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"? 1964 
 
 BUDDHA, AND CHRIST. 
 
 FOUR LECTURES 
 
 ON 
 
 NATURAL AND REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 MARCUS DODS, D.D. 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 
 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 MDCCCLXXVII. 
 
• I 
 
 INWIN BROTHERS, PRINTERS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON. 
 
'nr^HESE Lectures to Young Men were re- 
 "*■ cently delivered at the English Presby- 
 terian College, London, and are published in 
 compliance with the custom of the Lectureship. 
 
 M. D. 
 
 Glasgow, 
 
 April, 1 8; 7. 
 
 .\ 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Page I. 
 
 The Mohammedan creed— Unity of God — Estimate of 
 Mohammed's idea of God — A purely Semitic idea — Its 
 results on Mohammedan history — The second Article, 
 Mohammed the Prophet of God — In what sense true— 
 His courage and sincerity — Change that passed upon 
 him — His licentiousness — His abuse of the prophetic 
 office — Practical duties of Moslems — ^Their regularity and 
 frankness in prayer — The fast of Ramadan — Almsgiving — 
 Pilgrimage— Mecca— Pilgrim rites — ^Uses of pilgrimage — 
 Objectionable features of Mohammedanism^Paradise — 
 Fatalism — Polygamy — Mohammed's example — Facility of 
 divorce — Disastrous effects of the marriage laws — Lane's 
 opinion — Slavery. 
 
 LECTURE II. 
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 Page 69. 
 
 .: Arabia previous to Mohammedan era — Monotheism 
 lapsing into polytheism and idolatry — Zabism — Fetishism 
 —-Barbarous habits and customs — Inhumation of female 
 
vi Contents. 
 
 children — Judaism in Arabia — Christianity — Irrehgious- 
 ness of Arabs — The Hanyfs — Mohammed, a Hanyf — 
 Mohammed's personal influence — His appearance, man- 
 ners, character, and habits— ^Voltaire's judo;-ment on cause 
 of success of Islam -^Carlyle's judgment — Its fallacy — 
 The sword and Islam — Arab love of fighting and plunder 
 — Feeding of strength in united Arabia — Simplicity and 
 upright government of early caliphs — Other causes of 
 success — Literature and Islam — Saracen and Greek 
 learning and philosophy — Intolerance of Islam — Meek- 
 ness towards Moslems — Its results on Arabia — Islam 
 compared with Mosaism — General criticism — Judgments 
 pronounced by Freeman, Osborn, and Lord Houghton. 
 
 LECTURE III. 
 BUDDHISM. 
 
 Page 129. 
 
 Is Buddhism a religion? — Its origin — Three anterior re- 
 ligions in India — Brahmanism — Emanation and Absorp- 
 tion — Transmigration — Salvation by priestly rites and 
 transcendental knowledge — Reaction against Brahmanism 
 — Lifeof Sakya-muni — His sympathetic nature — His search 
 for emancipation from suffering — Conversations with 
 Brahmans — He retires to the jungle — He becomes the 
 Buddha — Prevails upon himself to publish his discovery 
 • — Missionary ardour of first disciples — His last words — 
 Account of the system — Its postulates — Materialism and 
 transmigration — Misery of all existence — Death no deliver- 
 ance — Karma — Continuity of personal identity — The Four 
 Great Truths^Path to Nirvana — Nirvana, a moral condi- 
 tion — Defect in Buddhist ethical system — Annihilation — 
 Mr. Rhys David's exposition of Nirvana— Inherent ex- 
 cellence of Buddhism — Its practical failure — Deterioration 
 of popular Buddhism— Its formalism — Its atheism has 
 resulted in polytheism and saint-worship. 
 
Contents. vii 
 
 LECTURE IV. 
 
 THE PERFECT RELIGION. 
 
 Page 187. 
 
 Current theories to account for religions — Universality 
 of religion — Definition of religion — Fallacious tests of 
 perfect religion — True criterion — The Christian religion 
 gives highest idea of God — It does so because it has its 
 root in revelation — Revelation defined — Centres in the 
 Incarnation — Incarnation not a Semitic idea, therefore 
 given or revealed — Christianity the one true rehgion — 
 Primitive revelation — Revelation in history — Revelation 
 and speculation — Morality of Christianity and other re- 
 ligions — Moral teaching and moral influence — Superiority 
 and perfection of Christianity — How far the purposes of 
 religion have been served by natural religions — The reli- 
 gious systems to be distinguished from the men adhering 
 to them — Dadu-Religions, in what sense false — Is the ab- 
 solutely best also the relatively best religion — Comparison 
 of Arabian Christianity and Mohammedanism — Conditions 
 of society impervious to Christianity — Inferences regarding 
 missionary effort — Conclusion. 
 
I. 
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM : 
 ITS CREED AND PRACTICE. 
 
' ' Say : He is one God : 
 God the Everlasting / 
 He hegetteth not, and He is not begotten ; 
 And there is none like unto Hlni." 
 
 Koran, Sura cxii. 
 
I. 
 
 FIFTEEN per cent, of our fellow-men are 
 understood to be Mohammedans, and from 
 forty to fifty millions of these are fellow-subjects 
 of our own, whose faith may any day materially 
 affect our most important interests, yet I cannot 
 take for granted that you have already in your 
 minds any clear conception of the religion of 
 Islam. One of the best modern authorities on 
 the subject remarks' that, although Islam has 
 been described in so many books, even educated 
 people know little more about it than that the 
 Turks are polygamists. If this is extreme, it 
 must yet be owned that the knowledge of this 
 great religion which most people are content 
 with is confined to the fact that it originated 
 with Mohammed, and makes its devotees poly- 
 gamous and fatalistic persecutors, who abstain 
 from wine. Happily the creed of Islam is brief 
 
 ^ Sprenger's Das Leben und die Leh'e des Moh. ii. i8i. 
 
 2* 
 
4 Aloh a in ni cda n ism . 
 
 and easily learned ; its worship, though some- 
 what formal, is as simple as Calvin or Knox 
 could have wished; and the conduct it enjoins, 
 if not always the purest and loftiest, is always 
 perfectly intelligible and practicable. 
 
 The articles of the Mohammedan creed are 
 six. Every Moslem must believe in the unity 
 of God, in the Angels, the Koran, the Prophets, 
 the Day of Judgment, and the Decrees of God. 
 Or, as the Koran itself puts it, " Whosoever 
 believeth not on God, and His Angels, and His 
 Books, and His Apostles, and on the Last Day, 
 he verily hath erred with far gone error." ^ But 
 the brief confession which — uttered with upheld 
 forefinger to denote the unity of God — makes 
 any man a Mohammedan, is the world-renowned 
 formula, " There is no God but God, and 
 Mohammed is the Prophet of God." All that 
 is essential and peculiar to this religion, its 
 whole strength and weakness, is embraced in 
 this twofold assertion. 
 
 Mohammed was much more of a poet than 
 of a thinker. He had no capacity for profound 
 theological inquiry, but his natural penetration 
 and sense repudiated idolatry as monstrous, 
 while his intensely religious temperament made 
 God more necessary to him than food or drink. 
 His idea of God was originally formed in pre- 
 
 ' Sur;i iv. i ;}^, 
 
Unitarianism of Mohaniined. 5 
 
 sence of, and in opposition to, idolatry, and not 
 with any definite knowled,£;'e of, or reference to, 
 Christianity. Turning with distaste from the 
 discussions of tritheistic and Arian Christians, 
 he asserted the existence and supremacy of one 
 God in a form level to the capacity of his 
 hearers, and in the definite and absolute terms 
 of a mind untrammelled and undisturbed by 
 the suggestions of a better instructed theology/ 
 *' Surely now are they infidels who say God is 
 a third of three, for there is no God but one 
 God. . . The Messiah, son of Mary, is but an 
 apostle ; other apostles have flourished before 
 him ; and his mother was a just person ; they 
 both ate food."^ The extent of his inquiries 
 into the doctrine of the Trinity, which he thus 
 denounces, may be gathered from the fact that 
 he believed the Virgin Mary (whom he also 
 confounded with Miriam, the sister of Moses 3) 
 to be the third person worshipped by Trini- 
 tarians, as the Mother of God, with the Father 
 and the Son.-^ • 
 
 But the Unitarianism of I^Iohammed, how- 
 ever ill-instructed, had the initial advantage of 
 
 ^ Cf. ^^oltail"e, Essai sur Ics imviirs, c. vi. 
 
 2 Sura V. yj. 
 
 3 All that can be said in explanation of this anachronism 
 will be found in Reland's De Rel. Moli, p. 211, and Rod- 
 well's Koran ^ p. 422. 
 
 4 Sura V. 116, and especially vi. loi. 
 
>J 
 
 6 2Iohainjncdanisvi. 
 
 an easy and forcible presentation. There is 
 one God, and throu^^h me, Mohammed, that 
 God summons you to submit to Him. This 
 was the simple gospel which gave birth to the 
 most aggressive religion the world has ever 
 known. vSubmission, says Bishop Butler, is 
 the whole of religion. This was what Moham- 
 med laid Jiold of, and Islam, that is, Submis- 
 ^ sion, was the religion he proclaimed. Let all 
 
 things come into the harmony of obedience to 
 one God. It is a great awakening to a man 
 .when he learns that the universe is one, that 
 one government, one system, one idea, one Will 
 orders the whole. Certainly it was the time of 
 Arabia's regeneration, as it was one of the 
 grand moments of the world's history, when 
 Mohammed, in the strength of his new faith 
 and triumphing overall his native superstitions 
 and the associations of his childhood, entered 
 the temple of Mecca, and shivered the three 
 hundred and sixty idols with the cry, The 
 truth has come, let falsehood disappear. Round 
 this belief, that one only w as supreme, and that 
 He had a will to execute on earth through 
 all who believed in Him, the dislocated tribes 
 of Arabia united ; this for the time became 
 the compact centre of the earth ; and all who 
 gathered to it— so long as the idea of the unity 
 of God's government was fresh and living — felt 
 
Its Idea of God. 
 
 empowered as His servants to execute His will 
 upon earth. 
 
 A religion stands or falls with its idea of / 
 God. Now Mohammed claims that his idea off 
 God is the Christian idea purified. "Say ye 
 to the Christians," he says, " their God and 
 my God is one." But, in point of fact, the 
 peculiar contents of the Christian revelation 
 are discarded, and the God of Mohammed is a 
 God exalted indeed and mighty, but remote and 
 awful, devoid of the subduing, uplifting, holy 
 love, of which nothing save the Incarnation 
 conveys an adequate knowledge, or gives the 
 needed proof. Very spirited and true are the 
 terms in which he frequently describes God : 
 *' God ! there is no God but He — the Livine, 
 the Self-subsisting; neither slumber seizeth 
 Him, nor sleep : all that is in the heavens and 
 in the earth is His. Who is he that can in- 
 tercede with Him but by His own permission ? 
 He knoweth what is present with His creatures, 
 and what is yet to befall them ; yet nought of 
 His knowledge do they comprehend, save what 
 He willeth. His throne reacheth over the 
 heavens and the earth, and the upholding of 
 both burdeneth Him not. And He is the High, 
 the Great." ^ But, like every other system of 
 Deism, Mohammedanism fails to convey to our 
 
 ^ Sura ii. 256. 
 
F 
 
 8 ]\Io/ia in uicda n ism . 
 
 \. minds the idea of a God perfect in love and in 
 ^ purity, as well as in power. Between Allah 
 ^1 and His creatures there remains a deep and 
 impassable gulf. Dean Milman has, with his 
 wonted precision, indicated the radical defect 
 of this idea of God, when he says : "The ab- 
 sorption into, or even the approximation to- 
 wards, the Deity, by contemplation in this life, 
 or perfection in the life to come, are equally 
 foreign to the Koran." ^ The sterner virtues 
 may be cultivated under the light of such 
 knowledge of God as Mohammed proclaimed ; 
 but it requires the penetrating w^armth of a 
 Divine and holy love, pressing on to perfect in- 
 timacy with His creatures, to fertilize that in- 
 most soil of the heart where the roots of what 
 is tender, humble, and self-sacrificing, draw 
 their nutriment. Mohammed indeed presents to 
 us a God not only might}^ as is sometimes 
 alleged, but also holy and forgiving. Every 
 verse of the Koran is given "in the name of 
 God, the Compassionate, the Merciful;" but 
 this compassion is exhibitedrnuch more in a 
 lenient indulgence to the infirmities of men, 
 than in making provision for their deliverance 
 from them. "Goddesireth to make your burden 
 light to you, for man hath been created weak." 
 This is the refrain of that notable Sura ^ in 
 ' Latin Christia?ufj, ii. 192. = Sura iv. 
 
