It has been the fate of every great religious teacher to have his memory
enveloped in a haze of posthumous myths. Even the Gospel history was
embellished with marvellous apocryphal legends of the childhood of
Christ. Buddhism very soon began to be overgrown with a truly Indian
luxuriance of fables, miracles, and pre-existent histories extending
through five hundred past transmigrations. In like manner, the followers
of Mohammed traced the history of their prophet and of their sacred city
back to the time of Adam. And Mohammedan legends were not a slow and
natural growth, as in the case of most other faiths. There was a set
purpose in producing them without much delay. The conquests of Islam
over the Eastern empires had been very rapid. The success of Mohammed's
cause and creed had exceeded the expectations of his most sanguine
followers. In the first half of the seventh century--nay, between the
years 630 and 638 A.D.--Jerusalem, Damascus, and Aleppo had fallen
before the arms of Omar and his lieutenant "Khaled the Invincible," and
in 639 Egypt was added to the realm of the Khalifs. Persia was conquered
in A.D. 640.
It seemed scarcely possible that achievements so brilliant could have
been the work of a mere unlettered Arab and his brave but unpretentious
successors. The personnel of the prophet must be raised to an adequate
proportion to such a history. Special requisition was made therefore for
incidents. The devout fancy of the faithful was taxed for the
picturesque and marvellous; and the system which Mohammed taught, and
the very place in which he was born, must needs be raised to a
supernatural dignity and importance. Accordingly, the history of the
prophet was traced back to the creation of the world, when God was said
to have imparted to a certain small portion of earthy dust a mysterious
spark of light. When Adam was formed this particular luminous dust
appeared in his forehead, and from him it passed in a direct line to
Abraham. From Abraham it descended, not to Isaac, but to Ishmael; and
this was the cause of Sarah's jealousy and the secret of all Abraham's
domestic troubles. Of course, this bright spark of heavenly effulgence
reappearing on the brow of each lineal progenitor, was designed
ultimately for Mohammed, in whom it shone forth with tenfold brightness.
There is real historic evidence of the fact that the Vale of Mecca had
for a long time been regarded as sacred ground. It was a sort of forest
or extensive grove, a place for holding treaties among the tribes, a
common ground of truce and a refuge from the avenger. It was also a
place for holding annual fairs, for public harangues, and the
competitive recitation of ballads and other poems. But all this, however
creditable to the culture of the Arab tribes, was not sufficient for
the purposes of Islam. The Kaaba, which had been a rude heathen temple,
was raised to the dignity of a shrine of the true God, or rather it was
restored, for it was said to have been built by Adam after a divine
pattern. The story was this: At the time of the Fall, Adam and Eve had
somehow become separated. Adam had wandered away to Ceylon, where a
mountain peak still bears his name. But having been divinely summoned to
Mecca to erect this first of earthly temples, he unexpectedly found Eve
residing upon a hill near the city, and thenceforward the Valley of
Mecca became their paradise regained. At the time of the Deluge the
Kaaba was buried in mud, and for centuries afterward it was overgrown
with trees.
When Hagar and her son Ishmael were driven out from the household of
Abraham, they wandered by chance to this very spot, desolate and
forsaken. While Hagar was diligently searching for water, more anxious
to save the life of her son than her own, Ishmael, boy-like, sat poking
the sand with his heel; when, behold, a spring of water bubbled up in
his footprint. And this was none other than the sacred well Zemzem,
whose brackish waters are still eagerly sought by every Moslem pilgrim.
As Ishmael grew to manhood and established his home in the sacred city,
Abraham was summoned to join him, that they together might rebuild the
Kaaba. But in the succeeding generations apostacy again brought ruin
upon the place, although the heathen Koreish still performed sacred
rites there--especially that of sevenfold processions around the sacred
stone. This blackened object, supposed to be an aërolite which fell
ages ago, is still regarded as sacred, and the sevenfold circuits of
Mohammedan pilgrims take the place of the ancient heathen rites.
Laying aside these crude legends, and confining our attention to
probable history, I can only hope, in the compass of a single lecture,
to barely touch upon a series of prominent points without any very
careful regard to logical order. This will perhaps insure the greatest
clearness as well as the best economy of time. And first, we will glance
at the personal history of Mohammed--a history, it should be remembered,
which was not committed to writing till two hundred years after the
prophet's death, and which depends wholly on the enthusiastic traditions
of his followers. Born in the year 561 A.D., of a recently widowed
mother, he appears to have been from the first a victim of epilepsy, or
some kindred affection whose paroxysms had much to do with his
subsequent experiences and his success. The various tribes of Arabia
were mostly given to a form of polytheistic idolatry in which, however,
the conception of a monotheistic supremacy was still recognized. Most
scholars, including Renan, insist on ascribing to the Arabians, in
common with all other Shemitic races, a worship of one God as Supreme,
though the Arabian Allah, like the Baal of Canaan and Phoenicia, was
supposed to be attended by numerous inferior deities. Though Islam
undoubtedly borrowed the staple of its truths from the Old Testament,
yet there was a short confession strikingly resembling the modern creed
of to-day, which had been upon the lips of many generations of Arabians
before Mohammed's time. Thus it ran: "I dedicate myself to thy service,
O Allah. Thou hast no companion except the companion of whom thou art
master and of whatever is his."
A society known as the "Hanifs" existed at the time of Mohammed's early
manhood, and we know not how long before, whose aim was to bring back
their countrymen from the degrading worship and cruel practices of
heathenism to the purity of monotheistic worship. The old faith had been
reinforced in the minds of the more intelligent Arabs by the truths
learned from Jewish exiles, who, as early as the Babylonish captivity,
had found refuge in Arabia; and it is a striking fact that the four
Hanif leaders whom the young Mohammed found on joining their society,
were pleading for the restoration of the faith of Abraham. All these
leaders refused to follow his standard when he began to claim supremacy
as a prophet; three of them were finally led to Christianity, and the
fourth died in a sort of quandary between the Christian faith and Islam.
The first two, Waraka and Othman, were cousins of Mohammed's wife, and
the third, Obadulla, was his own cousin. Zaid, the last of the four,
presents to us a very pathetic picture. He lived and died in perplexity.
