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OCTOBER, 1903.]
SUBHASHITAMALIKA.
899
which he was placed in Mecca. For it was in Mecca that his keen observation spied out the numerous evils of time-honoured vogue, which were corroding society and were crying the loudest for reform. A class of affluent inhabitants, who had the monopoly of money and market, was opposed to the indigent many, whose faces it ground with relentless cruelty. The heaviest indictments and attacks in the Qorán are directed against this aristocracy, who were prompted by their insatiate passion for lucre, and who perpetrated frand with false weights and measures. Against them are contrasted the famishing poor, the mendicants that are spurned, the orphans who are defrauded, and the slaves who in vain straggle for manumission or ransom.20 This social atmosphere of Mecca, as delineated by the Prophet, enables us to comprehend bow Muhammad's first exhortations placed the advancement of practical piety at the head of the duties incumbent upon the faithful who feared the Judgment Day, and why he recommended eleemosynary gifts as the sine qua non of spiritual purification. Nevertheless, that this cleansing of the soul was so prescribed as to be solely dependent upon the free will and the unfottered action of the individual is a characteristic feature of the primitive Islam. "Let him who will adopt the path leading to his Lord" (Súra 76, 29). At this period the doctrines of the limitations to salvation, election and predestination as yet were not propounded. The hopes entertained were too fervid and the success obtained against the bad world too rapid for the introduction of such circumscribing innovations.
Then, with this programme, behold Muhammad standing at the commencement of his mission. What is novel and what imparts greatness to the initial stage of his career is that he unites in one person the ecstatio Kahin and the ascetio Hanit, the preacher of the gospel of doomsday and the enthusiastic social reformer.
(To be continued.)
GOETHE.
SUBHASHITAMALIKA.
Translated from German Poets. BY PROTESBOB C. CAPPELLER, PH.D., JENA.
(Continued from p. 308.) Great and small.
30 Wisst ihr, wie auch der Kleine was ist P Er mache das Kleine Recht; der Grosse begehrt just so das Grosse zu thun.
अल्पोप पात्रत्तामेति सम्यकुर्वन्यदल्पकम् । एतेनैव प्रकारेण यन्महस्कुरुते महान् ।। alpo 'pi påtratâm êti samyak kurvan yad alpakam êténaiva prakarna yan mahat kuratê mabận 11
31 Wenn einer sich wohl im Kleinen deucht, So denke, der hat was Grosses erreicht.
GOETHE. स्वल्पे वस्तुनि कस्मिंश्चित्परितुष्यति यो नरः । .
अनेनैव महत्किंचिदवापीति विभाति मे॥ svalpe vastuni kasmimschit paritushyati yo narah anênsiva mahat kimchid avâpiti vibhâti mê
» Sara 102, 1, 100, 8, 83, 1, 80, 16 ; sluo 107, 4, 80, 1.