JMohaviincd's God Indiiloxjit 
 
 <!> 
 
 which such liberal allowance is made for the 
 appetites and errors of the followers of ISIo- 
 hammed. " God is knowing, wise :" this is 
 the constantly reiterated ground of man's con- 
 fidence. God knows how weak human nature 
 is, He understands the violence of appetite, 
 and does not expect perfect purity.^ This con- 
 siderate, indulgent God, who makes no pro- 
 vision for assimilating men to Himself, is very 
 different from the God of Christ, whose wel- 
 come, all-hopeful summons is. Be ye holy, for I 
 I am holy, perfect as your Father in heaven is ; 
 perfect. Indeed, the defects of Mohammed's | 
 idea of God suggest to us to inquire whether / 
 it is possible to conceive worthily of God's 
 holiness, except by seeing it expressed in a 
 perfectly holy human life, or of His love, except 
 by seeing God incarnate, emptying Himself, 
 and as a man dying for men, that they may be 
 one with Him for ever. 
 
 Now recent investigation has brought out 
 with considerable clearness that the Semitic 
 conception of God is essentially distinct from 
 the Aryan idea.^ The Aryan races have every- 
 where shown a tendency to think of God, and 
 to name Him through His works. They have 
 recognised the beneficent influence of the sun 
 
 ^ See the profound remarks of INIozley, Bamptoii 
 Lectures^ pp. 1 78-181. 
 
 2 Fairbairn's Studies, p. 316. 
 
lo Mohammedanism, 
 
 and the rain; they have trembled before the 
 hurricane ; and feeHng that these forces of na- 
 ture were uncontrolhible by themselv^es, they 
 have either worshipped them or have prayed 
 to some Spirit who overruled them. Their 
 tendency has been to find and worship the 
 Creator in the creature. The distinction be- 
 tween the two has been obliterated, and the 
 interval between heaven and earth filled up. 
 In the luxuriant mythology of Greece, it is 
 impossible to say where the Divine ends and the 
 human begins : gods become men, and men 
 become gods. In the pantheism of the Aryans 
 of India, it is as difficult to disentangle the 
 human from the Divine. And, therefore, as 
 has been observed, the idea of the Incarnation 
 was akin to the Aryan conception of God ; 
 but it was most repugnant and antagonistic to 
 the Semitic mind, which conceived of God as 
 the infinitely exalted Sovereign, which named 
 its God, the Lord, the King, the Mighty One. 
 Mohammed's idea of God was, therefore, essen- 
 tially the Semitic idea. He, as little as the 
 great bulk of the Jews themselves, could not 
 bring his mind to accept the Incarnation or 
 fill up the abyss between God and man. As 
 t /has been said by the writer who has most 
 / clearly elucidated this point : " It is of the es- 
 K sence of Christianity to affirm the Fatherhood 
 
Results of this Defect. 1 1 
 
 of God. It is of the essence of Mohamme- 
 danism to deny the Fatherhood of God. The 
 quarrel between Mohammedans and Christians 
 is not, as Mr. Bosworth Smith says, a quarrel 
 between near relations, but a quarrel between 
 sons and, servants. " ^ 
 
 " One God the Arabian Prophet preached to man, 
 
 One God the Orient still 
 Adores through many a mighty span, 
 
 A God of Power and Will. 
 
 A God that, shrouded in His lonely light, 
 
 Rests utterly apart 
 From all the vast creations of His might, 
 
 From Nature, Man, and Art." 
 
 The baldness and onesidedness of the Mo- 
 hammedan confession have received melancholy 
 illustration throughout the whole history of 
 Islam. It has been a religion of opposition 
 from the first, living by aggression, mighty and 
 purifying while it flows in full flood, but when 
 resting and at peace, it stagnates and throws |-f 
 up a filthy and putrid scum. As a battle-cry 
 none is more animating and invigorating than 
 "There is no God but God;" everything to 
 which we are opposed is as stubble before the 
 fire; already the day is ours, because we fight 
 the battles of the One God. But when the 
 victory is won, and men have to shape a life of 
 
 ^ Dr. Robson, British a7td Foreign Evangelical RevieWy 
 Jan. 1877. 
 
12 IMoJiannncdanism. 
 
 peace for themselves, there is nothing in this 
 creed to guide or to sustain. " Hence," says 
 Mr. Maurice, " it has been proved that Ma- 
 hometanism can onl}^ thrive while it is aiming 
 at conquest. Why ? Because it is the pro- 
 clamation of a mere sovereign, who employs 
 men to declare the fact that he is a sovereign, 
 and to enforce it upon the world. It is not the 
 proclamation of a great moral Being, who 
 -J deigns to raise His creatures out of their 
 sensual and natural degradation ; wdio reveals 
 to them not merely that He is, but what He 
 is — why He has created them — what they have 
 to do with Him. Unless this mighty chasm 
 in the Mahometan doctrine can be filled up, 
 it must wither day by day — wither for all pur- 
 poses of utility to mankind ; it can leave nothing 
 behind but a wretched carcase, lilling the air 
 with the infection of its rottenness." ^ Similarly 
 writes one who viewed Mohammedanism from a 
 totally different point of view.^ '' So long as a 
 Mahometan nation is dominant and conquering, 
 so long is it great and glorious after its own 
 standard. When it ceases to have an enemy to 
 contend against, it sinks into sluggish stupidity 
 and into a barbarism far viler than that of the 
 conquerors who raised it to greatnes?." 
 
 ^ Religions of the ll/or/d, p. 28. 
 
 2 Freeman's Lectures, p, 202 (2nd cd.). 
 
Second Article of the Creed, 1 3 
 
 But that which differentiates i^Ioslems from 
 all other deists, is their belief that Ivlohammed 
 is the prophet of God. This indeed may not 
 seem an astounding nor an unwarranted claim, 
 when we learn that they recognise 224,000, 
 or, according to a more moderate computation, 
 124,000 prophets ; ^ and that even Mohammed 
 himself seemed to consider not only Lokman 
 the Sage — the Arabian /Esop — but even Alexan- 
 der the Great, a prophet of God. But of these 
 prophets six have been the bearers of new laws 
 and revelations, which superseded all that had 
 been delivered by their predecessors. These 
 six are Adam, Noah, Abraham, I\Ioses, Jesus, 
 and Mohammed. Mohammed, coming last, is V^ 
 entitled the '' Seal of the Prophets," ^ summing 
 up and closing all the revelations of God. Mo- 
 hammed believed in the miraculous conception 
 of our Lord, in the miracles of Moses and other 
 prophets, and in the Jewish and Christian 
 Scriptures ; but had he known with accuracy 
 the contents of previous revelations, he would 
 never have appeared in the character of the 
 final prophet. His knowledge of Christianity 
 is so meagre and confused, that it is difficult 
 to understand how even the most illiterate and 
 mystified sectary fed on apocryphal gospels 
 
 1 Hughes's Notes on MuJianuiiadanisin, P- Si- Reland, 
 p. 41. 
 
 2 Sura lxxxi!i. 40. 
 
1 4 JMohammcdamsm. 
 
 could have conveyed to him such notions of the 
 Gospel. Of the great and enlightening history 
 of Israel, as a history, he knows nothing, and 
 has merely caught up some childish tales from 
 the Talmud and some garbled legends of the 
 Hebrew patriarchs and great men/ This last 
 of the prophets firmly believed that the Old and 
 New Testament Scriptures were from God, and 
 yet he took no pains to ascertain what they 
 had revealed. He enjoined on his followers, 
 on pain of eternal punishment, to believe in 
 these Scriptures as well as in the Koran, and 
 yet he did not know what he was commanding 
 them to believe. He has by this ignorance 
 involved himself and all his followers in a fatal 
 inconsistency. The Koran everywhere attributes 
 inspiration and a Divine origin to the Scriptures 
 as emphatically as it claims these for itself; 
 while at the same time it is impossible for a 
 believer in the Scriptures to believe in the 
 Koran. " This Koran," it says,^ " could not 
 have been composed by any except God ! but 
 it is a confirmation of that which was revealed 
 before it." Again, " There is no God but God, 
 the living, the self-subsisting; He hath sent 
 
 ' This was apparently urged against Mohammed even 
 by his contemporaries. Sec Ko7'a?i, Sura xvi. 26 : " When 
 it is said unto them, What hath the Lord sent down to 
 Mohammed ? they answer, Ancient fables/' 
 
 2 Sura X. 
 
Belief in the Christian Scriptures. ^15 
 
 down unto thee the book of the Koran with 
 truth, confirming that which was revealed be- 
 fore it, for He had formerly sent down the Law 
 and the Gospel, a direction unto men."^ Again, 
 unbelief in the Scriptures is by Mohammed put 
 on a level with unbelief in the Koran itself, as 
 in the 40th Sura, where he says : " They 
 who charge with falsehood the book of the 
 Koran and the other sacred Scriptures and re- 
 vealed doctrines which we sent our former 
 apostles to preach, shall hereafter know their 
 folly, when the collars shall be on their necks, 
 and the chains by which they shall be dragged 
 into hell." 
 
 Mohammedans, therefore, are in the awkward ^b 
 
 predicament of being obliged by their religion Y 
 to believe in what explodes their religion. They 
 are commanded to believe in two contradic- 
 tories. They are commanded to accept Jesus 
 as a prophet, and at the same time to accept 
 Mohammed. They are enjoined to receive the 
 Old Testament Scriptures as a revelation, 
 although nothing is more obvious in these 
 Scriptures than that the history of Judaism 
 developes into and finds its completion and end 
 in Christianity; and they are enjoined to believe 
 in the New Testament Scriptures, although 
 these writings so distinctly claim to be the final 
 
 ^ Sura iii. I. 
 
1 6 AIohaniDicdanism. 
 
 revelation, that it is impossible to find room for 
 the claims of Mohammed as the ultimate re- 
 vealer of God's will. It is this inconsistent 
 demand of their creed which produces those 
 anomalies in the conduct of Moslems, so as- 
 tonishing to those who expect to find only 
 hatred of everything Christian. Lady Duff 
 Gordon records that the Moslem carpenter she 
 employed was seen swallowing the sawdust of 
 the cedar he was using for his work, because 
 that was the tree under which Mary had sat 
 with Jesus during the flight into Egypt. ^ Under 
 Moslem governments men have been put to 
 death for blaspheming the name of Jesus. And 
 according to their own divines, " every Alim 
 (or doctor of the law) should read the Towrat 
 and the Ingeel {i.e., the Law and the Gospel) ; 
 the words of Seyiddna Eesa are the true 
 faith." ^ 
 
 Neither can they evade the awkwardness of 
 this false position by propounding that the later 
 revelation supersedes the earlier, and that they 
 receive the words of Jesus only in so far as 
 these are confirmed by the words of Mohammed. > 
 This may apply in so far as the New Testa- 
 ment is a code, but in so far as it is a history, it 
 has no application. Earlier precepts or laws 
 
 ^ Last Letters^ p. 66 ; and Letters, p. 82. 
 2 Ibid. p. 206. Comp, Wood's Oxus, p. 301. 
 
IVas Alohainmed a Prophet ? 1 7 
 
 may be repealed or superseded by later precepts, -0^ 
 but facts cannot be cancelled from past history.' 
 If the facts recorded in the Gospels are true, 
 then there is no room for Mohammed in the 
 world. And, in point of fact, instructed Mos- 
 lems recognise their dilemma, and universally 
 maintain that our Scriptures are ' corrupted ; -^ 
 that is to say, the ultimate defence of Moham- 
 medanism is one which a single whiff of Euro- 
 pean criticism will blow to the winds. 
 
 But is Mohammed in no sense a prophet ? 
 
 Certainly he had two of the most im.portant 
 
 • • • ft 
 
 characteristics of the prophetic order. He saw 
 
 truth about God which his fellow-men did not 
 
 see, and he had an irresistible inward impulse 
 
 to publish this truth. In respect of this latter 
 
 qualification Mohammed may stand comparison 
 
 with the most courageous of the heroic prophets 
 
 of Israel. For the truth's sake he risked his 
 
 life, he suffered daily persecution for years, and 
 
 eventually banishment, the loss of property, of 
 
 the goodwill of his fellow-citizens, and of the 
 
 I " If you believe in the Gospel as inspired, you may 
 indeed alter its precepts by the Coran, but you cannot 
 cancel the fact of Christ's death." p. xii. of 17ie Testi- 
 mony borne by tlie Coran to tJie Jewish and Christiatt 
 Scriptures. 2nd edition, published anonymously by Sir 
 William Muir, at Allahabad, i860. 
 
