Antichrist. The "Light¹ of Muhammad" was the first of all created

An Anti- Christ.

intelligences, and for his sake GOD created all things. As for our Lord and His Divine claims, Muhammad, in one of the last Surahs which he composed, states his opinion of Him and them in these terrible but unmistakable words (Surah V., 19):—"Verily ² they blaspheme who say, 'God is truly the Messiah, son of Mary.' Say thou, 'Then who would possess any right over GOD,

Denial of  Christ's Deity.

should He wish to destroy the Messiah, son of Mary, and His Mother, and all that are in the earth?"' This is perhaps the latest utterance of Islam on the great central truth of Christianity; and those of us who accept the teaching of our Lord and Master with regard to His own Nature must at once recognize how completely Islam opposes itself to that grand truth of His Deity upon which the Redeemer founded His Church for time and for eternity, declaring that the Gates of Hades would not prevail against it.

§ 8. We have now learnt something of Islam, of its strength

Summary.

and its weakness, its many truths or half-truths and its multitudinous falsehoods and

errors. We know its lofty claims and have considered how far History has confirmed them. The effect of Islam upon the family, the state, and upon the human intellect, has been glanced at, and we have seen how that fell system of religion blasts all that is true and noble, all that is pure and elevated, in the nature of man and of woman alike. Islam as a religion is not true, it has not come from GOD. It does not and cannot satisfy the needs of the human heart; it does not reveal GOD in His Divine Fatherhood, in His Love, His Justice and His Holiness. It does not show Man what his own original nature was, nor reveal to him what sin is and how to escape it. Islam is an Anti-christian creed. It is opposed to all true progress, whether moral or intellectual, political or religious. This being the case, it is evident that Muhammadanism cannot take the place of Christianity with advantage to any section of the human race. Muhammad is in every way unfit to be the ideal of a single human being. To talk, as some do even in this nineteeth century, as if the Religion of the Prophet of Arabia was well suited to the Semites, or to the Mongol and Turkish races, or again to the Negro,—is merely to show oneself culpably ignorant at once of human nature, of Christian

Our Duty to Muslims.

truth, and of Islam itself. Such well-worn platitudes will never satisfy any one who has at heart the highest interests of his fellow-men, and still less will any true follower of Christ be beguiled thereby. We have a duty to Muslims, and