Banished from Mecca by those who feared his conscientious censorship, he
lived by himself on a neighboring hillside, an earnest seeker after
truth to the last; and he died with the prayer on his lips, "O God, if I
knew what form of worship is most pleasing to thee, so would I serve
thee, but I know it not." It is to the credit of Mohammed that he
cherished a profound respect for this man. "I will pray for him," he
said; "in the Resurrection he also will gather a church around him."[97]
In spite of his maladies and the general delicacy of his nervous
organization, Mohammed evinced in early youth a degree of energy and
intellectual capacity which augured well for his future success in some
important sphere. Fortune also favored him in many ways. His success as
manager of the commercial caravans of a wealthy widow led to his
acceptance as her husband. She was fourteen years his senior, but she
seems to have entirely won his affections and to have proved
indispensable, not only as a patroness, but as a wise and faithful
counsellor. So long as she lived she was the good spirit who called
forth his better nature, and kept him from those low impulses which
subsequently wrought the ruin of his character, even in the midst of his
successes. On the one hand, it is an argument in favor of the sincerity
of Mohammed's prophetic claims, that this good and true woman was the
first to believe in him as a prophet of God; but, on the other hand, we
must remember that she was a loving wife, and that that charity which
thinketh no evil is sometimes utterly blind to evil when found in this
tender relation.
We have no reason to doubt that Mohammed was a sincere "Hanif." Having
means and leisure for study, and being of a bright and thoughtful mind,
he doubtless entered with enthusiasm into the work of reforming the
idolatrous customs of his countrymen. From this high standpoint, and
free from superstitious fear of a heathen priesthood, he was prepared to
estimate in their true enormity the degrading rites which he everywhere
witnessed under the abused name of religion. That hatred of idolatry
which became the main spring of his subsequent success, was thus
nourished and strengthened as an honest and abiding sentiment. He was,
moreover, of a contemplative--we may say, of a religious--turn of mind.
His maladies gave him a tinge of melancholy, and, like the Buddha, he
showed a characteristic thoughtfulness bordering upon the morbid.
Becoming more and more a reformer, he followed the example of many other
reformers by withdrawing at stated times to a place of solitude for
meditation; at least such is the statement of his followers, though
there are evidences that he took his family with him, and that he may
have been seeking refuge from the heat. However this may have been, the
place chosen was a neighboring cave, in whose cool shade he not only
spent the heated hours of the day, but sometimes a succession of days
and nights.
Perhaps the confinement increased the violence of his convulsions, and
the vividness and power of the strange phantasmagorias which during his
paroxysms passed through his mind. It was from one of these terrible
attacks that his alleged call to the prophetic office was dated. The
prevailing theories of his time ascribed all such experiences to the
influence of supernatural spirits, either good or evil, and the sufferer
was left to the alternative of assuming either that he had received
messages from heaven, or that he had been a victim of the devil. After
a night of greater suffering and more thrilling visions than he had ever
experienced before, Mohammed chose the more favorable interpretation,
and announced to his sympathizing wife Kadijah that he had received from
Gabriel a solemn call to become the Prophet of God.
There has been endless discussion as to how far he may have been
self-deceived in making this claim, and how far he may have been guilty
of conscious imposture. Speculation is useless, since on the one hand we
cannot judge a man of that age and that race by the rigid standards of
our own times; and on the other, we are forbidden to form a too
favorable judgment by the subsequent developments of Mohammed's
character and life, in regard to which no other interpretation than that
of conscious fraud seems possible.[98]
Aside from the previous development and influence of a monotheistic
reform, and the favoring circumstance of a fortunate marriage, he found
his way prepared by the truths which had been made known in Arabia by
both Jews and Christians. The Jews had fled to the Arabian Peninsula
from the various conquerors who had laid waste Jerusalem and overrun the
territories of the Ten Tribes. At a later day, many Christians had also
found an asylum there from the persecutions of hostile bishops and
emperors. Sir William Muir has shown how largely the teachings of the
Koran are grounded upon those of the Old and New Testaments.[99] All
that is best in Mohammedanism is clearly borrowed from Judaism and
Christianity. Mohammed was illiterate and never claimed originality.
Indeed, he plead his illiteracy as a proof of direct inspiration. A far
better explanation would be found in the knowledge derived from inspired
records, penned long before and under different names.
The prophet was fortunate not only in the possession of truths thus
indirectly received, but in the fact that both Jews and Christians had
lapsed from a fair representation of the creeds which they professed.
The Jews in Arabia had lost the true spirit of their sacred scriptures,
and were following their own perverted traditions rather than the
oracles of God. They had lost the vitality and power of the truths
revealed to their fathers, and were destitute of moral earnestness and
all spiritual life. On the other hand, the Christian sects had fallen
into low superstitions and virtual idolatry. The Trinity, as they
represented it, gave to Mohammed the impression that the Virgin Mary,
"Mother of God," was one of the three persons of the Trinity, and that
the promise of the coming Paraclete might very plausibly be appropriated
by himself.[100] The prevailing worship of pictures, images, and relics
appeared in his vision as truly idolatrous as the polytheism of the
heathen Koreish. It was clear to him that there was a call for some
zealous iconoclast to rise up and deliver his country from idolatry. The
whole situation seemed auspicious. Arabia was ripe for a sweeping
reformation. It appears strange to us, at this late day, that the
churches of Christendom, even down to the seventh century, should have
failed to christianize Arabia, though they had carried the Gospel even
to Spain and to Britain on the west, and to India and China on the east.
If they had imagined that the deserts of the Peninsula were not
sufficiently important to demand attention, they certainly learned their
mistake; for now the sad day of reckoning had come, when swarms of
fanatics should issue from those deserts like locusts, and overrun their
Christian communities, humble their bishops, appropriate their sacred
temples, and reduce their despairing people to the alternatives of
apostacy, tribute, slavery, or the sword.
It seems equally strange that the great empires which had carried their
conquests so far on every hand had neglected to conquer Arabia. It was,
indeed, comparatively isolated; it certainly did not lie in the common
paths of the conquerors; doubtless it appeared barren, and by no means a
tempting prize; and withal it was a difficult field for a successful
campaign. But from whatever reason, the tribes of Arabia had never been
conquered. Various expeditions had won temporary successes, but the
proud Arab could boast that his country had never been brought into
permanent subjection.[101] Meanwhile the heredity of a thousand years
had strengthened the valor of the Arab warrior. He was accustomed to the
saddle from his very infancy; he was almost a part of his horse. He was
trained to the use of arms as a robber, when not engaged in tribal wars.
His whole activity, his all-absorbing interest, was in hostile forays.
He knew no fear; he had no scruples. He had been taught to feel that, as
a son of Ishmael every man's hand was turned against him, and of simple
right his hand might be turned against every man.