 ^ Henry Martyn, Controversial Tracts on Christianity 
 and Alohanwiedanisni, Edited by Dr. S, Lee, Cambridge, 
 1824. 
 
 3 
 
^ 
 
 ] 8 AloJianunedanism. 
 
 confidence of his friends — he suffered, in short, 
 as much as any man can suffer short of death, 
 which he only escaped by flight, and yet he 
 unflinchingly proclaimed his message. No 
 bribe, threat, or inducement could silence him. 
 *' Though they array against me the sun on the 
 right hand and the moon on the left, I cannot 
 renounce my purpose." And it was this persis- 
 tency, this belief in his call to proclaim the 
 unity of God, which was the m.aking of Islam. 
 Other men have been monotheists in the midst 
 of idolaters, but no other man has founded a 
 strong and enduring monotheistic religion. The 
 distinction in his case was his resolution that 
 other men should believe. If we ask what it 
 was. that made Mohammed aggressive and pro- 
 selytizing where other men had been content to 
 cherish a solitary faith, we must answer that it 
 was nothing else than the depth and force of 
 his own conviction of the truth. To himself 
 the difference between one God and many, 
 between the unseen Creator and these ugly 
 lumps of stone or wood, was simply infinite. 
 The one creed was death and darkness to him, 
 the other light and life. It is useless seeking 
 for motives in such a case — for ends to serve and 
 selfish reasons for his speaking : the impossi- 
 bility with Mohammed was to keep silence. 
 His acceptance of the office of teacher of his 
 
MoJiammccTs Barnesf?iess. 19 
 
 people was anything but the ill-advised and 
 sudden impulse of a light-minded vanity or am- 
 bition. His own convictions had been reached 
 only after long years of lonely mental agony, 
 and of a doubt and distraction bordering on 
 madness. Who can doubt the earnestness of 
 that search after truth and the living God, that 
 drove the affluent merchant from his comfort- 
 able home and his fond wife, to make his abode 
 for months at a time in the dismal cave on 
 Mount Hira ? If we respect the shrinking of 
 Isaiah or Jeremiah from the heavy task of pro- 
 claiming unwelcome truth, we must also re- 
 spect the keen sensitiveness of Mohammed, 
 who was so burdened by this same responsi- 
 bility, and so persuaded of his incompetency for 
 the task, that at times he thought his new feel' 
 ings and thoughts were a snare of the devil, 
 and at times he would fain have rid himself of 
 all further struggle by casting himself from 
 a friendly precipice. His rolling his head in 
 his mantle, the sound of the ringing of bells in 
 his ears, his sobbing like a young camel, the 
 sudden grey hairs which he himself ascribed to 
 the terrific Suras, — what were all these but so 
 many physical signs of a nervous organization 
 overstrained by anxiety and thought ? 
 
 His giving himself out as a prophet of God 
 was, in the first instance, not only sincere, but 
 
 3* 
 
20 
 
 J\ foil am lucda n ism. 
 
 % 
 
 V vy 
 
 5^ 
 
 probably correct in the sense in which he him- 
 self understood it. He felt that he had 
 thoughts of God which it deeply concerned 
 all around him to receive, and he knew that 
 these thoughts were given him by God, al- 
 though not, as we shall see, a revelation strictly 
 so called. His mistake by no means lay in his 
 supposing himself to be called upon by God to 
 
 , speak for Him and introduce a better religion, 
 but it lay in his graduall}^ coming to insist 
 quite as much on men's accepting him as a 
 prophet as on their accepting the great truth 
 he preached. He was a prophet to his country- 
 men in so far as he proclaimed the unity of 
 God, but this was no sufficient ground for his 
 claiming to be their guide in all matters of 
 religion, still less for his assuming the lordship 
 over them in all matters civil as well. The 
 modesty and humility apparent in him so long 
 as his mind was possessed with objective truth, 
 gradually gives way to the presumptuousness 
 and arrogance of a mind turned more to a 
 sense of its own importance. To put the 
 second article of the INIohammedan creed on 
 
 Ithe same level as the first, to make it as essen- 
 tial that men should believe in the mission of 
 Mohammed as in the unity of God, was no 
 doubt the making of Islam, but it was an 
 ignorant, incongruous, and false combination. 
 
MoJunnincd' s Original Sincei'ity. 2 1 
 
 Had Mohammed known his own ignorance as 
 well as his knowledge, the world would have 
 had one religion the less, and Christianity 
 would have had one more reformer. 
 
 But when it is asked, Was Mohammed sin- 
 cere throughout ? I believe there is no question 
 in religious biography more difficult to answer. 
 There need, I think, be no question -about his 
 original sincerity. Trained like another Samuel 
 under the shadow of the temple of which his 
 ancestors were the guardians, alone allowed to 
 sit with his grandfather on his prayer-rug in 
 the temple-court,^ prized by that aged chief as 
 the jewel of all his tribe, it was only to be 
 expected that he should grow up with a strong 
 religious bent. It is a striking proof of his 
 sincerity that his earliest and most devoted dis- 
 ciples were those of his own household, and his 
 familiars, who had known him in all circum- 
 stances and scanned him in all moods — his 
 wife, his slave, his cousin, his father-in-law 
 — the latter themselves men of character and 
 position. Neither is it credible that a man 
 who was seeking to impose on the public 
 should have distinctly asserted that he could 
 not command the spirit of inspiration, and 
 should have waited for six months or two 
 3'ears for communications which he very ur- 
 
 I Caussin de Perceval's Hist, des Ai'abes^ i. 289, 
 
 V3-, 
 
2 2 Mohamnie danism. 
 
 cr 
 
 ently needed. So far from being a common 
 impostor, he showed himself superior to the 
 kind of temptation to which the leader of a 
 crowd of admiring disciples is most exposed. 
 On the saddest day of Mohammed's life, when 
 the light of it seemed to have gone down in 
 the grave of his little boy Ibrahim, an eclipse 
 of the sun occurred as he went home, and his 
 friends spoke of it as a kind of token of the 
 sympathy of Heaven. A vulgar impostor would 
 have accepted the flatter}^ but Mohammed 
 simply said, *' The sun and the moon are 
 amongst the signs appointed by the Lord. 
 They are not eclipsed on the death of any 
 one." ^ His correspondence with the rival 
 prophet, Moseilama, has commonly and justly 
 been cited as exhibiting the difference between 
 the impostor and the true man. It ran thus : 
 *' Moseilama, the Apostle of God, to Mohammed, 
 the Apostle of God. Now let the earth be half 
 mine and half thine." " Mohammed, the 
 Apostle of God, to Moseilama, the Liar. The 
 earth is God's ; He giveth it for inheritance to 
 such of His servants as He pleaseth, and the 
 happy issue shall attend those that fear Him." 
 The difficulty is to reconcile with this sin- 
 cerity acts which certainly at first sight one is 
 tempted to condemn as immoral and dishonest. 
 
 * Muir, iv. i66. 
 
JMohainmcd' s Licentiousness. 23 
 
 Instead of feeling it to be incumbent on him 
 as a prophet of God to set his followers an 
 example of temperance and high-toned living, 
 he rather used his office as a title to license 
 from which ordinary men were restrained. 
 Restricting his disciples to four wives, he re- 
 tained to himself the liberty of taking as many 
 as he pleased. He actually married eleven 
 women,-iiine of whom survived him. And this 
 he sanctions b}^ publishing a new paragraph of 
 the Koran, as allowing him this " privilege 
 above the rest of the faithful." ^ One is tempted 
 to exclaim, with honest old Hoornbeek, "Dig- 
 _num certe Propheta privilegium."^ Yet let us 
 make what allowance is possible. So long as 
 Kadijah lived Mohammed w^as a strict mono- 
 gamist. Until he was fifty-three years of age 
 he showed no disposition to adopt the custom of 
 his country, and his unmarried youth had been 
 exceptionally pure. But the sons Kadijah bore ^A 
 him died in infancy, and his enemies taunted 
 him in most offensive terms with his lack of 
 a male heir. Besides this, we must take 
 into account that among Oriental chiefs and 
 princes the extension of the harem has ahvays 
 been one of the first modes of exhibiting the 
 grandeur of a ruler. We remember the as- 
 
 I Sura xxxiii. 48. 
 
 ^ Hoornbeek, Sin/una Controv. p. 107. 
 
24 ]\ToJiaii?inedanism . 
 
 tounding number of Solomon's wives — a num- 
 ber far exceeded by many of Mohammed's suc- 
 cessors. Something, too, must be allowed for 
 his desire to form good alliances and to provide 
 for the widows of his devoted followers. All 
 his wives but one were widows, and many of 
 them were possibly added to his harem as a 
 mode of showing respect for the dead, and of 
 ^ providing the widows with what was considered 
 an honourable pension. But this does not 
 account for all his marriages, and least of all 
 does it account for his scandalous amours ; and 
 ' I am of opinion that after Kadijah's influence 
 was withdrawn, his relations with women were 
 of a thoroughly discreditable kind. His mo- 
 ralit}^ at this point was not that of a high- 
 /minded or spiritual man, it was not that of a 
 man whose religion had exercised a purifying 
 influence upon him, — it was no higher than 
 that of his contemporaries, and it was im- 
 mensely lower than that of Christian countries. 
 But all this might have been overlooked. 
 The knot of the matter lies not in his polygamy, 
 nor even in his occasional licentiousness, but 
 in the fact that he defended his conduct, when 
 it created scandal, by professed revelations 
 which are now embodied as parts of the Koran. 
 When his wives murmured, and with justice, 
 at his irregularities, he silenced them by a 
 
 ■\ 
 
Carlyles Defence Invalid. 2 
 
 
 
 revelation giving him conjugal allowances 
 which he had himself proscribed as unlawful. 
 When he designed to contract an alliance with 
 a woman forbidden to him by his own law, an IS 
 inspired permission was forthcoming, encour- 
 aging him to the transgression. I fear that, 
 notwithstanding all that has been urged in 
 explanation, the common sense of every Chris- 
 tian community will pronounce that underneath 
 this kind of conduct a low morale must have 
 existed. It is idle to dismiss the question as 
 Carlyle does with the exclamation, '* A false | 
 man found a religion ? Why, a false man can- 
 not build a brick house ! " For my part, I'd 
 as soon go with Thackeray, when he says : 
 " A lie once set agoing, having the breath of 
 life breathed into it by the father of lying, and 
 ordered to run its diabolical little course, lives 
 with a prodigious vitality. You say, ' Magna 
 est Veritas et prasvalebit.' Psha ! Great lies 
 are as great as great truths, and prevail con- ' 
 stantly, and day after day." 
 
 But of late years the idea has been gaining 
 ground that Mohammed was not only sincere 
 in his zeal for religion, but was also sincere in 
 his conviction that the revelations above re- 
 ferred to were from God. The great name of 
 Mohler is cited as an advocate of this opinion, 
 and, what is much more, as one who attempts 
 
2 6 Moha 111 me da n ism . 
 
 to explain the state of mind in which Mo- 
 hammed could suppose that immoral precepts 
 were the inspiration of God. " I maintain," 
 he sa3's, "that if one admits the possibility of 
 any man's being able to give out his own in- 
 dividual religious impressions, ideas, and 
 thoughts, without suspicion, for divine inspi- 
 rations, I cannot perceive the impossibility of 
 his considering God also to be the author of all 
 his other inward impulses." It is possible, 
 that is to say, to suppose that Mohammed con- 
 sidered that God was the author of his impulse 
 to lust after other men's wives, and to break 
 his promise in order to gratify his appetites. If 
 /\ so, thenjiis conscience was in a state of obfusca- 
 ^ _tion not surpassed by the wildest anabaptists or 
 v^fanatics of any age, and wholly unfitting him 
 to be a teacher or ruler of men. 
 
 I believe, however, that Mohammed had 
 I been so much in the habit of promulgating 
 laws and issuing manifestoes in the capacity 
 of God's apostle, that he had ceased on each 
 occasion to consider whether he was merely 
 speaking for God's cause, or was speaking 
 God's word. I believe that, situated as he 
 was, he could not fail at length to act on the 
 understanding that his commission as God's 
 apostle was a general one, and that he did not 
 need to wait on each occasion for what he 
 
Imnioi^al Revelations. 27 
 
 could distinctly recognise as a revelation.^ He 
 had to speak and to act on the spot for the 
 present emergency, and being God's apostle, "v^ 
 his word was God's word. And this no doubt 
 made the final step easier. Pressed by strong 
 temptation, entangled in circumstances that 
 threatened to diminish his influence, he boldly 
 used, for his own purposes, the method and 
 authority he had so often used for the govern- 
 ment of the cause of Islam. But that he did 
 so without compunction I do not believe. Nor 
 do I believe that had he accomplished the \a. 
 desire expressed on his death-bed of revising , 
 the Koran, he would have allowed these parts / 
 of it to remain, if even he meant that they 
 should ever be published to the world. But 
 in whatever way these matters are explained, 
 Mohammed appears in them a man of a much 
 lower type than the Old Testament prophets, 
 not to speak of such men as Paul or John. 
 
