I see many different countries and tribes of men.
ANGEL.
Your task is to bring all those nations to the same belief?
MAHOMET.
I fear that will be difficult; for I never yet could induce any two of my wives to think alike. You know that I have eleven; and in every dispute they never fail to invent eleven opinions, of which each takes one.
ANGEL.
God will give you the faculty of persuasion. You will be great while you live, and after death still greater, being employed to govern the world.
MAHOMET.
I have heard before of the authority to be given me after death, and have thought with some alarm of rising out of my grave governor of the world; for, as I understand the office, it must require great experience: and if without previous instruction or practice I shall be expected to regulate day and night, summer and winter,—if the fruit, the trees, the corn, must grow by my art,—if, at the moment I awake, I shall be required to rain, to hail, to thunder, and to lighten in proper places and at the right juncture,—if at sea I am to make a calm and storm alternately, and to drown a part of those who sail with exact judgment,—if, besides this, I am to advance and to ruin empires, to be present at every battle, and conquer on the just side,—if, in the midst of all this business, I must every moment be at leisure to hear the prayers of all mankind with perfect equity,—if I must also know at every moment what every man alive is thinking of, which I believe is one of the functions of Heaven,—if I am at proper intervals to furnish an earthquake and a comet, to say nothing of the moon and stars, which must every night be kept in their places,—if, in short, every thing that happens in the world is to be done by me, I fear that for some time there must be great disturbance, for with my present knowledge I should certainly be a very unskilful providence: an active colleague should be given me at first.
ANGEL.