Nor was this all. The surrounding nations, east and west, had long been
accustomed to employ these sons of the desert as mercenary soldiers.
They had all had a hand in training them for their terrible work, by
imparting to them a knowledge of their respective countries, their
resources, their modes of warfare, and their points of weakness. How
many nations have thus paved the way to their own destruction by
calling in allies, who finally became their masters![102]
On Mohammed's part, there is no evidence that at the outset he
contemplated a military career. At first a reformer, then a prophet, he
was driven to arms in self-defence against his persecutors, and he was
fortunate in being able to profit by a certain jealousy which existed
between the rival cities of Mecca and Medina. Fleeing from Mecca with
only one follower, Abu Bekr, leaving the faithful Ali to arrange his
affairs while he and his companion were hidden in a cave, he found on
reaching Medina a more favorable reception. He soon gathered a
following, which enabled him to gain a truce from the Meccans for ten
years; and when they on their part violated the truce, he was able to
march upon their city with a force which defied all possible resistance,
and he entered Mecca in triumph. Medina had been won partly by the
supposed credentials of the prophet, but mainly by jealousy of the rival
city. Mecca yielded to a superior force of arms, but in the end became
the honored capital and shrine of Islam.
From this time the career of Mohammed was wholly changed. He was now an
ambitious conqueror, and here as before, the question how far he may
have sincerely interpreted his remarkable fortune as a call of God to
subdue the idolatrous nations, must remain for the present unsettled.
Possibly further light may be thrown upon it as we proceed. Let us
consider some of the changes which appear in the development of this
man's character. If we set out with that high ideal which would seem to
be demanded as a characteristic of a great religious teacher, and
certainly of one claiming to be a prophet of God, we ought to expect
that his character would steadily improve in all purity, humanity,
truthfulness, charity, and godlikeness. The test of character lies in
its trend. If the founder of a religion has not grown nobler and better
under the operation of his own system, that fact is the strongest
possible condemnation of the system. A good man generally feels that he
can afford to be magnanimous and pitiful in proportion to his victories
and his success. But Mohammed became relentless as his power increased.
He had at first endeavored to win the Arabian Jews to his standard. He
had adopted their prophets and much of the Old Testament teachings; he
had insisted upon the virtual identity of the two religions. But having
failed in his overtures, and meanwhile having gained superior power, he
waged against them the most savage persecution. On one occasion he
ordered the massacre of a surrendered garrison of six hundred Jewish
soldiers. At another time he put to the most inhuman torture a leader
who had opposed his cause; in repeated instances he instigated the crime
of assassination.[103] In early life he had been engaged in a peaceful
caravan trade, and all his influence had been cast in favor of universal
security as against the predatory habits of the heathen Arabs; but on
coming to power he himself resorted to robbery to enrich his exchequer.
Sales mentions twenty-seven of these predatory expeditions against
caravans, in which Mohammed was personally present.[104]
The biographers of his early life represent him as a man of a natural
kindness of disposition, and a sensitive temperament almost bordering on
timidity. Though not particularly genial, he was fond of children, and
had at first, as his recorded utterances show, frequent impulses of pity
and magnanimity. But he became hardened as success crowned his career.
The temperateness which characterized his early pleadings and
remonstrances with those who differed from him, gave place to bitter
anathemas; and there was rooted in his personal character that
relentless bigotry which has been the key-note of the most intolerant
system known upon the earth.
A still more marked change occurred in the increasing sensuality of
Mohammed. Such lenient apologists as E. Bosworth Smith and Canon Taylor
have applied their most skilful upholstery to the defects of his
scandalous morals. Mr. Smith has even undertaken to palliate his
appropriation of another man's wife, and the blasphemy of his pretended
revelation in which he made God justify his passion.[105] These authors
base their chief apologies upon comparisons between Mohammed and the
worse depravity of the heathen Arabs, or they balance accounts with some
of his acknowledged virtues.
But the case baffles all such advocacy. The real question is, what was
the _drift_ of the prophet's character? What was the influence of his
professed principles on his own life? It cannot be denied that his moral
trend was downward. If we credit the traditions of his own followers, he
had lived a virtuous life as the husband of one wife,[106] and that for
many years. But after the death of Kadijah he entered upon a career of
polygamy in violation of his own law. He had fixed the limit for all
Moslems at four lawful wives; and in spite of the arguments of R.
Bosworth Smith, we must regard it as a most damning after-thought that
made the first and only exception to accommodate his own weakness. By
that act he placed himself beyond the help of all sophistry, and took
his true place in the sober judgment of mankind. And by a law which is
as unerring as the law of gravitation, he became more and more sensual
as age advanced. At the time of his death he was the husband of eleven
wives. We are not favored with a list of his concubines:[107] we only
know that his system placed no limit upon the number.[108] Now, if a
prophet claiming direct inspiration could break his own inspired laws
for his personal accommodation; if, when found guilty of adultery, he
could compel his friend and follower to divorce his wife that he might
take her; if upon each violation of purity and decency he did not shrink
from the blasphemy of claiming a special revelation which made God the
abettor of his vices, and even represented Him as reproving and
threatening his wives for their just complaints--if all this does not
stamp a man as a reckless impostor, what further turpitude is required?
At the same time it is evident that constant discrimination is demanded
in judging of the character of Mohammed. It is not necessary to assume
that he was wholly depraved at first, or to deny that for a time he was
the good husband that he is represented to have been, or that he was a
sincere and enthusiastic reformer, or even that he may have interpreted
some of his _early_ hallucinations as mysterious messages from heaven.
At various times in his life he doubtless displayed noble sentiments and
performed generous acts. But when we find him dictating divine
communications with deliberate purpose for the most villainous objects,
when we find the messages of Gabriel timed and graded to suit the
exigencies of his growing ambition, or the demands of his worst
passions, we are forced to a preponderating condemnation. The Mohammed
of the later years is a remorseless tyrant when occasion requires, and
at all times the slave of unbridled lust. Refined and cultivated
Mohammedan ladies--I speak from testimony that is very direct--do not
hesitate to condemn the degrading morals of their prophet, and to
contrast him with the spotless purity of Jesus; "but then," they add,
"God used him for a great purpose, and gave him the most exalted honor
among men." Alas! it is the old argument so often employed in many
lands. Success, great intellect, grand achievements gild all moral
deformity, and win the connivance of dazzled minds. In this case,
however, it is not a hero or a statesman, but an alleged prophet of God,
that is on trial.
