to give special evidence as to what the teaching of Jesus really was? We must always remember that he lived six hundred years after Jesus and had no special means of knowing what Jesus taught and how His mission on earth ended.

But the supposition is one that we cannot make, for one of the strongest proofs that the character of Muhammad was not all that it ought to have been, is that it did not appeal to his contemporaries as being so. Not only did those who were opposed to him doubt at times the purity of his actions, pointing out his inconsistencies, but some of his own followers were, from time to time, scandalized by some of his actions both public and private, and were with difficulty persuaded that he had acted rightly. Indeed it was only his claim to have received this, or that special revelation guaranteeing that his action was lawful and right, that with difficulty brought them round to support him in them. The markedly different position which even the opponents of Jesus were forced to take up in regard to His personal life and character and walk among them, is one of the clearest proofs of the nobility of His character. He could look around Him and say: 'Which of you convinceth me of sin?' And none dared to raise his voice against Him. And when He was finally arrested and condemned, the grounds of the accusation and judgement were not connected with any charge against His personal life—this they

did not mention even to call in question—but with certain phases of His teaching which they regarded as blasphemous; and the gentile judge before whom he was brought was compelled by his regard for truth to say, 'I find no fault in Him'. These estimates of the characters of the two, Jesus and Muhammad, are based on the two books which are claimed as being the inspired records of the two religions which they respectively founded. This method, however, we also pass by as not raising the true issue.

A further method of comparing the two systems is that which takes the two books which are respectively regarded as the inspired word of God—the Bible and the Qur'an—and setting them side by side, judges of the truth of the system based on each from the nature and character of the records. The Muhammadan regards the Qur'an as a permanent miraculous witness for the truth of Muhammadanism. Very much has been written to show that the character of the Qur'an is not all that its supporters claim it to be. It is not perfect grammatically, though it has been made the standard of Arabic grammatical expression for all future time. It does not maintain an equally lofty standard of expression throughout, though, doubtless, there are incomparable passages in it if one confines himself to Arabic literature. Its inaccuracies in many of its historical statements are a matter of general knowledge. Its endless