[Sidenote: No sacrifice for sin or redemptive grace.] Although with the view of placing the argument on independent ground I have refrained from touching the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, and the inestimable benefits which flow to mankind therefrom, I may be excused, before I conclude, if I add a word regarding them. The followers of Mohammed have no knowledge of God as a Father; still less have they knowledge of him as "Our Father"—the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. They acknowledge, indeed, that Jesus was a true prophet sent of God; but they deny his crucifixion and death, and they know nothing of the power of his resurrection. To those who have found redemption and peace in these the grand and distinctive truths of the Christian faith, it may be allowed to mourn over the lands in which the light of the Gospel has been quenched, and these blessings blotted out, by the material forces of Islam; where, together with civilization and liberty, Christianity has given place to gross darkness, and it is as if now "there were no more sacrifice for sins." We may, and we do, look forward with earnest expectation to the day when knowledge of salvation shall be given to these nations "by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."[p]

[Sidenote: Contrast between divine and human work.] But even apart from these, the special blessings of Christianity, I ask, which now of the two faiths bears, in its birth and growth, the mark of a divine hand and which the human stamp? Which looks likest the handiwork of the God of nature, who "hath laid the measures of the earth," and "hath stretched the line upon it,"[q] but not the less with an ever-varying adaptation to time and place? and which the artificial imitation?

[Sidenote: Islam.] "As a reformer, Mohammed did indeed advance his people to a certain point, but as a prophet he left them fixed immovably at that point for all time to come. As there can be no return, so neither can there be any progress. The tree is of artificial planting. Instead of containing within itself the germ of growth and adaptation to the various requirements of time, and clime, and circumstance, expanding with the genial sunshine and the rain from heaven, it remains the same forced and stunted thing as when first planted twelve centuries ago."[81]

[Sidenote: Christianity compared by Christ to the works of nature.] Such is Islam. Now what is Christianity? Listen to the prophetic words of the Founder himself, who compares it to the works of nature:

"So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground;

"And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how.

"For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself: first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear."[r]

And again:

"Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God, or with what comparison shall we compare it?

"It is like a grain of mustard-seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all seeds that be in the earth;

"But when it is sown, it groweth up and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches, so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it."[s]

[Sidenote: Islam the work of man; Christianity the work of God.] Which is nature, and which is art, let the reader judge. Which bears the impress of man's hand, and which that of Him who "is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working?"

In fine, of the Arabian it may be said:

"Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."

But of Christ:

"His name shall endure forever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed.

"He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

"Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name forever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen, and Amen."[t]

FOOTNOTES:

[e] 1 Cor. vii, 21.

[f] Gal. iii, 26, 28.

[g] 1 Cor. vii, 22.

[h] Philemon 16.

[i] Matt. xix, 4.

[j] 1 Cor. vii, 3.

[k] 1 Thess. iv, 4.

[l] 1 Tim. v, 2.

[m] 1 Tim. ii, 9.

[n] 1 Pet. iii, 7.

[o] Luke ii, 10.

[p] Luke i, 77-79.

[q] Job xxxviii, 5.

[r] Mark iv, 26-28.

[s] Mark iv, 30-32.

[t] Psa. lxxii, 17, 8, 18, 19.

THE END.



FOOTNOTES:

[1] Barth.

[2] Bergaigne, in his able treatise, La Religion Vedique, insists earnestly on what he calls the "liturgical contamination of the myths." See vol. iii, p. 320.

[3] R.V., ix, 42, 4.

[4] R.V., ix, 97, 24.

[5] The religion of the Indo-European race, while still united, "recognized a supreme God; an organizing God; almighty, omniscient, moral.... This conception was a heritage of the past.... The supreme God was originally the God of heaven." So Darmesteter, Contemporary Review, October, 1879. Roth had previously written with much learning and acuteness to the same effect.

[6] Muir's Sanskrit Texts, v, 412.

[7] R.V., iii, 62, 10.

[8] The rites, says Haug, "must have existed from times immemorial."—Aitareya Brahmana, pp. 7, 9.

[9] Weber, History of Indian Literature, p. 38.

[10] Max Mueller, Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 389.

[11] "The haughty Indra takes precedence of all gods." R.V., 1, 55.

[12] "These two personages [Indra and Varuna] sum up the two conceptions of divinity, between which the religious consciousness of the Vedic Aryans seems to oscillate."—Bergaigne, La Religion Vedique, vol. iii, p. 149.

[13] The meaning of the term is not quite certain. Sessions, or Instructions, may perhaps be the rendering. So Monier Williams.

[14] For example, Wordsworth:

"Thou, Thou alone Art everlasting, and the blessed Spirits Which Thou includest, as the sea her waves." —Excursion, book iv.

[15] Or, the thing that really is—the [Greek: ontos on].

[16] Ekamadvitiyam.

