
sensual man.
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