186 THE REV. W. 8ST. CLAIR TISDALL, M.A., ON ISLAM: 
that not quite sufficient stress is laid on the security that Mu- 
hammad promises for his adherents in the next world. Over and 
over again it has been said to me by Muhammadans, “ You ask me 
to throw over my_religion and to embrace the doctrine of 
Christianity. Why should I? I am in a position of absolute 
safety for the future. When I turn to Christian books I find that 
Christians are never secure of their future till the day of their 
death. My destiny in the future does not depend upon my course 
of life here or upon anything I do, but it is secured by the fact 
of my being a believer in the doctrine of Muhammad, while you 
Christians must not only believe in Christ but you have to deny 
yourselves year after year during the whole course of your 
existence, and are taught to believe that you may fail at 
last.” 
There is another point to which I would allude, and that is that 
the history of Muhammadanism affords most instructive proof of 
the fact that a system that is false can never be a stepping-stone 
to a system that is true. We do not find that Muhammadan truths 
or half-truths lead men to Christ—on the contrary, they form an 
almost insuperable barrier to Christian truth. 
I think that the discussion on this valuable paper teaches us 
a lesson, as Christian men and women, that there is a great 
responsibility resting on us in reference to the Muhammadan 
world. I have not time to more than refer to one thing that is 
uppermost in my mind as to the strong hold of Muhammadanism 
on Western Asia, which is the condition and practice of the 
Christian Churches. Whatever we may think in our charity with 
regard to those whose views differ from our own, it is certain that 
Muhammadans in Western Asia think that Christians are the 
worshippers of Mary, that they are guilty of other idolatries 
besides, that in fact their whole system is a system of idolatry ; 
and this is a terrible hindrance to the progress of Christian truth 
amongst Muhammadans, who regard God as an invisible and 
immaterial being. 
A Visitor.—I have had much intercourse with well educated 
natives of all kinds of religions during my long sojourn in 
Western Asia, and I have come to the conclusion that one of the 
causes of the want of the success of Christianity there is greatly 
due to the brusque manner of Western Christians in their inter- 
course with the natives, whose manners are of a very opposite 