It is a question difficult to decide, how far Mohammed made
Mohammedanism, and how far the system moulded him. The action of cause
and effect was mutual, and under this interaction both the character and
the system were slow growths. The Koran was composed in detached
fragments suited to different stages of development, different degrees
and kinds of success, different demands of personal impulse or changes
of conduct. The Suras, without any claim to logical connection, were
written down by an amanuensis on bits of parchment, or pieces of wood or
leather, and even on the shoulder-bones of sheep. And they were each the
expression of Mohammed's particular mood at the time, and each entered
in some degree into his character from that time forth. The man and the
book grew together, the system, through all its history, fairly
represents the example of the man and the teaching of the book.
Let us next consider the historic character and influence of the system
of Islam. In forming just conclusions as to the real influence of
Mohammedanism, a judicial fairness is necessary. In the first place, we
must guard against the hasty and sweeping judgments which are too often
indulged in by zealous Christians; and on the other hand, we must
certainly challenge the exaggerated statements of enthusiastic
apologists. It is erroneous to assert that Islam has never encouraged
education, that it has invariably been adverse to all progress, that it
knows nothing but the Koran, or that Omar, in ordering the destruction
of the Alexandrian library, is the only historical exponent of the
system. Such statements are full of partial truths, but they are also
mingled with patent errors.
The Arab races in their original home were naturally inclined to the
encouragement of letters, particularly of poetry, and Mohammed himself,
though he had never been taught even to read, much less to write, took
special pains to encourage learning. "Teach your children poetry," he
said; "it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom, and makes the heroic
virtues hereditary."[109] According to Sprenger, he gave liberty to
every prisoner who taught twelve boys of Mecca to write. The Abbasside
princes of a later day offered most generous prizes for superior
excellence in poetry, and Bagdad, Damascus, Alexandria, Bassora, and
Samarcand were noted for their universities.[110] Cordova and Seville
were able to lend their light to the infant university of Oxford. The
fine arts of sculpture and painting were condemned by the early caliphs,
doubtless on account of the idolatrous tendencies which they were
supposed to foster; but medicine, philosophy, mathematics, chemistry,
and astronomy were especially developed, and that at a time when the
nations of Europe were mostly in darkness.[111] Yet it cannot be denied
that on the whole the influence of Islam has been hostile to learning
and to civilization.[112] The world will never forget that by the
burning of the great library of Alexandria the rich legacy which the old
world had bequeathed to the new was destroyed. By its occupation of
Egypt and Constantinople, and thus cutting off the most important
channels of communication, the Mohammedan power became largely
responsible for the long eclipse of Europe during the Middle Ages.
Moreover, when zealous advocates of the system contrast the barbarism of
Richard Coeur de Lion with the culture and humanity of Saladin, they
seem to forget that the race of Richard had but just emerged from the
savagery of the Northmen, while Saladin and his race had not only
inherited the high moral culture of Judaism and Christianity, but had
virtually monopolized it. It was chiefly by the wars of the Crusaders
that Western Europe became acquainted with the civilization of the
Orient.
Instead of ignoring the advantages which the East had over the West at
that period, it would be more just to inquire what comparative
improvements of their respective opportunities have been made by Western
Christianity and Eastern Mohammedanism since that time. It would be an
interesting task, for example, to start with the period of Saladin and
Coeur de Lion, and impartially trace on the one hand the influence of
Christianity as it moulded the savage conquerors of the Roman Empire,
and from such rude materials built up the great Christian nations of the
nineteenth century; and on the other hand, follow the banner of the
Crescent through all the lands where it has borne sway: Persia, Arabia,
Northern India, Egypt, the Barbary States, East Africa, and the Soudan,
and then draw an unbiased conclusion as to which system, as a system,
has done more to spread general enlightenment, foster the sentiments of
kindness and philanthropy, promote human liberty, advance civilization,
increase and elevate populations, promote the purity and happiness of
the family and the home, and raise the standards of ethics and true
religion among mankind.[113]
One of the brilliant dynasties of Mohammedan history was that of the
Moors of Spain. We can never cease to admire their encouragement of arts
and their beautiful architecture, but is it quite certain that all this
was a direct fruit of Islam? The suggestion that it may have been partly
due to contact with the Gothic elements which the Moors vanquished,
finds support in the fact that nothing of the kind appeared on the
opposite coast of Africa. And while the Mohammedan Empire in India has
left the most exquisite architectural structures in the world, it is
well known that they were the work of European architects.
But in considering the influence which Islam has exerted on the whole,
lack of time compels me to limit our survey to Africa, except as other
lands may be referred to incidentally.[114] That the first African
conquests, extending from Egypt to Morocco, were simple warlike
invasions in which the sword was the only instrument of propagandism, no
one will deny. But it is contended that in later centuries a great work
has been accomplished in Western Soudan, and is still being
accomplished, by missionary effort and the general advance of a
wholesome civilization.
Any fair estimate of Mohammedan influence must take account of the
elements which it found in Northern Africa at the time of its conquests.
The states which border on the Mediterranean had once been powerful and
comparatively enlightened. They had been populous and prosperous. The
Phoenician colony in Carthage had grown to be no mean rival of Rome's
military power. Egypt had been a great centre of learning, not only in
the most ancient times, but especially after the building of Alexandria.
More western lands, like Numidia and Mauritania, had been peopled by
noble races.
After the introduction of Christianity, Alexandria became the bright
focus into which the religions and philosophies of the world poured
their concentrated light. Some of the greatest of the Christian fathers,
like Augustine, Tertullian, and Cyprian, were Africans. The foundations
of Latin Christianity were laid by these men. The Bishopric of Hippo was
a model for all time in deep and intelligent devotion. The grace and
strength, the sublime and all-conquering faith of Monica, and others
like her, furnished a pattern for all Christian womanhood and
motherhood.
