20 EFOL UTION AND NATURAL THEOL OGY. 



stereotypes his teaching on his nation like a seal on molten wax; and 

 it preserves it unaltered until another prophet, either greater than he, 

 or better fitted for the age, rises up to carry forward the work which 

 his predecessor has begun. And whereas the religious teachers of <he 

 Aryans reason with the people, and rarely claim for themselves divine 

 inspiration, all the Semitic prophets claim to have received their 

 inspiration direct from God, and teach the people in His name ; nor 

 indeed would they be listened to for a moment if they did not. 



Some time after the above passage was published in the Truth- 

 seeker, I was gratified to find that Draper, in his "History of the 

 Conflict between Religion and Science," fully recognises the affinity 

 between Islam and Protestantism; indeed he calls the former "the 

 First, or Southern Reformation." It is indeed time for Western 

 writers to do justice to the great Prophet Mohammad. Islam must 

 be judged by its fruits, and by its best examples, not its worst ; 

 by the noble lives of Mohammad himself, of his cousin Ali, and of 

 the sons of the latter; and not by Oriental corruption and profligacy, 

 which have remained but little altered through Pagan, Christian, 

 and Muslim times, and are as much opposed to both the spirit and 

 letter of Islam as to those of Christianity. "We do not judge of the 

 religion of Christ by the characters of Henry VIII. or Charles II. ; 

 and as little ought we to judge of the religion of Mohammad in an 

 equally unfair manner. The charge of imposture formerly brought 

 against Mohammad is happily almost extinct; but it is in this place 

 sufficient to point out that his nearest and dearest friends (many of 

 them themselves men and women of the very highest character) were 

 always among his sincerest and most devoted followers; and that 

 Mohammad himself always disclaimed the power of working miracles ; 

 whereas an imposter, in his position, would certainly not have 

 scrupled to lay claim to such powers ; and if devoid of them, would 

 have stooped to jugglery. But Mohammad so strenuously repudi- 

 ated his possession of supernatural powers, that although endless 

 miracles (possible and impossible) are related of many Mohammadan 

 saints, few or none are related of the Prophet himself. 



