Christianity, we should have been led, both by analogy and the nature of the case, to expect that this higher development should unfold itself in the bosom of Christendom, where alone it could find a congenial soil ready for its reception. Yet there is no more patent fact in history than that the founder of Islam was neither born nor brought up in a Christian land, not even amidst a Jewish community, but amongst the Arabs who were ignorant idolaters, and who had collected no fewer than three hundred and sixty idols, as Arab tradition says, in their national sanctuary, the Ka'ba. It is also perfectly well known to those acquainted with the Arabic history of those days, that when Muhammad began to claim the authority of a prophet, and to preach his new religion, the people of Mecca were so little prepared for it that they ridiculed him as a fool, and were so violently opposed to his pretensions that the new religion would have been destroyed in the bud, but for the protection and influence of Abu Talib and his powerful family, in the first instance; while afterwards it knew how to take advantage of the subsisting feuds and jealousies between the rival cities of Madina and Mecca, and the secular weapons thus placed at its disposal. This free use of carnal means in support of the new religion is itself a plain proof either that Islam is not so spiritual a religion as Christianity; or, if it is, that Arabia was by no means prepared

for its reception when it first appeared; for were it otherwise, those carnal weapons would have been unnecessary, and it could have spread as quietly and peaceably as Christianity had done before. How, then, can it appear compatible with God's infinite wisdom and immutability, to send a higher religion than Christianity, and yet depart from all precedent, by raising up the last and greatest of all prophets from amongst the idolatrous Arabs, whilst for more than two thousand years before, namely, since the days of Abraham, He had chosen all His prophets, without exception, from amongst the Israelites, so that even Christ was of the seed of Abraham after the flesh? (See Suratu'l-Jathiya (xlv) and Suratu'l-'Ankabut (xxix).

Is not this single circumstance, that if Muhammad be a prophet, he is the sole prophet originating amidst polytheism, sufficient to raise doubts in every thinking mind, as to the divine character of his mission? Can we at all wonder, if the more intelligent Muhammadans reason thus: 'If Muhammad had to bring a higher revelation than Christ, why, then, did he not appear in some Christian land, where the way would have been somewhat prepared for him, rather than in idolatrous Arabia, where he could only convert the people to his doctrines by first subjugating them politically? Or, if it had been possible to bring the highest revelation to idolaters at once, without first preparing them by