I do not forget that before the time of the Mohammedan invasion the
Vandals had done their work of devastation, or that the African Church
had been woefully weakened and rent by wild heresies and schisms, or
that the defection of the Monophysite or Coptic Church of Egypt was one
of the influences which facilitated the Mohammedan success. But making
due allowance for all this, vandalism and schism could not have
destroyed so soon the ancient civilization or sapped the strength of the
North African races. The process which has permanently reduced so many
once populous cities and villages to deserts, and left large portions of
the Barbary States with only the moldering ruins of their former
greatness, has been a gradual one. For centuries after the Arab conquest
those states were virtually shut off from communication with Europe, and
for at least three centuries more, say from 1500 down to the generation
which immediately preceded our own, they were known chiefly by the
piracies which they carried on against the commerce of all maritime
nations. Even the Government of the United States was compelled to pay a
million of dollars for the ransom of captured American seamen, and it
paid it not to private corsairs, but to the Mohammedan governments by
which those piracies were subsidized, as a means of supplying the public
exchequer. These large amounts were recovered only when our navy, in
co-operation with that of England, extirpated the Riff piracies by
bombarding the Moslem ports. The vaunted civilizations of the North
African states would have been supported by wholesale marauding to this
day, had not their piratical fleets been thus summarily swept from the
seas by other powers.
If Egypt has shown a higher degree of advancement it has been due to her
peculiar geographical position, to the inexhaustible fertility of the
Delta, and, most of all, to the infusion of foreign life and energy into
the management of her affairs. Ambitious adventurers, like the Albanian
Mehamet Ali, have risen to power and have made Egypt what she is, or
rather what she was before the more recent intervention of the European
powers. Even Canon Taylor admits that for centuries it has been
necessary to import more vigorous foreign blood for the administration
of Egyptian affairs.[115]
It will be admitted that Mohammedan conquests have been made in mediæval
times, and down to our own age, in Central Africa, and that along the
southern borders of Sahara a cordon of more or less prosperous states
has been established; also, that the civilization of those states
contrasts favorably with the savagery of the cannibal tribes with which
they have come in contact. Probably the best--that is to say, the least
objectionable--exemplifications of Islam now to be found in the world
are seen in some of the older states of Western Soudan. The Mandingo of
the central uplands furnished a better material than the "unspeakable
Turk," and it would not be quite fair to ascribe all his present virtues
to the Moslem rule.
But _how_ have these conquests in Central Africa been made? The
contention of the apologists for Islam is that recently, at least, and
probably more or less in the past, a quiet missionary work has greatly
extended monotheism, temperance, education, and general comfort, and
that it has done more than all other influences for the permanent
extinction of the slave trade! Dr. E.W. Blyden, in answer to the charge
that Mohammedan Arabs are now, and long have been, chiefly responsible
for the horrors of that trade, and that even when Americans bought
slaves for their plantations, Moslem raiders in the interior instigated
the tribal quarrels which supplied the markets on the coast, contends
that the Moslem conquests do most effectually destroy the trade, since
tribes which have become Moslem can no longer be enslaved by
Moslems.[116] It is a curious argument, especially as it seems to ignore
the fact that at the present time both the supply and the demand depend
on Mohammedan influence.
As to the means by which the Soudanese States are now extending their
power we may content ourselves with a mere reference to the operations
of the late "El Mahdi" in the East and the notorious Samadu in the West.
Their methods may be accepted as illustrations of a kind of tactics
which have been employed for ages. The career of El Mahdi is already
well known. Samadu was originally a prisoner, captured while yet a boy
in one of the tribal wars near the headwaters of the Niger. Partly by
intrigue and partly by the aid of his religious fanaticism he at length
became sufficiently powerful to enslave his master. Soon afterward he
proclaimed his divine mission, and declared a _Jehad_ or holy war
against all infidels. Thousands flocked to his banner, influenced
largely by the hope of booty; and ere long, to quote the language of a
lay correspondent of the London _Standard_, written in Sierra Leone
September 18, 1888, "he became the scourge of all the peaceable states
on the right bank of the Upper Niger." Since 1882 he has attempted to
dispute the territorial claims of the French on the upper, and of the
English on the lower Niger, though without success. But he has seemed to
avenge his disappointment the more terribly on the native tribes.
The letter published in the _Standard_ gives an account of an official
commission sent by the Governor of Sierra Leone to the headquarters of
Samadu in 1888, and in describing the track of this Western Mahdi in his
approaches to the French territories it says: "The messengers report
that every town and village through which they passed was in ruins, and
that the road, from the borders of Sulimania to Herimakono, was lined
with human skeletons, the remains of unfortunates who had been slain by
Samadu's fanatical soldiery, or had perished from starvation through the
devastation of the surrounding country. Some of these poor wretches, to
judge from the horrible contortions of the skeletons, had been attacked
by vultures and beasts of prey while yet alive, and when too near their
lingering death to have sufficient strength to beat them off. Around the
ruined towns were hundreds of doubled-up skeletons, the remains of
prisoners who, bound hand and foot, had been forced upon their knees,
and their heads struck off. Keba, the heroic Bambara king, is still
resisting bravely, but he has only one stronghold (Siaso) left, and the
end cannot now be far off."
Samadu's career in this direction having been arrested, he next turned
his attention toward the tribes under English protection on the
southeast, "where, unfortunately, there was no power to take up the
cause of humanity and arrest his progress. Before long he entirely
overran and subjected Kouranko, Limbah, Sulimania, Kono, and Kissi. The
most horrible atrocities were committed; peaceable agriculturists were
slaughted in thousands, and their women and children carried off into
slavery. Falaba, the celebrated capital of Sulimania, and the great
emporium for trade between Sierra Leone and the Niger, was captured and
destroyed; and all the inhabitants of that district, whom every
traveller, from Winwood Reade down to Dr. Blyden, has mentioned with
praise for their industry and docility, have been exterminated or
carried off. Sulimania, which was the garden of West Africa, has now
become a howling wilderness."
And the writer adds: "The people of the States to the south of Futa
Djallon are pagans, and Samadu makes their religion a pretext for his
outrages. He is desirous, he says, of converting them to the 'True
Faith,' and his modes of persuasion are murder and slavery. What could
be more horrible than the story just brought down by the messengers who
were with Major Festing? Miles of road strewn with human bones;
blackened ruins where were peaceful hamlets; desolation and emptiness
where were smiling plantations. What has become of the tens of
thousands of peaceful agriculturists, their wives and their innocent
children? Gone; converted, after Samadu's manner, to the 'True Faith.'