 The strength of Mohammed's conviction is 
 best measured by its results in those around 
 him. It has been said that the best proof a 
 
 ^ Pfleiderers opinion is that the specification of God as 
 the author of each revelation had become a form of 
 speech : *' Es ist das kaum anders zu beurtheiien als die 
 Phraseologie unseres Konversationsstyls, wo ja die 
 Unachtheit der kursirenden Phrasen darum schon un- 
 schuldig ist, weil Jedermann sie kennt."- — Die Religion, 
 ii. 369. 
 
2S AloJiammc danism. 
 
 Q prophet can give of the authenticity of his 
 U mission is to win credence to it.^ Certainly 
 Mohammed gave this proof, and thereby evinced, 
 if not the authenticity of his mission, yet his 
 own behef in it. With admirable sagacity and 
 sincerity he declined to give himself out as a 
 worker of miracles. To those who asked for 
 signs, he replied, " Signs are in the power of 
 God alone, and I am no more than a public 
 preacher." ~ Other prophets had come with 
 miracles, and had been disbelieved, ^ therefore 
 Mohammed came with the sword. Those 
 whom God had ordained to believe would be- 
 lieve without miracles, and no miracles would 
 convince the rest. And yet, with all this dis- 
 claiming of miracle, Mohammed most em- 
 phatically asserted the existence of a continu- 
 O-^ ous miracle in the Koran. " We have not sent 
 ^ any before thee as our apostles, other than 
 
 men unto whom we spake by revelation. . . . 
 We sent them with evident miracles, and 
 written revelations, and we have sent down 
 unto thee this Koran." ^ Again and again he 
 appeals to the Koran as the standing proof 
 of his mission, and challenges the world to pro- 
 duce anything equal to it. " If ye be in doubt 
 
 1 Oclsncr, Effcts^ S:c., p. 35 : "La meillcure preuve 
 qu'un prophete puisse donner dc Fauthenticite de sa 
 mission, c'est d'y faire croirc." 
 ^ Sura xxix. 49. 3 Suia \\. passijn. 4 Sura xvi. 45. 
 
Its Practice. 29 /— 
 
 concerning that revelation which we have sent 
 down unto our servant, produce a chapter 
 like unto it."^ So that the more enthusiastic 
 of the Mohammedans have been accustomed to 
 claim for their prophet a pre-eminence in regard 
 to miracles. Sixty thousand is the number of 
 the miracles he wrought, each verse of the 
 Koran being itself a miracle. And he alone of 
 the prophets has wrought a permanent and 
 standing miracle, in the Koran, which all gene- 
 rations may for themselves examine.^ 
 
 As regards the practice enjoined upon Mo- 
 hammedans, Islam is commonly said to rest _, 
 upon five pillars or foundations, ^ viz., i. The ?v^- 
 recital of the Kalima, or confession : There is ,J 
 but one God, and Mohammed is His prophet ; ^ 
 2. Observance of the five daily periods of 
 prayer; 3. The giving of alms ; 4, The fast of 
 Ramadan ; and 5. Pilgrimage to Mecca. In 
 these practical duties, there is nothing very dif- 
 ferent from Judaism, or, if we except pilgrimage, 
 from Christianity. The times and forms of 
 prayer are certainly more generally observed 
 among Mohammedans than among ourselves. 
 From the first call to prayer in the early morning, 
 
 ^ Sura ii. 21, and xvii. 91. 
 
 2 Pocock, Specimen^ p. 192 ; Gagnier, Vie de Mahouiet^ 
 ii. 367. 
 
 3 Reland, De Rcl. Moh, p. 5. 
 
30 MoJiamnicdanism. 
 
 when the sleepers are roused by the sonorous 
 and musical cry of the Muezzin, '' Prayer is 
 better than sleep," through all the throng and 
 business of the day, wherever and in whatever 
 (^ engaged, at each hour of pra3^er the Moham- 
 
 medan drops his tools or lays aside his pipe, 
 and prostrates himself towards Mecca. 
 
 There are two features of the devout cha- 
 racter which the Mohammedans have the merit 
 of exhibiting with much greater distinctness 
 j than we do. They show not the smallest 
 
 / hesitation or fear in confessing God, and they 
 
 reduce to practice the great principle that the 
 worship of God is not confined to temples or 
 any special place : — 
 
 " Most honour to the men of prayer, 
 Whose mosque is in them everywhere ! 
 Who, amid revel's wildest din, 
 In war's severest discipline. 
 On rolling deck, in thronged bazaar, 
 In stranger land, however far, 
 However different in their reach 
 Of thought, in manners, dress, or speech, — 
 W^ill quietly their carpet spread. 
 To Mekkeh turn the humble head, 
 And, as if blind to all around, 
 And deaf to each distracting sound, 
 In ritual language God adore, 
 In spirit to His presence soar. 
 And, in the pauses of the prayer. 
 Rest, as if rapt in glory there. '^ 
 
 There are of course formalists and hypocrites in 
 
Prayer. 3 1 
 
 Islam as well as in religions of which we have 
 more experience. The uniformity and regularity 
 of their prostrations resemble the movements 
 of a well - drilled company of soldiers, or of 
 machines, but the Koran ^ denounces "woe 
 upon those who pray, but in their prayers are 
 careless ; who make a show of devotion, but 
 refuse to help the needy ; " while nowhere is 
 formalism more pungently ridiculed than in the 
 common Arabic proverb, " His head is towards 0. 
 the Kibleh, but his heels are among the weeds. "^ 
 We could almost excuse a touch of formalism 
 for the sake of securing that absolute stillness 
 and outward decorum in worship which de- 
 ceives the stranger as he enters a crowded 
 mosque into the belief that it is quite empty.^ 
 Persons who hold themselves excused from the , 
 duty of worship by every slight obstacle might 
 do worse than get infected with the sublime 
 formalism of Cais, son of Sad, who would not 
 shift his head an inch from the place of his , 
 prostration, though a huge serpent lifted its 
 fangs close to his face and finally coiled itself 
 round his neck.'^ And if some are formal, cer- 
 tainly many are very much in earnest. ^ It is 
 
 ^ Sura cvii. ^ Burckhardt's Arabic. Pi'ov. p. 97. 
 
 3 Hottinger, Hist. Ofient. p. 310. 
 * Dozy's Histoire, i. 66. 
 
 5 "Etliche beten und rufen in ihren Hausern mit 
 solchem Eifer und so lange bis ihnen der Odem entgehet. 
 
32 ]\IoJiammcdanism, 
 
 only fair, in forming a judgment of the devotional 
 element in Mohammedanism, to have before us 
 such a prayer as this : " O Lord, I supplicate 
 Thee for firmness in faith, and direction towards 
 rectitude, and to assist me in being grateful to 
 Thee, and in adoring Thee in every good way ; 
 and I supplicate Thee for an innocent heart, 
 which shall not incline to wickedness; and I 
 supplicate Thee for a true tongue, and for that 
 virtue which Thou knowest ; and I pray Thee to 
 defend me from that vice which Thou knowest ; 
 and for forgiveness of those faults which Thou 
 knowest. O my defender 1 assist me in remem- 
 bering Thee, and being grateful to Thee, and ia 
 worshipping Thee with the excess of my strength. 
 Lord ! I have injured my own soul, and no 
 one can pardon the faults of Thy servants but 
 Thou. Forgive me out of Thy lovingkindness, 
 and have mercy on me ; for verily Thou art the 
 forgiver of offences, and the bestower of bless- 
 ings upon Thy servants." ^ 
 
 But the attachment of the Moslems to their 
 
 religion is put to a severer test by the fast of 
 
 I Ramadan. This fast is no make-believe, no 
 
 abstinence during a hot month from the heavier 
 
 articles of food to wdiet the appetite for the 
 
 iind sie gleichsam in Ohnmacht niedersinken." — Olcarius, 
 quoted in Pfeiffer, p. 418. 
 
 ^ Syed Ali, C7'it. Exam, p. 175. 
 
Fast of Ramadan. 33 ^ 
 
 lighter efforts of cookery ; but it is a hond-fide 
 total abstinence from food, drink, and smoking 
 from sunrise to sunset of each day throughout 
 the whole month of the Mohammedan Lent. 
 From half-past two in the morning, or when- 
 ever the gun gives the signal in the larger 
 cities, till the happy and eagerly looked-for 
 release of sundown, nothing may pass over the 
 throat. The hard - wrought labourer in the 
 burning streets or under the terrific blaze of 
 the Eastern noon must endure his faintness 
 and misery unrelieved by a single mouthful of 
 water. The traveller in the desert may be 
 blinded with the glare of the brazen sky above 
 and the glowing sand beneath, he may fall from 
 the back of his camel or sit insensible in the 
 saddle, but he may chew nothing, taste no- 
 thing, if possible not even smell what might for 
 the moment revive his failing energy. Even in 
 illness this fast is kept, although that is not 
 obligatory. Burton says, '* I found but one 
 patient who would eat, even to save his life. 
 And among the vulgar, sinners who habitually 
 drink when they should pray will fast and per- 
 form their devotions through the Ramadan."^ 
 It is not surprising that the expiry of this 
 compulsory fast should be hailed with all the 
 manifestations of intense satisfaction and re- 
 ^ Burton, Pilgrim, i. 109, 
 4 
 
^ 
 
 34 Mohannncdanisni . 
 
 lief. Drums are beat, every one who has a 
 gun or pistol contributes to the roar of jubila- 
 tion, while the very children, aware how much 
 more facile the parental temper will now be, 
 go about shouting, '' Ramadan mat,'" Ramadan is 
 dead.^ The most obvious, if not the most real 
 and permanent, effect of this "blessed month" 
 is to spoil the tempers of the whole commu- 
 nity. A hungry man is an angry man all the 
 world over, and though fasting has its spiritual 
 uses in certain cases, this compulsory abstin- 
 ence of a whole population produces irritability, 
 quarrelsomeness, and all the ills of dyspepsia. 
 But it will of course be understood that the 
 better instructed and the pious Moslems recog- 
 nise the necessity of using the season of fast 
 for spiritual discipline.^ "God cares not," 
 says the Mishcat, "that a man leave off 
 eating and drinking, if he do not therewith 
 abandon lying and detraction." ^ 
 
 Great stress is laid upon almsgiving. " A 
 liberal unbeliever," says Ali,"* " may sooner 
 hope for Paradise than an avaricious Moham- 
 medan." Islam has been greatly commended 
 for the provision it makes for the poor. The 
 
 ^ Lady Duff Gordon's Letters, p. 217. 
 
 2 Pocock's Specimen, p. 310. 
 
 3 Mill's Hist, of MoJianunedanisiii, p. 311. 
 
 4 Forstcr's Mahoin. Unveiled, i. 346. 
 
Almsgiving, 35 
 
 only criticism which one is disposed to pass 
 upon its law of almsgiving is a criticism which 
 applies to many other parts of the religion, and 
 that is, that it leaves too little to the spirit and . .-''^ 
 spontaneity of the individual, and too definitely C" 
 prescribes and enforces duty. The Zakat, or 
 legal alms, is collected by Government in Mo- 
 hammedan countries, and, like our income 
 tax, is exacted only from those who have a 
 certain amount of revenue and have been in 
 possession of the same for a year. Of all his 
 property, the Moslem must give a prescribed 
 portion, one-tenth of grain or fruit, one of 
 every hundred camels, 2t per cent, of his 
 money, both capital and profits. And the 
 amount thus contributed is applied to the 
 relief of debtors who cannot pay their debts, 
 for the aid of slaves w^ho wish to buy their 
 freedom, of strangers, travellers, pilgrims, and 
 destitute persons.^ And it is the judgment of 
 one who has observed the working of this law 
 in Mohammedan countries, and is nowise pre- 
 judiced in favour of Islam, that " whatever be \j 
 the weak points in Mohammedanism, all can- 
 did observers acquainted with the condition of 
 Mohammedan nations must admit that its 
 provision for the poor is highly commendable. W 
 As we have journeyed from village to village 
 
 ' Sura ix. 60. 
 
