languages of Muhammadan nations, e.g. the Turkish, the Persian, and the Hindostani, all of which had to accept more or less from the Arabic. But the chief ground upon which Muhammadanism must be charged with tyranny over the languages of its non-Arabic professors is this, that it requires them to read the Qur'an and to perform the public services in the Arabic language only, instead of using their own for that purpose. This tyrannous practice unduly raises the language of the Arabs, and invests it with an air of unique authority and sacredness, while degrading all others as unhallowed and profane. Arabic must, therefore, be the language of theology and devotion wherever the religion of Muhammad prevails. None can be a true disciple who does not learn so much of it as to be able to join in the public prayers, and none can read the book on which his religion is based except through the same medium. Hence it is patent to all, that, so far as language is concerned, Islam has retained a mere national, i.e. an Arabic character, and that, consequently its spread involves to a great extent also that of the Arabic language. Every one must perceive that this cannot fail to act as a hindrance to the propagation of Islam in a quiet and spontaneous way, and that it is a decided and serious defect in a religion claiming a universal destiny. How could it be expected, e.g. that the great nations who now pray to God, and read His word, in English,

German, French, or Russian, should ever feel disposed to learn Arabic, in order to do much more imperfectly, in a foreign language, that which they can already do in their own? Surely it must be easy for every nation that has embraced the religion of Arabia to find out, by actual experience, that the compulsory use of a foreign language where their own vernacular might be employed, is a hindrance and not a help to devotion and growth in religious knowledge. To take one instance only: how many thousand Osmanlis are there not the least understanding the Arabic prayers which they have to repeat, or the Suras read to them from an Arabic Qur'an? and how many more thousands there are who understand them only imperfectly, and could derive much more benefit from them if they might repeat them in Turkish? No thinking man can hesitate to pronounce it more useful and natural for a nation to pray to God and read His word in its own language, that everybody understands, than in one which few understand well, many only imperfectly, and the vast majority not at all. Nor can it be less easy for any one to decide which is most suitable to become the universal religion — Christianity, with its gospel already translated and circulating in several hundred languages; or Islam, with its Qur'an in the one language of the Arabs? Which must appear to the judgement of every thoughtful man to be most in accordance with the benignity