And thus the conversion of West Africa to Islamism goes merrily on,
while _dilettante_ scholars at home complacently discuss the question as
to whether that faith or Christianity is the more suitable for the
Negro; and the British people, dead to their generous instincts of old,
make no demand that such deeds of cruelty and horror shall be arrested
with a strong hand."[117]
Similar accounts of the African _propagandism_ of Islam might be given
in the very words of numerous travellers and explorers, but one or two
witnesses only shall be summoned to speak of the Mohammedan dominion and
civilization in East Africa. Professor Drummond, in giving his
impressions of Zanzibar, says: "Oriental in its appearance, Mohammedan
in its religion, Arabian in its morals, a cesspool of wickedness, it is
a fit capital to the Dark Continent." And it is the great emporium--not
an obscure settlement, but the consummate flower of East African
civilization and boasting in the late Sultan Bargash, an unusually
enlightened Moslem ruler. Of the interior and the ivory-slave trade
pursued under the auspices of Arab dominion the same author says: "Arab
encampments for carrying on a wholesale trade in this terrible commodity
are now established all over the heart of Africa. They are usually
connected with wealthy Arab traders at Zanzibar and other places on the
coast, and communication is kept up by caravans, which pass at long
intervals from one to the other. Being always large and well-supplied
with the material of war, these caravans have at their mercy the feeble
and divided native tribes through which they pass, and their trail
across the continent is darkened with every aggravation of tyranny and
crime. They come upon the scene suddenly; they stay only long enough to
secure their end, and disappear only to return when a new crop has
arisen which is worth the reaping. Sometimes these Arab traders will
actually settle for a year or two in the heart of some quiet community
in the remote interior. They pretend perfect friendship; they molest no
one; they barter honestly. They plant the seeds of their favorite
vegetables and fruits--the Arab always carries seeds with him--as if
they meant to stay forever. Meantime they buy ivory, tusk after tusk,
until great piles of it are buried beneath their huts, and all their
barter goods are gone. Then one day suddenly the inevitable quarrel is
picked. And then follows a wholesale massacre. Enough only are spared
from the slaughter to carry the ivory to the coast; the grass huts of
the village are set on fire; the Arabs strike camp; and the slave march,
worse than death, begins. The last act in the drama, the slave march, is
the aspect of slavery which in the past has chiefly aroused the passions
and the sympathy of the outside world, but the greater evil is the
demoralization and disintegration of communities by which it is
necessarily preceded. It is essential to the traffic that the region
drained by the slaver should be kept in perpetual political ferment;
that, in order to prevent combination, chief should be pitted against
chief, and that the moment any tribe threatens to assume a dominating
strength it should either be broken up by the instigation of rebellion
among its dependencies or made a tool of at their expense. The
inter-relation of tribes is so intricate that it is impossible to
exaggerate the effect of disturbing the equilibrium at even a single
centre. But, like a river, a slave caravan has to be fed by innumerable
tributaries all along its course, at first in order to gather a
sufficient volume of human bodies for the start, and afterward to
replace the frightful loss by desertion, disablement, and death."
Next to Livingstone, whose last pathetic appeal to the civilized world
to "heal the open sore of Africa" stands engraved in marble in
Westminster Abbey, no better witness can be summoned in regard to the
slave trade and the influence of Islam generally in Eastern and Central
Africa than Henry M. Stanley. From the time when he encountered the
Mohammedan propagandists at the Court of Uganda he has seen how
intimately and vitally the faith and the traffic are everywhere united.
I give but a single passage from his "Congo Free State," page 144.
"We discovered that this horde of banditti--for in reality and without
disguise they were nothing else--was under the leadership of several
chiefs, but principally under Karema and Kibunga. They had started
sixteen months previously from Wane-Kirundu, about thirty miles below
Vinya Njara. For eleven months the band had been raiding successfully
between the Congo and the Lubiranzi, on the left bank. They had then
undertaken to perform the same cruel work between the Biyerré and
Wane-Kirundu. On looking at my map I find that such a territory within
the area described would cover superficially 16,200 square geographical
miles on the left bank, and 10,500 miles on the right, all of which in
statute mileage would be equal to 34,700 square miles, just 2,000 square
miles greater than the island of Ireland, inhabited by about 1,000,000
people.
"The band when it set out from Kirundu numbered 300 fighting men, armed
with flint-locks, double-barrelled percussion guns, and a few
breech-loaders; their followers, or domestic slaves and women, doubled
this force.... Within the enclosure was a series of low sheds extending
many lines deep from the immediate edge of the clay bank inland, 100
yards; in length the camp was about 300 yards. At the landing-place
below were 54 long canoes, varying in carrying capacity. Each might
convey from 10 to 100 people.... The first general impressions are that
the camp is much too densely peopled for comfort. There are rows upon
rows of dark nakedness, relieved here and there by the white dresses of
the captors. There are lines or groups of naked forms--upright,
standing, or moving about listlessly; naked bodies are stretched under
the sheds in all positions; naked legs innumerable are seen in the
perspective of prostrate sleepers; there are countless naked
children--many mere infants--forms of boyhood and girlhood, and
occasionally a drove of absolutely naked old women bending under a
basket of fuel, or cassava tubers, or bananas, who are driven through
the moving groups by two or three musketeers. On paying more attention
to details, I observe that mostly all are fettered; youths with iron
rings around their necks, through which a chain, like one of our boat
anchor-chains, is rove, securing the captives by twenties. The children
over ten are secured by these copper rings, each ringed leg brought
together by the central ring."
By a careful examination of statistics Mr. Stanley estimates that
counting the men killed in the raids and those who perish on the march
or are slain because supposed to be worthless, every 5,000 slaves
actually sold cost over 30,000 lives.
But there are Arabs and Arabs we are told. The slave-dealers of East
Africa and the barbarous chieftains who push their bloody conquests in
Western Soudan are bad enough, it is admitted, but they are
"exceptions." Yet we insist that they illustrate the very spirit of
Mohammed himself, who authorized the taking of prisoners of war as
slaves. Their plea is that they save the souls of those they capture;
many of these traders are Mollahs--Pharisees of the Pharisees. Canon
Taylor, Dr. Blyden, and others have given us glowing accounts of "Arab
missionaries going about without purse or scrip, and disseminating their
religion by quietly teaching the Koran;" but the venerable Bishop
Crowther, who has spent his whole life in that part of Africa where
these conquests are supposed to be made, declares that the real vocation
of the quiet apostles of the Koran is that of fetish peddlers.[118] If
it be objected that this is the biased testimony of a Christian
missionary, it may be backed by the explorer Lander, who, in speaking of
this same class of men, says: "These Mollahs procure an easy subsistence
by making fetishes or writing charms on bits of wood which are washed
off carefully into a basin of water, and drank with avidity by the
credulous multitude." And he adds: "Those who profess the Mohammedan
faith among the negroes are as ignorant and superstitious as their
idolatrous brethren; nor does it appear that their having adopted a new
creed has either improved their manners or bettered their condition in
life." Dr. Schweinfurth also describes the Mohammedan missionaries whom
he found at Khartoum as "polluted with every abominable vice which the
imagination of man can conceive of." In answer to various statements
which had been published in regard to the rapid missionary progress made
by Mohammedans in West Central Africa, Bishop Crowther wrote a letter to
the Church Missionary Society at the beginning of 1888, giving the
results of his own prolonged observation. He describes the methods used
as:
1. War upon the heathen tribes. "If the Chief of a heathen tribe accepts
the Koran his people are at once counted as converts and he is received
into favor, and is thus prepared to become an instrument in conquering
other tribes. But on the refusal to accept the Koran war is declared,
the destruction of their country is the consequence, and horrible
bloodshed. The aged, male and female, are massacred, while the salable
are led away as slaves. One half of the slaves are reserved by the
chief, the other half is divided among the soldiers to encourage them to
future raids."
