command me; namely: Worship God, my Lord and your, Lord."

The attributes of God as presented by Mohammed are numerous and complete; the first lesson of the boy at school being the committal to memory of the adjectives used in the Koran to express his character; of which they find nearly one hundred. Among these are his eternity, his omnipotence, his omniscience, and the intellectual and moral attributes nsually ascribed to him by Jews and Christians. The most striking characteristic of Mohammed's view of God is the large place which he gives to his mercy; while the Christian idea of the "righteousness of God" has no sort of acknowledgement from his lips or pen. The universal introduction. of all the 114 chapters, one only excepted, is "In the name of the most merciful God." Yet, as will appear, God is supposed to have no mercy, except for those who yield to Mohammed's sway; and the idea of God's righteousness in forgiving the penitent is nowhere recognized.

In his allusions to the works and providence of God, Mohammed shows a clear recognition of the idea that God is immanent in his works; the divine interposition in miracles, in creation and in providence, being all parts of a consistent system of agency; while at the same time, with the advantage of the Old and New Testaments to guard him on this point, he has committed himself to a cosmogony which the light of science declares absurd. Not only in the original creation, and in miracles as wrought by Moses and Jesus, but in the germinating of seeds, and especially in the origin of human souls in infants born into the world, Mohammed teaches that there is a direct act of the Divine creating energy. Thus, speaking of the proof of the resurrection, he says (ch. xxii.): "O men, if ye be in doubt concerning the resurrection, consider that we first created you of the dust of the ground. Afterwards we created you of seed, then of a little coagulated blood, then of a piece of flesh perfectly formed in part and in part imperfectly formed; that we might make our power manifest unto you and we caused that which we pleased to rest in the womb until the time of

delivery. Then we bring you forth infants; and afterwards. we permit you to attain your age of full strength; and one of you dieth in his youth, and another of you is postponed to a decrepid age, so that he forgetteth whatever he knew. Thou seest the earth dried up and barren; but when we send down rain thereon, it is put in motion and swelleth, and produceth every kind of luxuriant vegetables. This showeth that God is the truth, and that He raiseth the dead to life, and that He is almighty; and that the hour of judgment will come (there is no doubt thereof), and that God will raise again those that are in the graves." "They will ask thee concerning the spirit. Answer, The spirit was created at the command of my Lord." (Ch. xvii.) That God's sovereign and immediate act determines the lot of mortals, the doctrine made so effectual by the followers of Mohammed in inspiring nerve in battle in their armies, is plainly taught in the Koran. Thus in ch. iii. the prophet says: "If a wound hath happened unto you in battle, a wound hath already happened unto the unbelieving people: and we cause those days of differing success interchangeably to succeed each other among men; that God may prove those that believe, and may have martyrs from among them." "No soul can die unless by the permission of God, according to what is written in the book containing the determination of things." "The fate of every man have we bound about his neck; and we will produce unto him, on the day of the resurrection, the open book.” (Ch. xvii.) "Nothing happeneth in the earth, nor in your persons, but that the same was entered in our book of decrees, before we created it." (Ch. lvii.)

While the views of Mohammed on these points are to be commended, his claims to inspiration are of course set aside by his gross statements as to the modus operandi of the Creator in forming the universe; an error from which a Divine mind preserved Moses and all the writers of the Old and New Testaments. Thus in Mohammed's plain statements the earth as the centre of the creation occupied four days in forming; it was made before the heavens or heavenly bodies; all these were made as lesser works, in two days; the arch of heaven is built

up from the earth around, and the stars are lights hung therein, so small that they may be taken in the hand and hurled; and the earth, after the oriental idea, is flat, floating unsteadily upon water, and held down by the mountains, which act as make-weights, or pins, to fasten it. "Do ye indeed (ch. xli.) disbelieve in Him who created the earth in two days? He is the Lord of all creatures. And He placed in the earth mountains, firmly rooted, rising above the same. And He provided therein the food of the creatures thereof, in four days. Then He set his mind to the creation of the heavens, and it was smoke." "And He formed them into seven heavens in two days." In other places Mohammed speaks of the moon as a ball, which, at the day of judgment, will "split in sunder" (ch. liv.) and of the stars as fiery meteors, which devils seek to steal, but which are hurled by angels at devils. He says: "We created man of dried clay, of black mud formed into shape, and before we had created the devil of subtle fire." "We have placed the twelve signs in the heaven, and have arranged them in various figures for beholders to admire, and we guard them from every devil, driving them away with stones, except him who listeneth by stealth; at whom they are hurled as a glowing flame." Of those that have accused him of forgery he says: "If we please, we will cause a piece of the heaven to fall on them." (Ch. xxxiv.) Again, "And He hath thrown upon the earth mountains firmly rooted, lest it should move with you." (Ch. xvi.) "He hath created the heavens without visible pillars to sustain them, and thrown on the earth mountains firmly rooted, lest it should move with you." (Ch. xxxi.) "Have we not made the earth for a bed, and the mountains for stakes to fix the same." These expres