 A ^ 
 
V^v 
 
 + 36 liTohainnicdanism. 
 
 among the Afghans, we have frequently heen 
 struck with the ahsence of great poverty, and 
 even in our large cities, where Mohammedan 
 beggars are numerous, it must be rememibered 
 that they are either religious mendicants or 
 professional beggars, and for the most part 
 quite unworthy of charitable relief." ^ 
 v> The fourth point of Mohammedan practice is 
 pilgrimage. Every Moslem, male or female, 
 and in whatever country resident, must at least 
 once visit the Holy City and Temple of Mecca. 
 This duty is enjoined in the Koran ; it is enforced 
 by the example of Mohammed himself, and by a 
 \ traditional saying of his, to the effect that he who 
 
 dies without performing it may as well die a Jew 
 or a Christian. A dying man may, however, 
 bequeath a sufficient sum of money to pay the 
 expenses of a deputy - pilgrim,^ so that his 
 personal neglect may be repaired. The words 
 of the Koran regarding pilgrimage admit of 
 some latitude of interpretation : *' It is a duty 
 towards God incumbent on those who are 
 able to go thither, to visit the house of God." ^ 
 But who are those who are able ? The straiter 
 sects say : Every one who is able to walk 
 and to earn his bread on the way ; and, 
 
 1 Hughes, Notes, p. 85. 
 
 2 Hughes {Notes, pp. 91, 92) denies that proxies are 
 allowable during the principal's lifetime. 
 
 3 Sura iii. ; cf. also Sura xxii. 
 
Pilgrimage. 3 7 
 
 consequently, many poor creatures leave their 
 homes in Northern India or inner Africa, re- 
 solved to beg their way to Mecca, and face all 
 the terrors of the desert, the sea, and foreign 
 countries. The most reasonable teachers, how- 
 ever, maintain that pilgrimage is incumbent 
 only on such as have money for the road and 
 for the support of their families during their 
 absence/ And as the minimum expenditure of 
 a man who rides in a litter from Damascus and 
 back is about £1200, it cannot surprise us if a 
 large proportion of the Moslem population plead 
 inability to comply w^ith this demand of their 
 Prophet. " Going on pilgrimage to Mecca," 
 says the first Englishman who ever went there-, 
 " is a duty incumbent on every Mussulman, if 
 in capacity of health and purse, but yet a great 
 many who are so live in the final neglect of it." " 
 The license given by the Koran ^ to use the 
 pilgrimage for purposes of trade does not serve 
 materially to increase the size of the caravans. 
 And although pauper pilgrims are provided by 
 the government with a gratis sea passage, and 
 
 1 Burton's Pilorimage, iii. 224. 
 
 2 Joseph Pitts' FaiUifiil Accoimt, p. 84. 
 
 3 Sura ii : "It shall be no crime in you if ye seek an 
 increase from the Lord, by trading during the pilgrim- 
 age." Burton's judgment is that the pilgrimage is " es- 
 sentially religious, accidentally an affair of commerce" 
 {Pilgri?nagL', iii. 225). 
 
^ 
 
 2,S MoJiaviinedanisin. 
 
 frequently have their expenses paid by wealthy 
 men who desire the credit of a meritorious act, 
 the numbers in 1853 were only 50,000, and 
 seemed then to be steadily decreasing.' Since 
 then, however, they have increased threefold. 
 
 Mecca is the Holy City of Islam, not because 
 it is the birthplace of ^lohammed, but because 
 it contains the most ancient temple in Arabia, 
 the world -renowned Kaabah, or Bait-Allah.^ 
 Of this temple the Koran boldly says : " Verily, 
 the first house appointed unto man to wor- 
 ship in was that which is in Becca, blessed, 
 and the Keblah for all creatures. Therein 
 are manifest signs i^ the place where Abra- 
 ham stood ; and whosoever entereth therein 
 shall be safe." This dictum was evoked in 
 correction of the Jewish idea, that Jerusalem 
 was the true Keblah, towards which all wor- 
 shippers should pray — an idea with which, 
 remarkably enough, Mohammed himself had 
 at first fallen in. And enlightened Moham- 
 
 ^ " AH Bey (a.d. 1807) calculates 83,000 pilgrims; 
 Burckhardt (1814)70,000. I reduced it, in 1853, to 50,000." 
 Burton, iii. 259. 
 
 "^ Burton (iii. 149) says that Bait-Ullah and Kaabah 
 are synonymous. So too Sale, PreliiJiinary Discourse^ 
 p. 88. Hughes {NoteSj 88) says that this is a confusion, and 
 appropriates the name Bait-Ullah to the whole mosque, 
 and not distinctively to the Kaabah. 
 
 3 The fullest account of these signs is given by Boulain- 
 villiers, La Vie de Maho/ned, pp. 84-91. 
 
The KaabaJi. 39 
 
 medans of the present day, while they reject 
 the legends which ascribe to this temple a super- 
 natural origin and a date anterior to the Creation, 
 agree in believing that it was originally built by 
 Abraham and Ishmael. For this there is no 
 evidence but that of tradition, and the fact that 
 the chief object of veneration in it is a stone 
 which is claimed as a relic of patriarchal wor- 
 ship. Of its great antiquity there is no doubt. 
 Not only is it recognised as a holy city by four 
 different faiths, the Hindu, Sab^an, Gueber, 
 and Moslem;' but even before the Christian 
 era it was well known as an ancient and revered 
 temple.- The Kaabah stands in a wide court, 
 skirted by colonnades of marble and stone pillars, 
 and ornamented by a number of domes, and is 
 itself, as its name denotes, in the form of a cube 
 of about thirty-five feet.^ Built into its north- 
 east corner, about four or five feet from the 
 ground, is the famous " Black Stone," '^ which 
 sober Moslems believe to have been brought 
 from a neighbouring mountain to mark the 
 point from which the circumambulation of the 
 
 1 Burton, iii. i6o. 
 
 2 Diodorus Sic . iii. 44. 
 
 3 For exact measurements and description, see Burton's 
 third volume, p. 149, et seq. ; or Sale's Preliui. Disc, 
 p. 88. 
 
 4 About eight inches long by six in height. See IMuir's 
 
 plate in vol. ii. 
 
 
 
40 Mohaimnedanis?n. 
 
 Kaabah was to commence, but which enthu- 
 siasts believe to have fallen from heaven/ and 
 to be destined to witness at the last day in 
 favour of all those who have kissed it. Origin- 
 ally white, it is supposed to have become black 
 by the kisses of sinful men. Close b}^ is the 
 well Zem-Zem, to which, according to Arabian 
 ideas, all Moslems owe their being, for it was 
 here that the despairing Hagar found water to 
 restore their great ancestor.^ 
 
 Here also is the burial-place of Hagar and 
 Ishmael, marked by a slab for the veneration of 
 believers. And in the small building, called 
 Makam Ibrahim, is the stone which served 
 Abraham as a platform while building the 
 Kaabah, and which retains the print of his feet. 
 The Kaabah itself is covered with a brilliant 
 black cloth, called the Kiswah, which is annually 
 renewed by the Sultan, and on which are in- 
 scribed portions of the Koran. ^ 
 
 When the pilgrim arrives at the last stage on 
 
 ^ " It appeared to me," says Burton (iii. p. 158) "a com- 
 mon aerolite." See Syed Ahmed's Essay o)i the Histoi-y 
 of Mecctty where a pretty view of the Kaabah is given. 
 
 2 It was Mohammed's ^grandfather, the guardian of the 
 Kaabah, who first formed a well for the storing of this water. 
 
 3 Described in Burton, iii. 295-9; and cf. Lane's 
 Modern Egyptians, ii. 213. Burton considers that the 
 origin of the veiling of the Kaabah must be sought " in 
 the ancient practice of typifying the Church visible by a 
 virgin or bride." This seems unlikely. \^an Lennep, 
 
Pilgri7n Rites. 41 
 
 his wa}^ to Mecca, about five miles from the 
 town, he enters the sacred territory. Here, 
 accordingly, he bathes, lays aside his clothes, 
 and assumes the proper pilgrim garb (Ihram), 
 which consists of two unstitched white cotton 
 cloths, one of which is wrapped round the waist, 
 while the other is thrown over the shoulders. 
 This, with sandals, is the only covering of the 
 pilgrim. On arriving at the sacred building 
 itself, the pilgrim prays, drinks a cup of the 
 distasteful water of Zem-Zem, and begins his h 
 circumambulation, or Tawaf^ Seven times he 
 makes the circuit of the Kaabah, keeping his 
 left side next it, uttering prayers and acts of 
 adoration as he goes. The first three circuits 
 are made with impetuous movements, as of one 
 making his way against difficulties, asserting 
 his belief in the face of an opposing world f the 
 remaining circuits are made with the usual ease 
 
 {Bible Lands^ ii. 717) thinks it indicates its connection 
 with a people dwelHng in tents. The old Kiswah is sold 
 piecemeal by the officials. It is much used for book- |9 
 markers for Korans, and as charms. Waistcoats made of 
 it make the wearer invulnerable. 
 
 1 Some Arabic writers connect this circumambulation 
 with the motions of the heavenly bodies, affirming that 
 men should resemble these, not only in purity, but in their 
 circular motion. Salens Preliminary Discourse^ p. 93 ; 
 Burton, iii. 205. Reland, De Rel. Moh. p. 123, quotes 
 authorities to the same eftect. 
 
 2 " Ut se alacres futuros ostendant in certamine cum iis 
 qui plures Deos colunt," says Reland, De Rel. Moh. p. 1 1 7. 
 
4- MoJiaiiiinediinism, 
 
 of movement. The Black Stone is then kissed, 
 the whole body pressed against the sacred 
 edifice, and the pilgrim gives way to the throng- 
 ing crovv'd that follows him. The other essen- 
 tials of pilgrimage are the seven runs between 
 the Mounts Safa and Marwah, the visit to 
 Mount Arafat, the stoning of the devil, and the 
 concluding sacrifice. Worn out with the 
 exposure, the violent exertions, and the watch- 
 ing entailed by such ceremonies, the wearied 
 pilgrim rests a few days and then proceeds 
 homewards. On his arrival he is hailed as a 
 distinguished person, his intercession is be- 
 sought,^ and he is ever after dignified by the 
 J[y title of Haji added to his name. 
 
 A recent English apologist for Mohammedan- 
 ism has remarked that pilgrimage is " in theory 
 and in reality alien alike to Mohammedanism 
 and Christianity," ^ and was merely a concession 
 
 1 See Lane, ii. 157. 
 
 2 Bosworth Smith, Alohainined, p. 164, Sale's re- 
 marks {^Prelunifiary Discourse^ p. 93) are well worth 
 weighhig : " The pilgrimage to Mecca, and the ceremo- 
 nies prescribed to those who perform it, are, perhaps, 
 liable to greater exception than any other of Mohammccrs 
 institutions ; not only as silly and ridiculous in them- 
 selves, but as relics of idolatrous superstitions. Yet 
 whoever seriously considers how difficult it is to make 
 people submit to the abolishing of ancient customs, how 
 imreasonalDle soever, which they are fond of, especially 
 where the interest of a considerable party is also con- 
 cerned, and that a man may with less danger change 
 
yustification of PilgTUJiage. 43 
 
 to the natural weakness of his followers. And 
 no doubt it is inconsistent with the spiritual 
 sentiments which are found here and there 
 in the Koran. Had pilgrimage not already- 
 existed, it would scarcely have been originated 
 by him who said, " There is no piety in turning 
 your faces towards the east or west, but he is 
 pious who believeth in God, and the last day, 
 and the angels, and the Scriptures, and the 
 prophets ; who giveth money for God's sake 
 unto his kindred, and unto orphans, and the 
 needy, and for redemption of captives ; who is 
 constant at prayers, and giveth alms ; and of 
 those who perform the covenant which they 
 have covenanted, and who behave themselves 
 patiently in adversity and hardships, and in 
 times of violence ; these are they who are true, 
 and these are they who fear God." ^ 
 
 There seems to have always been among the 
 best Mohammedans a feeling of something like 
 apology, if not shame, in regard to this insti- 
 tution. Som.e of their leading theologians have 
 been accustomed frankly to admit that the per- 
 formances enjoined on the pilgrims have no 
 intrinsic value, and make no appeal to the 
 
 many things than one great one, must excuse IMoham- 
 med's yielding some points of less moment to gain the 
 principal." 
 