2. Another cause of large increase is polygamy. "For although but four
lawful wives are allowed, there is unlimited license for concubinage."
3. The sale of charms is so conducted as to prove not only a means of
profit but a shrewd propaganda. "When childless women are furnished with
these, they are pledged, if successful, to dedicate their children to
Islam."
And Bishop Crowther verifies the statement made by others in reference
to East Africa, that the priests "besides being charm-makers are traders
both in general articles and more largely in slaves."[119]
We have only time to consider one question more, viz., What is the
character of Islam as we find it to-day, and what are its prospects of
development? It is a characteristic of our age that no religion stands
wholly alone and uninfluenced by others. It is especially true that the
systems of the East are all deeply affected by the higher ethics and
purer religious conceptions borrowed from Christianity. Thus many
Mohammedans of our day, and especially those living in close contact
with our Christian civilization, are rising to higher conceptions of God
and of religious truth than have been entertained by Moslems hitherto.
Canon Taylor, in a little volume entitled "Leaves from an Egyptian
Note-Book," has drawn a picture of Islam which Omar and Othman would
hardly have recognized. In the first place it should be remembered that,
as he confesses, his reputation as a defender of Mohammed and his system
had gone before him to Cairo, and that he was understood to be a seeker
after facts favorable to his known views. This opened the hearts of
friendly Pashas and served to bring out all the praises that they could
bestow upon their own faith. It appears accordingly that he was assured
by them that polygamy is widely discarded and condemned by prominent
Moslems in such cities as Cairo and Alexandria, that many leading men
are highly intelligent and widely read, that they profess belief in most
of the doctrines held by the Christian Church, that they receive the
inspired testimony of the Old and New Testaments--except in so far as
they have been corrupted by Christian manipulation. This exception,
however, includes all that is at variance with the Koran. They advocate
temperance and condemn the slave trade. They encourage the general
promotion of education, and what seems to the credulous Canon most
remarkable of all is that they express deep regret that Christians do
not feel the same charity and fellowship toward Moslems that they feel
toward Christians!
Now, making all due abatement for the _couleur de rose_ which these
easy-going and politic Pashas may have employed with their English
champion, it is undoubtedly true that a class of Mohammedans are found
in the great cosmopolitan cities of the Levant who have come to
recognize the spirit of the age in which they live. Many of them have
been educated in Europe; they speak several languages; they read the
current literature; they are ashamed of the old fanatical Mohammedanism.
Though they cherish a partisan interest in the recognized religion of
their country, their faith is really eclectic; it comes not from Old
Mecca, but is in part a product of the awakened thought of the
nineteenth century. But Canon Taylor's great fallacy lies in trying to
persuade himself and an intelligent Christian public that this is Islam.
He wearies himself in his attempts to square the modern Cairo with the
old, and to trace the modern gentlemanly Pasha, whose faith at least
sits lightly upon his soul, as a legitimate descendant of the fanatical
and licentious prophet of Arabia. When he strives to convince the world
that because these courteous Pashas feel kindly enough toward the Canon
of York and others like him, therefore Islam is and always has been a
charitable and highly tolerant system, he simply stultifies the whole
testimony of history. He tells us that his Egyptian friends complain
that "whereas they regard us as brother-believers and accept our
scriptures, they are nevertheless denounced as infidels. And they ask
why should an eternal coldness reign in our hearts."
Probably they are not acquainted with Samadu of Western Soudan and his
methods of propagandism. They have forgotten the career of El Mahdi;
they are not familiar with the terrible oppression of the Jews in
Morocco--with which even that in Russia cannot compare; they have not
read the dark accounts of the extortion practised by the Wahábees of
Arabia, even upon Moslems of another sect on their pilgrimages to
Mecca,[120] nor do they seem to know that Syrian converts from Islam are
now hiding in Egypt from the bloodthirsty Moslems of Beyrut. Finally, he
forgets that the very "children are taught formulas of prayer in which
they may compendiously curse Jews and Christians and all
unbelievers."[121]
A more plausible case is made out by Canon Taylor, Dr. Blyden, and
others on the question of temperance. It is true that Moslems, as a
rule, are not hard drinkers. Men and races of men have their besetting
sins. Drinking was not the special vice of the Arabs. Their country was
too arid; but they had another vice of which Mohammed was the chief
exemplar. Canon Taylor is doubtless correct also in the statement that
the English protectorate in Egypt has greatly increased the degree of
intemperance, and that in this respect the presence of European races
generally has been a curse. Certainly too much cannot be said in
condemnation of the wholesale liquor trade carried on in Africa by
unscrupulous subjects of Christian nations. But it should be remembered
that the whiskey of Cairo and of the West Coast does not represent
Christianity any more than the Greek assassin or the Italian pickpocket
in Cairo represents Islam. Christian philanthropists in Europe and
America are seeking to suppress the evil. If Christian missionaries in
West Africa were selling rum as Moslem Mollahs are buying and selling
slaves in Uganda, if the Bible authorized the system as the Koran
encourages slavery and concubinage, as means of propagandism, a parallel
might be presented; but the very reverse is true.
As a rule Nomadic races are not as greatly inclined to the use of ardent
spirits as are the descendants of the ancient tribes of Northern Europe.
The difference is due to climate, temperament, heredity, and the amount
of supply. The Koran discourages intemperance and so does the Bible;
both are disregarded when the means of gratification are abundant.
