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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
personified this Essence as the Creator, after the manner of the school of mysteries; and believed that salvation lay only in the doing of his will, not in obedience to the personal will. Meditation led him to penetrate to the core of many a mythological legend, and enabled him to understand that their interpretation lay not in an historical reading, but in the symbolical sense. He thus perceived that his countrymen had drifted away from the true teaching of religion; and he felt tenderness and pity for their lost souls. Those were, however, the days of intolerance; and people used to meet argument with sword. What was he to do under the circumstances? To preach the truth openly was out of the question. He had the example of other prophets and saints who had preceded him in the divine mission. They had all been ill-treated, more or less. He recalled to mind what Hermes had said and Jesus repeated about the lips of wisdom being sealed, except to the ears of understanding.' The masses had to be told that their interpretation of the earlier Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity was wrong, yet he dared not do so openly. That would have only gone to make everybody his enemy. Thus it was that the great Prophet, too, was led to speak in allegory and concealed metaphor.
His preaching at first had little or no effect on his hearers, who all seem to have resented him, more or less, with the exception of the faithful Khadijah. Gradually his influence extended to some members of his family, and even persons outside the family-circle often came to hear him. As is usually the case, the idea of a new religion excited animosity and resentment in the minds of the
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