 ^ Sura ii. 
 
 t^ 
 
44 AloJiamincdanism, 
 
 reason, but they justify them on this very 
 ^, ground, pleading that obedience is never so 
 disciplinary as when rendered blindly.^ Omar 
 himself is said to have uttered the following 
 protest while doing obeisance to the black 
 stone : *' I know thou canst neither help nor 
 ,^' hurt me, and unless I had seen the prophet 
 y do it, I would never have kissed thee." And 
 Hakim, the mad Khalif of Egypt, tried to smash 
 it with a club.^ But the likelihood is that 
 Mohammed, who himself belonged to what 
 may be called the high-priestly family, believed 
 that some peculiar sanctity attached to the 
 Kaabah, and, knowing the advantages which 
 accrued to his city from the annual influx of 
 pilgrims, resolved to make pilgrimage obligatory 
 on all his followers. And whether he foresaw 
 the results of this injunction or not, there can 
 be no doubt that in point of fact the influence 
 of his religion has been vastly increased by this 
 apparently absurd ceremonial. It is this which 
 has stimulated the devotion of susceptible and 
 imaginative minds ; it is this which communi- 
 cates to all Mohammedans an inspiring sense 
 of the universality of their religion, and exhibits 
 
 ^ Algazali, quoted in Pocock's Specimen^ pp. 312, 313, 
 says, " Nihil ha2c ad animum hominis, nee consentanea 
 naturce ; . . . verum mandate simplici constant." Cf. 
 Kcland, De Rel. Moh. p. 122. 
 
 2 "Sl-Oizhnd^s Mo]ia7]inicda}i Religion Explained^ p. 155. 
 
Uses of Pilgrimage. 45 
 
 in a form they can appreciate the unity of all 
 believers. 
 
 ,J^ What chiefly struck the young English sailor, 
 who was compelled to apostatize, and in the 
 capacity of a slave made the pilgrimage with 
 his master two centuries ago, was the zeal 
 which marked the worshippers who had jour- 
 neyed for months, and possibly pinched for 
 years to see Mecca ere they died. " It was a 
 sight, indeed," he says, *' able to pierce one's 
 heart, to behold so many thousands in their 
 garments of humility and mortification, with 
 their naked heads and cheeks w^atered Vv'ith 
 tears ; and to hear their grievous sighs and 
 sobs, begging earnestly for the remission of 
 their sins, and promising newness of life." ^ 
 Burckhardt testifies to the same enthusiasm, 
 and himself witnessed the emotion of an African, 
 who, on reaching the Kaabah, burst into a flood 
 of tears, and exclaimed, " O God, now take my U 
 soul, for this is paradise." And Captain Bur- 
 ton, a man not much given to emotion of any 
 kind, acknowledges the impression made upon 
 himself by the first sight of the bier -like 
 Kaabah, and also by the simultaneous responses 
 of thousands of pilgrims to the sermon in the 
 temple-court. *' I have seen," he says, ''the 
 religious ceremonies of many lands, but never 
 ^ Joseph Pitts' Faiiliful Accounf, p. 138. 
 
 
^ 
 
 46 Mohammedanism. 
 
 — nowhere — aught so solemn, so impressive as 
 this spectacle." ^ But more permanent than any 
 religious or emotional impressions made by the 
 worshipping multitudes on susceptible minds, 
 is the influence of the visibility given at Mecca 
 to the vastness and unity of the empire of 
 Mohammed. It is here, where the Moor from 
 the shores of the Mediterranean prostrates him- 
 self by the side of the Malay from the Southern 
 Pacific, that the Mohammedans learn the extent 
 of the prophet's dominion.^ It is here they 
 recognise the grandeur of the brotherhood 
 Islam would fain introduce, as the wild 
 Maghrabi and the Indian prince are seen kiss- 
 ing the stone together.^ The pilgrim rites are 
 foolish and indefensible, but, unmistakably, the 
 maintenance of a local centre, as it w^as essen- 
 tial to Judaism, ^ has proved of incalculable 
 service to Islam. 
 
 \ Four points in the theoretical and practical 
 
 ^ 'teaching of Mohammed have chiefly provoked 
 
 criticism ; the material and gross character of 
 
 the heaven ^ he set before his followers, his 
 
 ' Burton, iii. p. 316. Over against these manifest- 
 ations of devout feeling we must of course set the fact 
 that the pilgrim caravans were so notoriously riotous and 
 debauched, that one of the first objects of the Wahabi 
 reform was to cleanse them. 
 
 2 Mill's History, p. 455. 3 Syed Ameer Ali, p. 184. 
 
 4 Cf. Ewald's Antig. of Israel, p. 367. 
 
 5 See quotations in Rcland, De Rcl. Moh. p. 200. 
 Cf. Morison's Life of Bernard, p. 374. 
 
Its Pai^adise. 47 
 
 allowance of polygamy and divorce, the slavery 
 and fatalism which prevail among Mohamme- 
 dan populations. 
 
 That you may judge how far Mohammed 
 is responsible for directing the hopes of his 
 people to a material paradise, let me read you 
 a fair specimen of the descriptions given in the 
 Koran : " These are they who shall be brought 
 nigh to God, in gardens of delight ; a crowd 
 from the ancients, and few from later genera- 
 tions. On inwrought couches reclining on them 
 face to face : immortal youths go round about 
 to them with goblets and ewers and a cup from 
 a fountain ; their brows ache not from it, nor 
 fails the sense : and with such fruits as they 
 shall make choice of, and with flesh of such 
 birds as they shall long for, and theirs shall be 
 the Houris with large dark eyes like close-kept 
 pearls, a recompense for their labours past. No 
 vain discourse shall they hear therein, nor 
 charge of sin, but only the cry, Peace, peace ! 
 And the people of the right hand, — how happy 
 the people of the right hand ! amid thornless 
 lote -trees and bananas clad with flowers, and 
 extended shade and flowing waters and abun- 
 dant fruits, unfailing and unforbidden, and lofty 
 couches. Verily of a rare creation have we 
 created the Houris, and we have made them 
 ever virgins, dear to their spouses, of equal 
 
48 MohajJiuiedanisni. 
 
 age with them, for the people of the right hand, 
 a crowd from the ancients and a crowd from 
 later generations."^ 
 
 Such passages frequently occur in the earlier 
 Suras of the Koran, and with little variation 
 of phraseology ; and I think a candid mind, 
 accustomed to the Christian conception of 
 heaven, must own to being somewhat shocked 
 and disappointed by the low ideal of perfected 
 human bliss set before the Mohammedan. One 
 might suppose Mohammed had laid himself 
 open to the insinuation conveyed in the well- 
 known lines : 
 
 " That prophet ill sustains his holy call, 
 Who finds not heavens to suit the tastes of all ; 
 Houris for boys, omniscience for sages, 
 And wings and glories for all ranks and ages." 
 
 Among Mohammedans there are many in 
 every generation whose aspirations are spiri- 
 tual, and who crave a heavenly life in which 
 their purest and worthiest purposes shall not 
 be defeated by the rebellings of their lower 
 nature, nor even be delayed by providing for 
 its necessities.^ They, like the best among our- 
 selves, seek not only an outwardly secure and 
 
 ^ Sura Ivi. 10. 
 
 2 Reland says, " Non igitur verum est, quod multi auc- 
 tores qui oppugnarunt Mohamniedanisniuni scripserunt, 
 Muslimannos non alium bcatitudinem in coelo agnoscere, 
 nisi usum voluptatum quae sensus afficiunt " (p. 204). 
 
Paradise. 49 
 
 affluent condition, but much more an inward 
 resemblance to God Himself. It has therefore 
 been commonly pleaded that these somewhat 
 luscious descriptions in the Koran are to be 
 understood as figurative, and to be interpreted 
 as Christians interpret the pictures given in the 
 Book of Revelation/ But there is a very con- 
 spicuous difference between the two cases. In 
 the Book of Revelation, as in the other parts of 
 Scripture, there is so much said of the spiritual 
 joys of the future life, as to eclipse all that 
 is said of pleasures of a lower kind, and to 
 suggest to every reader a spiritual interpreta- 
 tion, even of the passages in which material 
 descriptions are given; whereas in the Koran 
 it must be owned that the promises of physical 
 pleasure are, to say the least, very greatly in 
 excess of promises of a higher kind. It will 
 also be remarked that even where physical de- 
 scriptions are used in the New Testament, they 
 are never of the grosser kind. To the Christian 
 conception, heaven is formed by the circum- 
 stance that it is the life suited to Jesus Christ 
 glorified. We know what He found pleasure 
 in on earth, and we conceive what are His 
 heavenly joys. This defines heaven for us, and 
 absolutely excludes from it everything gross, 
 
 I Lane, Modern Egypt, i. p. 84. Syed All's Critical 
 Exam. pp. 277-285. 
 
 5 
 
5 o AloJia in mcda n ism . 
 
 mean, and earthly. The Mohammedan has 
 nothing so clear to rule his conceptions of the 
 future life. Tradition indeed ascribes to Mo- 
 hammed the saying that " the most favoured 
 of God will be he who shall see his Lord's face 
 night and morning— a felicity which will surpass 
 all the pleasures of the body, as the ocean sur- 
 passes a drop of sweat." But in the Koran 
 itself there is too little evidence that the habi- 
 tual idea of heaven Mohammed himself pos- 
 sessed was other than that of an abode of peace, 
 security, luxury, and reward.' 
 
 A deeper and more radical fault of Aloham- 
 medanism is the constancy and urgency of its 
 appeal to the desire of reward. It has caught 
 the primitive tone of the Mosaic legislation, 
 and has altogether failed to correct this by in- 
 troducing such motives as form the strength of 
 the Christian character. It is true that to 
 awaken in men a regard to the future is a feat 
 worthy of the greatest moral teacher.* It fur- 
 nishes him with a hold over the conduct of his 
 disciples which is both justifiable and influen- 
 
 ^ Major Osborn has very distinctly illustrated the 
 thoroughly materialistic character of Mohammed's con- 
 ceptions. See Islam under the Arabs^ pp. 34-38. 
 
 2 "L'idde de I'avenir est une des plus puissantes en mo- 
 rale, et il est gloricux pour Mohammed de I'avoir misc en 
 activitd avec plus de force qu'aucun autre legislateur." 
 Oelsner, Des Effets^ p. 34. 
 
b 
 
 Selfishness in Religion. 5 i 
 
 tial. But a character formed chiefly on such a 
 basis will inevitably lack the highest qualities. 
 
 "Is selfishness 
 For time, a sin — spun out to eternity, 
 Celestial prudence ? Shame ! " 
 
 The hope of reward and the fear of punish- 
 ment are rightly used until the inward dispo- 
 sition for virtue grows ; but the religion in which 
 these are the chief or the only motives brands 
 itself as tit only for the lower strata of humanity 
 and its undeveloped races. These motives are 
 retained in Christianity, because Christianity 
 appeals to the most degenerate as well as to 
 the most mature and noble specimens of our 
 race/ but it relies upon them only for pssda- 
 gogic and occasional assistance, and looks to 
 very different and much loftier motives for pro- 
 ducing its highest strain of saintly character 
 and of heroic virtue. And if, even with its 
 mingling of higher motives, Christianity has 
 suffered from the natural incapacity of men to 
 live by them, and from their ineradicable dis- 
 position to barter with God, it is not surprising 
 that a proud and self-righteous belief in the ^^ 
 meritoriousness of good works has always been 
 part and parcel of Mohammedanism, nor that 
 
 ^ " La seule religion chretienne est proportionnee a tous, 
 etant melee d'exterieur et d'interieur." — Pascal, Peiisecs, 
 II. iv. 3. 
 
52 ]\IoJiainmcdanism. 
 
 it encourages the endeavour ''to make one's 
 soul" by fastings, alms, and endowments.^ 
 
 As to the supposed fatalism of Islam, it is 
 true that among Mohammedan populations 
 there is a tendency to accept as destiny ills 
 T^-hich might possibly be removed by vigorous 
 action. " The great bulk of the people are 
 passive : wars and revolutions rage around 
 them : they accept them as the decrees of a 
 fate it is useless to strive against." Such is the 
 testimonv of those who have lived for some 
 time among Mohammedans.^ This however 
 seems more a matter of race than of religion, 
 of individual temperament than of creed. The 
 Arabs despise and reproach the Turks for their 
 stupid apathy in ascribing to God what is the 
 result of their own folly. " He bared his back," 
 they say, " to the stings of the mosquitoes, and 
 then cried out, God has decreed I should be 
 stung." 2 It was an Arab who, when his religion 
 was charged with fatalism, retorted, " Oh, 
 man, if the wail against which I am now 
 sitting were to shake above my head, should I 
 fold my feet under me and say, ' Allah kereem ' 
 [It is the will of God] , or should I use the legs 
 God has given me to escape from it ?"-^ Mo- 
 
 I Lady Uuff Gordon's Letters. 
 
 ° Osborn's Islam inide?' the Arabs^ p. 27. 
 