sions, occurring constantly in the Koran, are so stated that they cannot be regarded as mere figures of speech, or use of popular language; and the contrast between them and the allusions of the Old and New Testaments to the structure of the universe forces itself on the notice and comparison of intelligent minds. This is distinctly understood by Mohammedan doctors; so much so that it gives cast to their course of education for youth. The fact that their sacred volume

cannot stand a moment before the light of modern science, excludes from the Mohammedan colleges every branch of science; making their instruction to consist entirely of language, rhetoric and the political and moral system of their religion. The views of man's religious character, and of redemption, held by Mohammed, are rather negatively than positively taught in the Koran. The ingratitude and impiety of men who believe not in Mohammed as the prophet of God is constantly urged; but there is no idea of general depravity, as taught in the Old and New Testaments, presented. In fact the Mohammedan Doctors, in their teachings, deny the Christian doctrine of depravity; first, in order to get rid of the necessity for regeneration taught by Christ in the words, "Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God;" and, second, to disprove the demand for a propitiatory sacrifice taught in the declarations of Jesus and of his great apostle, "Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations ;" "and without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins." Doubtless the distrust of death-bed repentances is legitimate under Christianity; but the denial of the possibility of repentance, or its acceptance after a certain crisis of life, must be founded upon a principle directly opposed to the Christian system. Mohammed says (ch. iv.): Verily repentance will be accepted of those who do evil ignorantly, and then speedily repent. But no repentance shall be accepted from those who do evil until death presenteth itself unto one of them, and he saith, Verily I repent now."

To do away with the sacrifice of Christ, and of course to oppose its design, Mohammed teaches that Christ did not die; that his image was stamped upon an infamous man who was made to supply his place; that Jesus was only a man like Adam, and his mission had no divine moral necessity like that presented in the Gospel connected with his death. All his statements as to Christ's life show how firmly the main facts of Christ's divine origin and supernatural character are

fixed in the historical traditions of Western Asia; how much of fable human imagination has there added to the simple record of the inspired Gospels; and how great ingenuity Mohammed employed to gain the advantage of an assent to the reality and greatness of Christ's mission, while he skilfully gave such a complexion to it as not to interfere with his own claims as a prophet coming after Christ. Thus in the xixth chapter, entitled "Mary," the object of which revelation is to confirm his connection with Jesus, as also with Abraham and Moses, as inspired teachers, he gives this narrative: "Remember in the book of the Koran the story of Mary; when she retired from her family to a place towards the east ; and took a veil to conceal herself from them; and we sent our spirit Gabriel unto her, and he appeared unto her in the shape of a perfect man. She said, I fly for refuge unto the merciful God, that he may defend me from thee if thou fearest Him thou wilt not approach me. He answered, Verily I am the messenger of thy Lord, and am sent to give thee a holy son. She said, How shall I have a son, seeing a man hath not touched me, and I am no harlot? Gabriel replied, So shall it be thy Lord saith, This is easy with me; and we will perform it, that we may ordain him for a sign unto men, and a mercy from us; for it is decreed. Wherefore she conceived him; and she retired aside, with him in her womb, to a distant place; and the pains of childbirth came upon her near the trunk of a palm tree. She said, Would to God I had died before this, and had become a thing forgotten and lost in oblivion. And he who was beneath her called to her, saying, Be not grieved; now hath God provided a rivulet unto thee; and do thou shake the body of the palm tree, and it shall let fall ripe dates upon thee, ready gathered. And eat, and drink, and calm thy mind. Moreover, if thou see any man, and he question thee, say, Verily I have vowed a fast unto the Merciful wherefore I will by no means speak to a man this day. So she brought the child to her people, carrying him in her arms. And they said unto her, O Mary, now hast thou done a strange thing: O sister of Aaron, thy father was not a bad man, neither was thy mother a harlot. But