52 THE RELIGION OF THE CRESCENT.

than half truth. "Ye1 shall not surely die," said the Serpent : "for GOD doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as2 GOD, knowing good and evil." Truth commends itself to the human spirit, falsehood can make itself acceptable only in the disguise of truth. And it is never so successful3 in doing this as when it is mixed with what is unquestionably true. In the end, no doubt, the deception will be detected, the false rejected, and the truth accepted, confessed and honoured. But this is often a very slow process; and meanwhile Falsehood does its work of destruction until revealed in its true character by its evil fruits. None but a fool or a madman knowingly takes poison into his system of his own free will: but how often is this done when the deadly drug is mixed with and concealed in food that would otherwise be healthy and

1 Gen. iii. 4, 5:

ויאמר הנחש אל־האשה לא־מות תמתון׃
כי ידע אלהים כי ביום אכלכם ממנו ונפקחו עיניכם והייתם כאלהים ידעי טוב ורע׃

2 Onkilos explains כאלהים in this passage as "like great ones"; Jonathan ben Uzriel and the Jer. Targum as "among the great angels," Eben Ezra as "like the angels," Rashi as "devisers of secrets." 
3 "Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth; and no opinions so fatally mislead us as those that are not wholly wrong, as no watches so effectually deceive the wearers as those that are sometimes right." (Cotton.)
THE WEAKNESS OF ISLAM. 53

nourishing, but which is thus turned into a means of death. The Muhammadan religion in

As is in Islam.

this respect is strikingly like the dish set before the "Prophet" himself at Khaibar, of which he unsuspiciously partook, and only when too late, and when the poison was already at work in his system,1 discovered that the food had been tampered with.

The amount of truth which is included in the Religion of Islam has, as we have already seen, commended it to the acceptance of vast multitudes of our fellow-creatures. The errors, superstitions and falsehoods with which these doctrines are mingled have deceived the followers of the "Arabian Prophet" to their ruin. The evil results which have followed are everywhere patent. We are confident that in the long run the truth must prevail,—that although the inhabitants of the vast regions now dominated by Muhammadanism will ever be able to cling firmly to the great truth expressed in the first part of their creed—La ilaha illa 'llahu, "There is no God but GOD,"—yet they must ultimately be enabled by the clear light of truth to reject the lie2 with which

1 Abu'l Fida, "Vita Muhammed," p. 203. Weil, "Mohammed der Prophet," p. 187. 
2 Gibbon, vol. ix. cap. 50. Mr. Bosworth Smith does not believe that Muhammad's claim was a false one, but believes he will yet be recognized as "a Prophet, a very Prophet of God." ("Mohammed and Mohammedanism," p. 344.)