 3 Burckhardt's Notes, i. 247. 
 
 4 Lady Dulf Gordon's Last Letters, p. 23. 
 
Its Fatalism. 53 
 
 hammed himself was as thorough a predesti- n_ \K 
 narian as Calvin, but just as little of a fatalist. 
 His belief in the decrees of God led him tc» 
 accept the inevitable with resignation, but 
 never interfered with his freedom and vigour of 
 action. Again and again in the Koran he 
 asserts that " God misleadeth whom He will, 
 and whom He will He guideth," ^ reproducing 
 with almost verbal exactness the words of Paul. 
 In accepting this doctrine he merely coincided, 
 as Voltaire with his usual insight and knowledge 
 has shown, with the almost universal opinion 
 of antiquity. His followers have certainly in 
 many instances perverted his doctrine, refusing 
 to attempt the conversion of unbelievers on 
 the ground that the number of the faithful is 
 decreed, and cannot be increased or diminished \^ 
 and being unnerved in epidemics by the idea 
 that their fate is unavoidable. And there are 
 many sects among the Mohammedans, such as 
 the Djabaris, the Rayatis, and the Djamis, who 
 deny free-will altogether, as there are others 
 who deny that Allah has predestined the deeds 
 and inclinations of His creatures ; but with 
 neither of these deductions from his doctrine 
 is Mohammed fairly chargeable.^ He made no 
 
 ' Sura xiv. 4. See also xiii. 30 ; iii. 139 ; viii. 17, &c. 
 
 2 Lane, i. 353- 
 
 3 Gobineaii, Des Religions, &c., p. 72. BosAvorth 
 Smith's jMohani. p. 191. 
 
5 4 Mo ha m ;;/ cda n ism . 
 
 attempt to reconcile man's freedom of action with 
 the predestination and overruling providence 
 of God. He gave the freest play to both beliefs, 
 and while he nerved his troops for battle by as- 
 suring them they could no more escape their 
 fate at home than on the field, he forbade them 
 to enter infected cities, and dealt with them as 
 free agents. And probably his immediate fol- 
 lowers, W'ho had been brought up to believe 
 that their fate was ruled by the stars, and fixed 
 from the hour of their birth, felt that the doc- 
 trine of Mohammed was at once more rational 
 and more encouraging.^ 
 
 The effects upon society of- the Christian and 
 Mohammedan religions are most obviously dis- 
 'tinguished by the position assigned to woman. 
 Christian society is monogamist, Mohammedan 
 polygamist. The law laid down in the Koran for 
 the regulation of marriages is as follow^s : (Sura 
 iv.) "Take in marriage, of the women wdio please 
 3^ou, two, or three, or four ; but if ye fear that 
 y,e cannot act equitably to so many, take one 
 only, or the slaves whom ye have acquired." 
 In the opening words of the Sura from which 
 tliis law is taken, there is, indeed, some slight 
 indication of a leaning towards monogamy. "O 
 men, fear the Lord, who hath created you out 
 
 ^ riiilippsohn (^Develop, of Religious Idea, p. 177) 
 traces Mohammed's predestinarian belief to Sabeanism. 
 
Its Polygamy, 55 
 
 of one man, and out of him created his wife, 
 and from them two hath multipHed many men 
 and women ; and fear God, by whom ye beseech 
 one another ; and respect women ^ who have 
 borne you, for God is watching over you." 
 Mohammedans, then, are, by the law of their 
 prophet, allowed to possess four wives at the 
 
 ' same time.^ 
 
 ^ The defence of polygamy has been undertaken 
 from various points of view, and with varying 
 degrees of insight and of earnestness. But one 
 cannot detect much progress among its de- 
 fenders. F. W. Newman has nothing to say in 
 its favour which had not previously been sug- 
 gested by Voltaire ; nothing, we may say, which 
 does not occur to any one who wishes to present 
 the argument for a plurality of wives. ' It is 
 somewhat late in the day to be called upon to 
 argue for monogamy as abstractly right. Spe- 
 culators like Aristotle,^ who have viewed the 
 subject both as statesmen having a regard to 
 what is practicable and will conduce to social 
 prosperit}^ and as philosophers reasoning from 
 
 ^ Lit. " the wombs." 
 
 2 '' Notwithstanding what Sale and some other learned 
 men have asserted on this subject, the Muslim law cer- 
 tainly does not limit the number of concubine-slaves whom 
 a man may have, whether in addition to, or without, a wife 
 or wives."— Lane's llfod. Egyptians^ i. 123 ; cf. Sale's 
 Ko7-an, Introd. sec. vi. 
 
 3 Arist. Econ. i. 2, 8. 
 
56 ]\loJiainintdanisnu 
 
 first principles, have long ago demanded for 
 their ideal society not only monogamy, but also 
 that mutual respect and love, and that strict 
 purity and modesty, w^hich polygamy kills. Let 
 us say briefly that the only ground conscience 
 recognises as warranting two persons to become 
 one in flesh is, that they be first of all one in 
 spirit. That absolute surrender of the person 
 which constitutes marriage is justified only by 
 the circumstance that it is a surrender of the 
 heart as well, and that it is mutual. To an 
 ideal love polygamy is abhorrent and impossible. 
 As Mohammed himself, in another connection, 
 and with more than his usual profundity, said, 
 " God has not put two hearts in you." This is 
 the grand law imbedded in our nature, and by 
 which it is secured that the children born into 
 the world be the fruit of the devoted surrender 
 of one human spirit to another ; by which — in 
 other words — it is secured that love, the root 
 principle of all human virtue and duty, be trans- 
 mitted to the child and born in it. This is the 
 bentificent law expressed in monogamy, and this 
 law is traversed and robbed of its effects pre- 
 cisely in so far as even monogamous marriages 
 are prompted by fleshly or worldly rather than 
 by spiritual motives. The utilitarian argument 
 Mr. Lecky^ has summed up in three sentences : 
 ^ Hist, of Eur op. iMo?'als, ii. 295. 
 
Apologies for Polygamy. 5 7 
 
 " Nature, by making the number of males and 
 females nearly equal, indicates it as natural. 
 In no other form of marriage can the govern- 
 ment of the family, which is one of the chief 
 ends of marriage, be so happily sustained ; ^ 
 and in no other does woman assume the position 
 of the equal of man." 
 
 But we have here to do only with Mohamme- 
 dan apologists, and their reasonings are some- 
 what perplexing ; for they first maintain that 
 nature intended us to be polygamists,^ and then 
 secondly declare that "the greatest and m.ost 
 reprehensible mistake committed by Christian 
 writers is to suppose that Mohammed either 
 adopted or legalised polygamy." Probably the 
 most that can be said for Mohammed in regard 
 to this matter is that he restricted polygamy, 
 and that its abolition was impossible and un- 
 suitable to the population he had to do with. 
 
 The allegation, however, that Mohammed 
 confined polygamiy within narrower limits than 
 
 ' That Mohammedans are not unconscious of the dis- 
 advantage of polygamy, is shown by the Turkish proverb : 
 
 Duo asini, una Carawana : 
 Du^ uxores, unum forum. 
 
 As Pfeiffer (p. 424) explains it, *' Duo asini tantum creant 
 molestije quantum totus comitatus : et ubi duas mulieres, 
 ibi ob lites perpetuum est forum." 
 
 2 Syed Ahmed's Essay, p. 8 ; and Syed Ameer Ah's 
 Crit. Eiam., p. 226. 
 
58 MoJiammedanism. 
 
 the Arabs bad previously recognised, tboiigb 
 true, is immaterial. For, in the first place, he 
 restricted polygamy indeed in others, but not in 
 his own case ; and thus left upon the minds of 
 his followers the inevitable impression that an 
 unrestricted pol3^gamy was the higher state of 
 the two. In the second place, while he re- 
 stricted the number of lawful wives, he did not 
 restrict the number of slave-concubines. In 
 the third place, his restriction was practically 
 of little value, because very few men could 
 afford to keep more than four wives. And, 
 lastly, as to the principle, he left it precisely 
 where it was, for as Mr. Freeman justly ob- 
 serves : " This is one of the cases in which the 
 first step is everything. The difference between 
 one wife and two is everything ; that between 
 four and five thousand is comparatively 
 nothing." ^ 
 
 And if the principle be defended as at least 
 relatively good, nothing is to be urged against 
 this as matter of fact ; although the circum- 
 stance has been overlooked, that already very 
 many thousands of Christian Arabs had found 
 it quite possible to live in monogamy. But that 
 polygamy is not incompatible with a sound, if 
 not perfectly developed, morality, and with the 
 highest tone of feeling, no one who has read 
 
 ^ Lectures, p, 69. 
 
Law of Divorce. 59 
 
 the history of Israel will be disposed to deny. 
 That it may suit a race in a certain stage of its 
 development, and may in that stage lead to 
 purer living and surer moral growth than its 
 prohibition would, may be granted. But neces- 
 sarily the religion which incorporates in its code 
 of morals such allowances, stamps itself as 
 something short of the final religion. 
 
 But the allowance of polygamy is by no 
 means so destructive of social progress as the 
 facility of divorce allowed by Mohammedan law. 
 Syed Ameer Ali informs us that in India 
 " ninety-five Moslems out of every hundred 
 are perfect monogamists;" that "plurality of 
 wives has come to be regarded as an evil, and 
 as something opposed to the teaching of the 
 Prophet ; " ' but the principle of monogamy re- 
 quires, not only that a man should have but 
 one wife at a time, but that marriage be indis- 
 soluble save by death or infidelity. It is nothing 
 to the purpose to aver that such and such a pro- 
 portion of Mohammedans have actually only one 
 wife, if their law allows them to change that 
 wife as often as they please ; and if, in point of 
 fact, they largely avail themselves of that liberty. 
 Lane tells us that polygamy is exceptional in 
 Egypt, but he adds that "there are certainly 
 not many persons in Cairo who have not di- 
 Syed All's Crit. Exam. pp. 227 and 246. 
 
6o MoJiainmcdanism. 
 
 vorced one wife if they have been long mar- 
 ried," and that there are many who in the course 
 of ten years have married as many as twenty, 
 thirty, or more wives." ' No doubt this is not 
 considered respectable, and no honourable man 
 would so indulge his caprice ; but, unfortunately, 
 the law is made, not for the honourable, but for 
 the dishonourable, and the law allows divorce on 
 the easiest of terms. It is a principle of Mo- 
 hammedan law that " a husband may divorce 
 "^ his wife without any misbehaviour on her part, 
 or without assigning any cause." ^ The hus- 
 band has only to say, " I divorce thee," or 
 *' thou art divorced ; " ^ and without any legal 
 procedure or appearance in a court of law, the 
 w^ife is no longer a wife ; whereas the woman 
 can only divorce her husband before. a court of 
 law, and by proving ill-treatment or other 
 reasonable ground. 
 
 Mohammed himself probably intended to im- 
 prove the position of women. Possibly, like 
 Milton, he doubted not " but with one gentle 
 stroking to wipe away ten thousand tears out 
 
 1 Lane's Modern Ei^ypf. i. 227, 231. Burckhardt 
 {Notes on Bedouins^ i. no) says : " Most Arabs are con- 
 tented with a sin<,de wife, but for this monogamy they 
 make amends by indulging in variety." 
 
 2 T ago re Law Lectures for 1873, p. 389. 
 
 3 Or any one of twenty other expressions which may be 
 found in the Hidaya, or in the Tagore Law Lectures. 
 
Law of Divorce. 6i 
 
 of the life of man." There is no reason to dis- 
 believe the traditions which represent him as 
 expressing indignation at men who dismissed 
 their wives for slight offences. He himself, 
 although on one occasion he might almost have 
 been expected to use his legal right of divorce, 
 did not do so. And there is a look of genuine- 
 ness about the saying attributed to him : " God 
 has not created anything on earth Avhich He 
 likes better than the emancipating of slaves, 
 nor has He created anything which He dislikes 
 more than divorce." ^ And in accordance with 
 this feeling he did lay on the license of his fol- 
 lowers certain restrictions, which have, how- 
 ever, proved altogether insufficient to make the 
 law anything else than a mere abomination. 
 The first restriction was to the effect that 
 divorce was revocable until it had been pro- 
 nounced three times. " Three successive de- 
 clarations at a month's interval \\ere necessary 
 
 T Quoted from the Mishkat by Syed Ali, p. 239. Syed 
 Ahmed (p. 14 of Essay on question whether Islam has 
 been beneficial) says : " Our Prophet constantly pointed 
 out to his followers how opposed divorce was to the best 
 interests of society ; he always expatiated on the evils 
 which flowed from it, and ever exhorted his disciples to 
 treat women with respect and kindness, and to bear pa- 
 tiently their violence and ill-temper ; and he always spoke 
 of those who availed themselves of divorce in a severe 
 and disparaging manner." 
 
