90 



PROF. D. S. MARGOLIOUTH_, D.LITT._, ON 



of this in the Golden Gate, leading to the Temple area, which has 

 been bricked up by the Mohammedans because they said " no foot 

 shall cross over that portal until Jesus Christ comes to judge the 

 world." This belief in Jesus Christ gradually gave way, and was 

 supplanted by their belief in Mohammed, as he gained in power ; 

 but I believe it more than probable that Mohammed would have 

 had no considerable following had it not been that the promulgation 

 of the dogma of the Trinity, and its being misunderstood by the 

 masses, gav6 Mohammed the handle by which he drew hordes of 

 Semites into his train, and gave them their battle cry, " There is but 

 one God." I was struck very much with this idea whilst looking 

 through the old Moorish MSS. at the Escurial Library in Spain. In 

 the account of their fights with the Christians the Moors do not 

 refer to them as Christians, but they say, we, the true believers, 

 fought a glorious battle and overthrew with great slaughter the 

 Polytheists. It is not pleasant to contemplate how different civiliza- 

 tion and religious thought throughout Europe would probably 

 have been now but for the victory of Charles Martell over the 

 Moors at the battle of Tours. 



As civilization spreads, and races become educated to think 

 individually, the power of Islam must, I think, lose vitality, and in 

 these days of telegraphs, steam engines, postal communication, and 

 spread of knowledge throughout the world by the Printing Press, 

 200 years does not seem too short a time to see approaching the 

 vanishing point of Islamic perspective, the point where it once more 

 comes into line with Christianity. The tendency of religious 

 thought to become more liberal in the matter of enforcing dogmatic 

 teaching seems to me to be in favour of Mohammedanism eventually 

 being absorbed into Christianity ; for as the misunderstanding of a 

 dogma helped to start the great wave of Mohammedanism, which in 

 the sixth to ninth centuries overran the whole civilized world, and 

 Islam became then the exponent of civilization, so Christianity, 

 which has now become the great civilizing force in the world, may, 

 by the better understanding of certain dogmas, become indeed a 

 light clear enough to lighten every Gentile race, and simple enough 

 for every mind to understand. 



Second Postscript by Dr. Chaplin. — It is a mistake to 

 suppose that the religion of Mohammed has been wholly, or even 



