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panied by his friend Abu Beker, he silently escaped from his house, leaving Ali reposing on his bed, with the prophet's green vestment over him to deceive the assassins watching at the door. Three days Mohammed and his friend were concealed in the cave of Thor, about a league from Mecca. His enemies, the Koreish,9 came to the mouth of the cave; but a spider's web across the entrance convinced them that the fugitive was not there. Soon afterwards Mohammed escaped to Medina, where he was received with faith and reverence (A.D. 622). This flight is called the Hegira, and forms the Mohammedan era from which Moslems have since reckoned the years.

At Medina the first mosque 10 was built, and here began the public worship of the Moslems. The worshippers were summoned by a voice sounding from the minaret of the mosque, "God is great! God is great! There is no God but God. Mohammed is the apostle of God. Come to prayers, come to prayers." At early dawn it was added, "Prayer is better than sleep."

Mohammed reigned supreme at Medina, but his kingdom was for some time confined within the walls of that city. Ere long the prophet became impatient of the slow progress made by persuasion, and determined to try the sharp argument of the sword. The prophet's white banner, hung over the gates of Medina, allured from all sides bands of roving Arabs, who readily embraced the new creed, and as readily propagated it with the sword. "The sword," they were taught, "is the key of heaven and hell; whoever falls in battle in the holy cause has all his sins instantly cancelled; and the loss of his limbs shall be supplied with a seraph's wings." The Arabs, who had always despised death, now regarded it as an object of hope and desire. No alternative was given to idolaters but conversion or death, and in this way the new religion rapidly spread. The death-blow was given to idolatry in Arabia by the capture of Mecca and the destruction of the 360 idols of the Caaba.11 The conquest

of the whole country soon followed, and before his death the prophet's empire extended from the Euphrates to the Red Sea.

Meanwhile Mohammed was getting old. He had laid all his sons in the grave; his daughter Fatima, married to Ali, alone remained to him. At length, in the sixty-third year of his age, Mohammed gave permission, as he tells us, to the angel of death to take his soul. He tottered to the mosque, and for the last time preached Islam to the people. "Everything happens," said he, "by the will of God, and has its appointed time, which is not to be hastened or avoided." A few days after this there was grief in every Arab tent. With faltering voice he uttered his last broken though articulate words: "O God, pardon my sins... Yes... I come . . . among my fellow-citizens on high;" and thus peaceably expired on a carpet spread upon the floor of his house at Medina, where he was afterwards buried (A.D. 632). -Dawe's "Landmarks of General History," published by Collins and Sons.

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TO THE RAINBOW.

[THOMAS CAMPBELL, one of the finest lyric poets of the present century, was born at Glasgow in 1777. His chief poem is entitled The Pleasures of Hope. Many of his minor pieces are well known: such as, Ye Mariners of England, Hohenlinden, Lord Ullin's Daughter, The Soldier's Dream, and the Battle of the Baltic. He is also the author of Lochiels Warning, and Gertrude of Wyoming.]

TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,

I ask not proud philosophy

To teach me what thou art :

Still seem, as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given
For happy spirits to alight

Betwixt the earth and heaven.

Can all that optics' teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dream'd of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?

When Science from Creation's face
Enchantment's veil withdraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!

And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told why first thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.

When o'er the green undeluged earth

Heaven's covenant thou didst shine,
How came the world's gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign.

And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,

Each mother held aloft her child

To bless the bow of God.

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TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS.

Most of my readers have seen the "Transformation Scene" in a Pantomime, and been surprised and delighted at the gorgeous spectacle; but the transformations1 which insects undergo are much more wonderful and much more worthy of admiration.

Who could have guessed that the large butterfly which he sees sitting upon a peach, opening and shutting its broad wings of velvet-black, banded with brilliant scarlet, to the warm autumnal sun, is identically the same being as a black spiny caterpillar,2 which a month ago we observed engaged with a dozen others in devouring the leaves of some nettles in a ditch? But such is the fact; the caterpillar has become a butterfly. Let us trace out its wonderful history.

Taking for our example the butterfly known as the Red Admiral, described above, we must seek its birthplace in a bed of nettles. No sooner have the nettles thrown out their new shoots in the spring, than butterflies of this and other kinds may be seen hovering over them, and occasionally touching a leaf. At each contact a little egg is left, stuck on the plant by a gummy secretion from the body of the butterfly. A considerable number are deposited on one plant, and from them in a short time a little swarm of caterpillars appears.

If you carefully watch one of these creatures, you may observe that it eats voraciously, and grows proportionately fast. In about a week its skin becomes too tight for its increased size, and accordingly you will find that it discards this skin like a worn-out coat, and appears in a new skin full of puckers, thus affording ample space for further growth. After its skin has been moulted three times, at intervals of a week or ten days, the caterpillar attains its full growth. It is now ready for the next stage of its existence.

The caterpillar now ceases to eat; it shrivels up, casts off

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