page, it insists upon a doctrine which is perfectly orthodox, and which every true believer holds fast against the errors of polytheism; but this doctrine is not new, not one of which the world would be destitute without the Qur'an; for it is already taught in the Old and New Testaments with a distinctness and authority to which nothing can be added by all the repetitions of the Qur'an. While, therefore, asserting with great emphasis that 'there is no god but God', the Qur'an only placed itself upon common ground with the Torah and the New Testament: by rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, indicated in the one, and clearly taught in the other, it receded from the height of revelation already attained before the time of the Arabian prophet. This is a fact so unquestionable, that every Muslim who carefully compares the Qur'an and the Bible must allow it. But the consequence inevitably resulting from it is in the highest degree prejudicial to the Qur'an, as a book of God; for although it is quite natural that God should at an early time reveal His truth only partially, or as far as the people were prepared for it, and at a later time more fully, because they were then ready for more; yet it is neither natural nor credible, that, after having once revealed His truth clearly and fully to mankind in one book, He should again reveal it to them dimly and partially in another. This is as little probable as that a teacher, after having taught his scholars to read fluently, would

again send them back to the alphabet. But God is certainly the best and wisest of teachers; we can therefore leave it safely to the judgement of every candid Musalman to decide whether the Qur'an can be a revelation from God to mankind, seeing that it reveals less than was already revealed before it in the gospel.

As the Qur'an knows nothing of a 'Trinity in Unity', it must naturally also fall short of the teaching of the gospel respecting the accomplishment of man's salvation and regeneration by the three Persons of the blessed Trinity. Besides many other passages of a similar character, we read in the gospel as follows: 'Not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to His mercy, He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, being justified by His grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life' (See Tit. iii. 5-7). Here we read the important truth which no human mind could have discovered, and could only have been received by divine revelation, that man is not saved by his own works, but by the mercy of God; that Jesus Christ is our Saviour, i.e. that by His merits and death we obtain forgiveness of sins, and are justified before God; that we must be born again and renewed by the Holy Spirit; and that only thus we can hope to inherit eternal life and glory. Two