life, to the blessed life above? Rather, these trials and calamities are meant as a probation to prepare for the reward hereafter;—even as a skilful and gracious physician, seeking to recover the sick, giveth bitter medicine and nauseous draughts; now starveth the appetite, and now even burneth with the cautery; or cutteth off a limb with the sharp knife. No one would say that he doeth this from hate or enmity; rather he doeth it to recover his patient from pain and disease, and bestow upon him the blessings of health. But you will say, God might have made man happy without these trials. Of course, I rejoin, He might; and even so, He might not have created this earth at all, but have placed man from the first, without trial or trouble, and without any claim of merit, in Paradise. But in His sovereign wisdom He hath made the world, and this life a pilgrimage, and us as 'Sons of the road,' resting for the night as it were in a Khn or Hostelry, that He might, after proving us for a while with trial and hunger, translate us to our reward in the Home above of endless peace and happiness.

"Now if this thy Master, whom thou invitest me to follow, slew, enslaved, scourged, and expatriated men and women, and did all this with the view of raising them to a better state,—by my life! surely he would rather have been patient in admonition, and kind, and gracious,—following therein the example of the High and Holy One. But he did not thus, neither concerned himself for this end. The aim of it all was the aggrandisement of himself and his fellows,

Sura ix. 30.

and the establishment of his kingdom according to his own words,—Until they pay tribute with their hand and are humbled. Seest thou not, my clear-sighted Friend, that his desire was not to bring them from infidelity to faith, nor had it any regard for their well-being and happiness, but like other conquerors, the object was simply to extend his empire? And yet in the Book thou holdest to be divine, he purporteth to have been commanded thus: 'Say to the people of the Book and to the Gentiles, Do ye accept Islam?... and if they turn their backs, verily thy duty is only to deliver the message.' Dost thou not perceive that he was commanded to preach with his lips, and forbidden to strike with the sword? Now the Lord enlighten thee, my Friend, and enable thee to escape from the horns of this dilemma!"

MOSLEM MARTYRS contrasted with Christian (117-121).

Al Kindy next contrasts the merits of the Martyrs under the two religions. "I marvel much," he says, "that ye call those Martyrs that fall in war. Thou hast read, no doubt, in history of the followers of Christ put to death in the persecutions of the Kings of Persia and elsewhere. Are these more worthy to be called Martyrs, or thy fellows that fall fighting for the world and the power thereof?" Then follows a description of various barbarities and kinds of death inflicted on the Christian confessors. The more they were slain, the more rapidly spread the faith; in place of one, sprang up a hundred. On a certain occasion, when a great multitude had been put to death, one said to