[17] This illustration is in the mouth of every Hindu disputant at the present day.

[18] Barth, p. 75.

[19] Ekamadvitiyam.

[20] Volui tibi suaviloquenti Carmine Pierio rationem exponere nostram Et quasi Musaeo dulci contingere melle.

[21] Dr. J. Muir, in North British Review, No. xlix, p. 224.

[22] Miscellaneous Writings (Macmillan, 1861), vol. i, p. 77.

[23] But the truth is that every man is accounted a good Hindu who keeps the rules of caste and pays due respect to the Brahmans. What he believes, or disbelieves, is of little or no consequence.

[24] Yaska, probably in the fifth century B.C.

[25] Weber thinks that Christian elements may have been introduced, in course of time, into the representation.

[26] His Ramayana was written in Hindi verse in the sixteenth century.

[27] When Jhansi was captured in the times of the great mutiny English officers were disgusted to see the walls of the queen's palace covered with what they described as "grossly obscene" pictures. There is little or no doubt that these were simply representations of the acts of Krishna. Therefore to the Hindu queen they were religious pictures. When questioned about such things the Brahmans reply that deeds which would be wicked in men were quite right in Krishna, who, being God, could do whatever he pleased.

[28] Born probably in 1649.

[29] Raja Narayan Basu (Bose), in enumerating the sacred books of Hinduism, excluded the philosophical systems and included the Tantras. He was and, we believe, is a leading man in the Adi Brahma Somaj.

[30] Barth, as above, p. 202.

[31] So writes Vans Kennedy, a good authority. The rites, however, vary with varying places.

[32] Asiatic Researches, v, p. 356.

[33] Cicero.

[34] We learned from his own lips that among the books which most deeply impressed him were the Bible and the writings of Dr. Chalmers.

[35] See Life of Mohammed, p. 138. Smith & Elder.

[36] Life of Mohammed, p. 172, where the results are compared.

[37] Life of Mohammed, p. 341; Sura ii, 257; xxix, 46.

[38] The only exceptions were the Jews of Kheibar and the Christians of Najran, who were permitted to continue in the profession of their faith. They were, however, forced by Omar to quit the peninsula, which thenceforward remained exclusively Mohammedan.

"Islam" is a synonym for the Mussulman faith. Its original meaning is "surrender" of one's self to God.

[39] Apology of Al Kindy, the Christian, p. 18. Smith & Elder, 1882. This remarkable apologist will be noticed further below.

[40] Principal Fairbairn: "The Primitive Polity of Islam," Contemporary Review, December, 1882, pp. 866, 867.

[41] Herr von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients, unter den Chalifen, vol. i, p. 383.

[42] Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 9. Smith & Elder, 1883.

[43] Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chapter li, and Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 184.

[44] Ibid.; and Sura xliv, v. 25. We—that is, the Lord.

[45] Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 46.

[46] See, for example, Sura lxxviii: "Verily for the pious there is a blissful abode: gardens and vineyards; and damsels with swelling bosoms, of a fitting age; and a full cup. Lovely large-eyed girls, like pearls hidden in their shells, a reward for that which the faithful shall have wrought. Verily We have created them of a rare creation, virgins, young and fascinating.... Modest damsels averting their eyes, whom no man shall have known before, nor any Jinn," etc.

The reader will not fail to be struck by the materialistic character of Mohammed's paradise.

[47] See Sura Jehad; also Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 167, et. seq.

[48] Annals of the Early Caliphate, p. 105, et. seq.

[49] See Annals, etc., p. 253.

[50] Sura ix, v. 30.

[51] So Jews and Christians as possessing the Bible are named in the Koran.

[52] See Annals, etc., p. 213.

[53] The Apology of Al Kindy, written at the court of Al Mamun A.H. 215 (A.D. 830), with an essay on its age and authorship, p. 12. Smith & Elder, 1882.

[54] Ibid., p. 34.

[55] Apology, p. 47, et. seq.

[56] Alluding to the "Ansar," or mortal "Helpers" of Mohammed at Medina. Throughout, the apologist, it will be observed, is drawing a contrast with the means used for the spread of Islam.

[57] Apology, p. 16.

[58] Apology, p. 57.

[59] I am not here comparing the value of these observances with those of other religions. I am inquiring only how far the obligations of Islam may be held to involve hardship or sacrifice such as might have retarded the progress of Islam by rendering it on its first introduction unpopular.

[60] See Sura ii, v. 88.

[61] Sura iv, 18. "Exchange" is the word used in the Koran.

[62] Each of his widows had 100,000 golden pieces left her. Life of Mohammed, p. 171.

[63] "These divorced wives were irrespective of his concubines or slave-girls, upon the number and variety of whom there was no limit or check whatever."—Annals, p. 418.

