258 THE REV. H. D. GRISWOLD, M.A., PH.D., ON THE MESSIAH, ETC. 



The Mohamedan Mahdi must be born in the family of Husain, and 

 b3 a descendant of Fatima the daughter of the prophet. A common 

 belief in North India is also that as a child he will have milk in his 

 veins. The new Messiah gets over the difficulty of not being of 

 the lineage of Mohammed, but I should like to ask whether milk 

 instead of blood circulates in his body 1 It is believed by the vulgar 

 that the British vaccinate in order to discover the new Mahdi, so 

 that like Herod of old they may slay the innocent. The extensive 

 bibliography on the last page of the paper shows that the sect is 

 attracting a good deal of attention, but, at the same time, that it 

 was being adequately dealt with, and its fallacies, absurdities and 

 feeble arguments exposed, especially from the Christian point of 

 view — this was being done with special ability in the Epiphany, the 

 able publication of the Oxford Mission in Calcutta, which is now so- 

 much appreciated by thoughtful Europeans and natives in India. 



Mr. J. 0. Corrie, B.A. — -The successful insistence by Ghulam 

 Ahmad of Qadian on the peaceful character of his Messiah ship, as 

 opposed to the popular Mohamedan doctrine of a bloody Mahdi,. 

 who will a wage a bloody jihad or war against unbelievers, is an 

 evidence of the infiltration that goes on of Christian ideas into 

 Indian religious notions : — other evidences are the Brahmo Somaj, 

 and the Arya Somaj (vide C.M.S. Intelligencer, Feb. 1905, pp. 93,. 

 94; and May, 1905, p. 335). 



The phenomena of false Messiahs, and spiritual leaders, such as 

 Brigham Young, Dowie and others obtaining considerable numbers 

 of followers point to a longing in humanity for a spiritual 

 leader. (Perhaps the Papacy is another case in point.) It is 

 forcibly argued that the yearning for immortality, so general in 

 mankind, is an evidence that man is immortal ; for, otherwise, God 

 would not have given it. Does not a like consideration apply to 

 this widespread desire for a spiritual leader 1 May it not be an 

 indication, that One will come, who will satisfy that longing % 

 namely, our Lord Jesus Christ. 



Colonel Hendley then moved that the cordial thanks of the 

 meeting be conveyed to the author of the paper for his valuable- 

 communication. 