The Moguls of India were sots almost as a rule. Wealthy Persian Moslems
are the chief purchasers of the native wines. Lander, Schweinfurth, and
even Mungo Parke all speak of communities in Central Africa as wholly
given to intemperance.[122] Egyptians even, according to Canon Taylor,
find the abundant supplies afforded by Europeans too tempting for the
restraints of the Koran.
One of the most significant indications that the sober judgment of all
enlightened men favors the immense superiority of the Christian faith
over all ethnic systems is the fact that even those zealous apologists
who have most plausibly defended the non-Christian religions have
subsequently evinced some misgivings and have even become advocates of
the superior light of Christianity. Sir Edwin Arnold, seeing how
seriously some ill-grounded Christian people had interpreted "The Light
of Asia," has since made amends by writing "The Light of the World." And
E. Bosworth Smith, on reading the extravagant glorification given to
Islam by Canon Isaac Taylor, whom he accuses of plagiarism and absurd
exaggeration, has come to the stand as a witness against his extreme
views. Without acknowledging any important modification of his own
former views he has greatly changed the place of emphasis. He has not
only recorded his condemnation of Canon Taylor's extravagance but he has
made a strong appeal for the transcendent superiority of the Christian
faith as that alone which must finally regenerate Africa and the world.
He has called public attention to the following pointed criticism of
Canon Taylor's plea for Islam, made by a gentleman long resident in
Algeria, and he has given it his own endorsement: "Canon Isaac Taylor,"
says the writer, "has constructed at the expense of Christianity a
rose-colored picture of Islam, by a process of comparison in which
Christianity is arraigned for failures in practice, of which
Christendom is deeply and penitently conscious, no account being taken
of Christian precept; while Islam is judged by its better precepts only,
no account being taken of the frightful shortcomings in Mohammedan
practice, even from the standard of the Koran."[123] No indictment ever
carried its proofs more conspicuously on its face than this.
E. Bosworth Smith's subsequent tribute to the relative superiority of
the Christian faith was given in an address before the Fellows of Zion's
College, February 21, 1888. I give his closing comparison entire; also
his eloquent appeal for Christian Missions in Africa. "The resemblances
between the two Creeds are indeed many and striking, as I have implied
throughout; but, if I may, once more, quote a few words which I have
used elsewhere in dealing with this question, the contrasts are even
more striking than the resemblances. The religion of Christ contains
whole fields of morality and whole realms of thought which are all but
outside the religion of Mohammed. It opens humility, purity of heart,
forgiveness of injuries, sacrifice of self, to man's moral nature; it
gives scope for toleration, development, boundless progress to his mind;
its motive power is stronger even as a friend is better than a king, and
love higher than obedience. Its realized ideals in the various paths of
human greatness have been more commanding, more many-sided, more holy,
as Averroes is below Newton, Harun below Alfred, and Ali below St. Paul.
Finally, the ideal life of all is far more elevating, far more
majestic, far more inspiring, even as the life of the founder of
Mohammedanism is below the life of the Founder of Christianity.
"If, then, we believe Christianity to be truer and purer in itself than
Islam, and than any other religion, we must needs wish others to be
partakers of it; and the effort to propagate it is thrice blessed--it
blesses him that offers, no less than him who accepts it; nay, it often
blesses him who accepts it not. The last words of a dying friend are apt
to linger in the chambers of the heart till the heart itself has ceased
to beat; and the last recorded words of the Founder of Christianity are
not likely to pass from the memory of His Church till that Church has
done its work. They are the marching orders of the Christian army; the
consolation for every past and present failure; the earnest and the
warrant, in some shape or other, of ultimate success. The value of a
Christian mission is not, therefore, to be measured by the number of its
converts. The presence in a heathen or a Muslim district of a single man
who, filled with the missionary spirit, exhibits in his preaching and,
so far as may be, in his life, the self-denying and the Christian
virtues, who is charged with sympathy for those among whom his lot is
cast, who is patient of disappointment and of failure, and of the sneers
of the ignorant or the irreligious, and who works steadily on with a
single eye to the glory of God and the good of his fellow-men, is, of
itself, an influence for good, and a centre from which it radiates,
wholly independent of the number of converts he is able to enlist. There
is a vast number of such men engaged in mission work all over the
world, and our best Indian statesmen, some of whom, for obvious reasons,
have been hostile to direct proselytizing efforts, are unanimous as to
the quantity and quality of the services they render.
"Nothing, therefore, can be more shallow, or more disingenuous, or more
misleading, than to attempt to disparage Christian missions by pitting
the bare number of converts whom they claim against the number of
converts claimed by Islam. The numbers are, of course, enormously in
favor of Islam. But does conversion mean the same, or anything like the
same, thing in each? Is it _in pari materia_, and if not, is the
comparison worth the paper on which it is written? The submission to the
rite of circumcision and the repetition of a confession of faith,
however noble and however elevating in its ultimate effect, do not
necessitate, they do not even necessarily tend toward what a Christian
means by a change of heart. It is the characteristic of Mohammedanism to
deal with batches and with masses. It is the characteristic of
Christianity to speak straight to the individual conscience.
"The conversion of a whole Pagan community to Islam need not imply more
effort, more sincerity, or more vital change, than the conversion of a
single individual to Christianity. The Christianity accepted wholesale
by Clovis and his fierce warriors, in the flush of victory, on the field
of battle, or by the Russian peasants, when they were driven by the
Cossack whips into the Dnieper, and baptized there by force--these are
truer parallels to the tribal conversions to Mohammedanism in Africa at
the present day. And, whatever may have been their beneficial effects in
the march of the centuries, they are not the Christianity of Christ, nor
are they the methods or the objects at which a Christian missionary of
the present day would dream of aiming.
"A Christian missionary could not thus bring over a Pagan or a Muslim
tribe to Christianity, even if he would; he ought not to try thus to
bring them over, even if he could. 'Missionary work,' as remarked by an
able writer in the _Spectator_ the other day, 'is sowing, not reaping,
and the sowing of a plant which is slow to bear.' At times, the
difficulties and discouragements may daunt the stoutest heart and the
most living faith. But God is greater than our hearts and wider than our
thoughts, and, if we are able to believe in Him at all, we must also
believe that the ultimate triumph of Christianity--and by Christianity I
mean not the comparatively narrow creed of this or that particular
Church, but the Divine Spirit of its Founder, that Spirit which, exactly
in proportion as they are true to their name, informs, and animates, and
underlies, and overlies them all--is not problematical, but certain, and
in His good time, across the lapse of ages, will prove to be, not local
but universal, not partial but complete, not evanescent but
eternal."[124]