THE FUTURE OF ISLx\M. 



85 



I venture to think, however, that in comparing it with the 

 endemic Christianity of such countries as, for instance, Abyssinia, 

 he hardly gives sufficient weight to the decadent condition of those 

 churches. Islam is itself largely the product of dead churches ; and 

 until those churches are reformed and revivified it is not surprising 

 that they do not show much greater vitality than Mohammedanism 

 itself. But where we get a pure form of Christianity the case is 

 different. In India the latest statistics show the rate of increase of 

 Protestant Christianity to be 50 per cent, as against the 20 per cent, 

 of Mohammedanism ; while in Uganda, where the two religions 

 started almost tos-ether, Christianitv has beaten Mohammedanism 

 completely out of the field. 



I venture to think, too, that he has underestimated the vital force 

 of Christian missions. He cpiotes, as a sign of their comparative 

 failure, cases where for years the Missionaries have not made a 

 single proseh'te. But the object of Missionaries is not to make 

 " proselytes " as such, but to spread the Gospel. The work in 

 Palestine is, I think, a good exemplification of this difference. There 

 a formal proselyte is rarely made, but yet the Gospel is undoubtedly 

 now permeating the land in a way that seems to predicate, ere long, 

 surprising results. 



The dead weights of ^Moslem tyranny appear to Ixir the progress 

 of Christianity at present. In the Turkish Empire there is the bar 

 of Government tyranny. In India and Egypt, where that bar has 

 1)een removed, the bars of social and family tyrannv remain. But 

 the spread of Western civilization (a product of Christianity) is 

 distinctly weakening these hindrances. It has yet to be seen what 

 the rate of Christian advance will be when it has " free course " : 

 vital Christianity^ has a power of surmounting liars 1 



I note with interest that the Professor remarks, " of persons who 

 are virtually Christians while remaining Mohammedans I have 

 heard a good deal." This seems by no means impossible. It is not 

 impossible for human beings to hold at the same time two contra- 

 dictory beliefs. It is by no means luiusual for Christians to grasp 

 the truth, while still professing a large amount of adverse error. 

 And especially in the ill-trained minds of ignorant and child-like 

 races, such as may be found in the East, it is not to be wondered at 

 if the Gospel strikes home to the heart Avithout always gaining 

 logical ascendency over the intellec!:. 