[64] Lane adds: "There are many men in this country who, in the course of ten years, have married as many as twenty, thirty, or more wives; and women not far advanced in age have been wives to a dozen or more husbands successively." Note that all this is entirely within the religious sanction.

[65] Pilgrimage to Mecca, by her highness the reigning Begum of Bhopal, translated by Mrs. W. Osborne (1870), pp. 82, 88. Slave-girls cannot be married until freed by their masters. What her highness tells of women divorcing their husbands is of course entirely ultra vires, and shows how the laxity of conjugal relations allowed to the male sex has extended itself to the female also, and that in a city where, if anywhere, we should have expected to find the law observed.

[66] In India, for example, there are Mohammedan races among whom monogamy, as a rule, prevails by custom, and individuals exercising their right of polygamy are looked upon with disfavor. On the other hand, we meet occasionally with men who aver that rather against their will (as they will sometimes rather amusingly say) they have been forced by custom or family influence to add by polygamy to their domestic burdens. In Mohammedan countries, however, when we hear of a man confining himself to one wife, it does not necessarily follow that he has no slaves to consort with in his harem. I may remark that slave-girls have by Mohammedan laws no conjugal rights whatever, but are like playthings, at the absolute discretion of their master.

[67] The case of the Corinthian offender is much in point, as showing how the strict discipline of the Church must have availed to make Christianity unpopular with the mere worldling.

[68] [Sidenote: Laxity among nominal Christians.] Apology, p. 51. I repeat, that in the remarks I have made under this head, no comparison is sought to be drawn betwixt the morality of nominally Christian and Moslem peoples. On this subject I may be allowed to quote from what I have said elsewhere: "The Moslem advocate will urge ... the social evil as the necessary result of inexorable monogamy. The Koran not only denounces any illicit laxity between the sexes in the severest terms, but exposes the transgressor to condign punishment. For this reason, and because the conditions of what is licit are so accommodating and wide, a certain negative virtue (it can hardly be called continence or chastity) pervades Mohammedan society, in contrast with which the gross and systematic immorality in certain parts of every European community may be regarded by the Christian with shame and confusion. In a purely Mohammedan land, however low may be the general level of moral feeling, the still lower depths of fallen humanity are unknown. The 'social evil' and intemperance, prevalent in Christian lands, are the strongest weapons in the armory of Islam. We point, and justly, to the higher morality and civilization of those who do observe the precepts of the Gospel, to the stricter unity and virtue which cement the family, and to the elevation of the sex; but in vain, while the example of our great cities, and too often of our representatives abroad, belies the argument. And yet the argument is sound. For, in proportion as Christianity exercises her legitimate influence, vice and intemperance will wane and vanish, and the higher morality pervade the whole body; whereas in Islam the deteriorating influences of polygamy, divorce, and concubinage have been stereotyped for all time."—The Koran: its Composition and Teaching, and the Testimony it bears to the Holy Scriptures, p. 60.

[69] [Sidenote: Alleged progress of Islam in Africa.] Much loose assertion has been made regarding the progress of Islam in Africa; but I have found no proof of it apart from armed, political, or trading influence, dogged too often by the slave-trade; to a great extent a social rather than a religious movement, and raising the fetich tribes (haply without intemperance) into a somewhat higher stage of semi-barbarism. I have met nothing which would touch the argument in the text. The following is the testimony of Dr. Koelle, the best possible witness on the subject:

"It is true the Mohammedan nations in the interior of Africa, namely, the Bornuese, Mandengas, Pulas, etc., invited by the weak and defenseless condition of the surrounding negro tribes, still occasionally make conquests, and after subduing a tribe of pagans, by almost exterminating its male population and committing the most horrible atrocities, impose upon those that remain the creed of Islam; but keeping in view the whole of the Mohammedan world this fitful activity reminds one only of these green branches sometimes seen on trees, already, and for long, decayed at the core from age."—Food for Reflection, p. 37.

[70] Apology, p. 34.

[71] Annals, pp. 61, 224.

[72] Sura iv, v. 33.

[73] Life of Mohammed, p. 348.

[74] The City of God, p, 91. Hodder & Stoughton, 1883.

[75] The Turks in India, by H.G. Keene, C.S.I. Allen & Co., 1879.

[76] Annals, etc., p. 457.

[77] See Sura xxxiv, v. 32. The excepted relations are: "Husbands, fathers, husbands' fathers, sons, husbands' sons, brothers, brothers' sons, sisters' sons, the captives which their right hands possess, such men as attend them and have no need of women, or children below the age of puberty."

[78] John xviii, 36, 37.

[79] Dr. Fairbairn, Contemporary Review, p. 865.

[80] The Early Caliphate and Rise of Islam, being the Rede Lecture for 1881, delivered before the University of Cambridge, p. 28.

[81] The Koran, etc., p. 65.



Transcriber's Note: The following section was originally at the beginning of the text.

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