62 ■ AloJianinicdanisJii. 
 
 in order to niake it irrevocable." ^ This was 
 intended to protect women, not to say the hus- 
 bands themselves, against the consequences of 
 an ill-considered, passionate utterance of the 
 fatal words. But it is notorious that all the 
 benefit of this restriction is cancelled by Moham- 
 medan law, which considers that the treble 
 divorce uttered in one breath is as irrevocable 
 as when it is uttered at three distinct times.* 
 The second feature of the law of divorce which 
 is claimed by Mohammedan apologists as a re- 
 striction, is the provision that when a woman 
 has been irrevocably divorced she cannot ever 
 be taken back by her husband, unless in the 
 meantime she has been married to another man. 
 The Mosaic law pronounced this to be *' abomi- 
 nation before the Lord." ^ And it is possible 
 that Mohammed, knowing how abhorrent it is 
 to the Oriental that his wife be even seen by 
 another man, considered that by issuing this 
 enactment he was availing himself of the 
 strongest possible deterrent from divorce. If 
 so, he miscalculated the effect of his law, which 
 has in point of fact degraded Moslem women to 
 a deplorable extent.*^ The third restriction is 
 
 ^ Scdillot, quoted by Syed Ali ; see also Mill's His- 
 tory of MuJianinicdanisiii^ p. 341. 
 
 2 See the Hidayah or Tagorc Laiv Lectures as above. 
 
 3 Deut. xxiv. 24. 
 
 4 See Lane's Modern E^pt* i. 230 ; and the Arabic 
 
Indissolitbility of Marriage. ^^ 
 
 the provision that when a husband divorces his 
 wife he shall pay her dowr}^ And this is said 
 to exercise some restraint upon the Turks, for 
 though the minimum dowry recognised by law 
 is only ten dirhems, or a few shillings, it is 
 in some instances very large. ^ 
 
 The law of our religion and of our land takes 
 the highest possible ground in the matter of 
 marriage. It proceeds upon the understanding 
 that the indissoluble quality of marriage is that 
 which best guarantees a perception of its re- 
 sponsibilities, and a calm and well-considered 
 acceptance of them. It proceeds upon the 
 principle that prevention is better than cure, 
 and that it is a w^iser and safer policy to beget 
 within the minds of men a strong sense of the 
 irrevocable nature of the act than to encourage 
 them to inconsiderate recklessness by the pro- 
 spect of an easy divorce. It quite understands 
 that there are many unhappy marriages; it does 
 not shut its eves to the scandals that from time 
 to time occupy public attention ; it does not 
 
 proverb, " A thousand lovers rather than one Mostahel ; " 
 on which Burckhardt's brief note {Proverbs, p. 25; is a 
 caution to all apologists for this ill-advised law. 
 
 I Mill {History of iMithaniniedanistn, p. 469) speaks 
 as if this had considerable practical results : but Hughes 
 {Notes on Muhanimadanisi}i^ p. 122) says: "The diffi- 
 culty of restoring the dowry is avoided by compelling the 
 poor woman, through harsh treatment, to sue for a divorce 
 herself, as in this case she can claim nothing." 
 
64 Mohaminedanism. 
 
 ignore the voluntary separations, the quarrels, 
 the murders,^ which prove that so long as those 
 who enter into marriage are imperfect, mar- 
 riage itself will not always be satisfactory ; but 
 it assumes that however great are the evils of 
 indissolubility, the evils of facile divorce would 
 be greater still. All that can be pleaded in 
 favour of a relaxation of our marriage laws has 
 been put most pathetically and in his unap- 
 proachable language by Milton ; but it is some- 
 what unfair of Mohammedan apologists to 
 appeal to him as if he were an advocate of any- 
 thing like the facile divorce of their own law. 
 Such a system as their law upholds has always 
 been the accompaniment either of an unde- 
 ■j veloped or of a decaying stage in a people's 
 history. The evils it wrought in imperial Rome, 
 when, according to Seneca, women reckoned 
 their years rather by their husbands than by 
 the consuls,^ are well known. " We find," savs 
 Mr. Lecky, " Cicero repudiating his wife 
 Terentia, because he desired a new dowry ; 
 
 ' Sec the terrible paragraph in Legouvd's Histoire des 
 Fevuncs^ p. 232 : " Qui cree parmi le peuple tant de 
 bigamies de fait ? L'indissolubilite. Qui fait que trois 
 ouvriers sur huit ont deuJv menages ? L'indissokibilitc,"' 
 
 2 "When Michaud asked an aged Egyptian whether he 
 remembered the campaign of Napoleon, he answered that 
 he had his seventeenth wife at that time." — Arnold's 
 Ishun^ p. 21 1. \ 
 
Depreciation of Women. 65 
 
 Augustus compelling the husband of Livia to 
 repudiate her that he might marry her himself; 
 Cato ceding his wife, with the consent of her 
 father, to his friend Hortensius, and resuming 
 her after his death ; Maecenas continually 
 changing his wife ; Sempronius Sophus re- 
 pudiating his wife, because she had once been 
 to the public games without his knowledge ; 
 Paulus ^milius taking the same step without 
 assigning any reason, and defending himself 
 by saying, ' My shoes are new and well- 
 made, but no one knows where they pinch 
 me.'"^ 
 
 Manifestly, however, the position of Mo- 
 hammedan women is the result of instincts or 
 principles lying far deeper than the opinion or 
 religion of Mohammed. It is the result of the 
 Semitic idea of woman, that she is a "vessel,"^ 
 a mere utensil for man's service.- Accordingly, 
 after all that has been written both in condem- 
 nation and defence of this law, no utterance 
 seems to go so directly to the root of the whole 
 matter as the judgment pronounced by the 
 thoroughly informed and impartial Lane.^ 
 " The laws," he says, " relating to marriage and 
 the license of polygamy, the facility of divorce 
 allowed by the Koran, and the permission of 
 
 ^ Lecky's European Morals, ii. 324. 
 2 Cf. Fairbairn's Studies, p. 279. 3 Mod. Egyp. \. 121. 
 
 6 
 
 ^ 
 
66 JMoJiaminedanism. 
 
 concubinage, are essentially the natural and 
 necessary consequences of the main principle 
 of the constitution of Moslem society — the re- 
 striction of the intercourse of the sexes before 
 marriage. Few men would marry if he who 
 was disappointed in a wife whom he had never 
 seen before were not allowed to take another ; 
 and in the case of a man's doing this, his own 
 happiness, or that of the former wife, or the 
 happiness of both these parties, may require 
 his either retaining this wife or divorcing 
 her." 
 
 Mohammed himself was a man of a com- 
 passionate and humane disposition, and there 
 can, I think, be no doubt that he intended 
 to ameliorate the condition of slaves. Had he 
 conceived the idea of emancipating them, he 
 would probably have found it an idea impossible 
 to execute ; and in declaring all Moslems 
 brethren, he took the surest means in his power 
 of eventually accomplishing this end, and in the 
 meantime of securing their good treatment. 
 His parting admonitions to his followers on 
 this subject are too important to be omitted. 
 " Your slaves ! " he says, " see that ye feed them 
 with such food as ye eat yourselves ; and clothe 
 them with the stuff ye wear ; and if they com- 
 mit a fault which ye are not inclined to forgive, 
 then sell them, for they are the servants of the 
 
Slavery. 67 
 
 Lord, and are not to be tormented. Ye people ! 
 hearken to my speech, and comprehend the 
 same ; know that every Moslem is the brother 
 of every other Moslem ; all of you are op the 
 same equality ; ye are one brotherhood." ^ And 
 it must be owned that, at least in certain coun- 
 tries, the doctrine of human equality thus pro- 
 claimed has received practical exemplifications 
 which are sadly wanting in the parallel region 
 of Christian practice. The Caliph Omar, leading 
 his camel while his slave rides ; the prophet's 
 daughter Fatimah, taking her turn at the mill 
 with her own slaves ; these are but specimens 
 of the scrupulous observance in general paid 
 by Moslems to the injunctions of their prophet. 
 Unfortunately, whatever kindly intention Mo- 
 hammed had towards the slave, and whatever 
 beneficial results might have been wrought by 
 his bold proclamation of the equality of all be- 
 lievers, have been frustrated by the Koran's 
 sanction of concubinage. There is no dis- 
 guising the fact that it is this allowance which 
 maintains the slave-trade with all its well- 
 known abominations and horrors. It is this 
 system, distinctly sanctioned in the Koran, and 
 practised by Mohammed himself, which is re- 
 sponsible for the degradation and misery which 
 become the life-long lot of the wretched girls 
 
 I Muir, iv. 239. 
 6 ^^ 
 
68 Moha^nme danism. 
 
 who survive the terrible transit down the Nile 
 under the tender mercies of the brutal Gellabs/ 
 Enlightened Mohammedans ^ themselves are 
 humiliated by the pollutions and misery attach- 
 ing to this system. They say in so many words 
 that it is ** to the lasting disgrace of the majority 
 of the followers of Mohammed," that ** slavery 
 has been allowed to flourish by purchase and 
 other means," ^ and that the day is come for the 
 Moslems to show " the falseness of the as- 
 persions cast on the memory of the great and 
 noble prophet, by proclaiming in explicit terms 
 that slavery is reprobated by their Faith, and 
 discountenanced by their Code." But while we 
 honour the desire of these men to cleanse their 
 religion of so black a stain, how are they to 
 stir a single Moham.medan community to abolish 
 an indulgence to which their *^ great and noble 
 prophet " showed them the way, and which is 
 regulated for in the Koran ? Slavery can only 
 be abolished when concubinage is abolished ; 
 and when concubinage is abolished, the whole 
 '^character of Islam, and especially its attitude 
 to its prophet and its sacred book, must be 
 altered. 
 
 I Lane's Mod. Egyp. i. 236. 
 « Syed Ahmed, p. 25. 3 Syed Ali, p. 259. 
 
Jj'. 
 
 II. 
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM : 
 ITS SUCCESS AND FAILURE, 
 
" Be joyful, he joyful ; my followers are like rain, of which it is 
 ■unknown whether the frst or last fall zvill be the best ; or like a 
 garden from which a multitude has been fed one year, and then 
 another the next year, and perhaps the last is more mnncrous than 
 the first, and better." — Mohammed. 
 
II, 
 
 BEFORE the appearance of Mohammed, the 
 highest and the lowest forms of religion 
 existed side by side among the tribes of Arabia.^ 
 The original faith appears to have been the 
 simple monotheism of Abraham. But a creed 
 which had no elaborate symbolism, no ritual but 
 that which inculcated prayer at sunrise, noon, 
 and sunset, proved too spiritual for the wild 
 and impressible Arabians. Praying at sunrise 
 quickly became praying to sunrise; and the 
 idea of an unseen God who ruled the heavens 
 and guided them in their wanderings, was 
 
 ^ The great authority for the Pre-islamic condition of 
 Arabia is still Pocock's " libellus incomparabihs," entitled, 
 Specimen HistoricE ArabiDii. Oxon. 1650. (Notes dated 
 1648) ; of which Gibbon justly says, " Consult, peruse, and 
 study the Specimen. The 358 notes [pages of notes ?] form 
 a classic and original work on the Arabian antiquities." 
 Pocock makes it his business to explain " quales invenerit 
 Arabes suos Mohammedes, et quales reliquerit." Ras- 
 mussen's Historia Arab 11 m auie hlamisnuim and his 
 Additamenta are also works of original research, and are 
 well worth consulting. 
 
7 2 Alohammeda ?i ism, 
 
 obscured by their dependence on the motions 
 of the planets for all their prognostications and 
 reckonings. What their own life and habits 
 chiefly impressed upon them was that every- 
 thing depended on these inaccessible heavenly 
 fbodies ; and so their worship gradually was 
 \directed to Sabaoth, the host of heaven, and 
 ikhey received the name of Sabians.^ But at 
 a later period, when Neo-Platonism was adopt- 
 ing and adapting every form of worship, it 
 nowhere found a more promising field than in 
 this worship of the heavens. For it was the 
 favourite idea of this school, an idea counte- 
 nanced by their Master, that the abyss existing 
 between God and His creatures was bridged by 
 intermediary gods. These intermediate gods 
 were supposed to animate or have their resi- 
 dence in, or at least to make themselves visible 
 and influential through, the planets. The 
 planets therefore must be carefully observed ; 
 their risings, settings, conjunctions, and in- 
 fluences noted, and all human actions regulated 
 in conformity with these. If Saturn be in the 
 
 ' "Notum est Abrahamum patrem nostrum educatum 
 esse in fide Zabaeomm, qui statuerunt nullum esse deuni 
 pra^ter Stellas" Maimonides, quoted in Wright's Christi- 
 anity in Arabia^ p. 27). The traditions regarding Abra- 
 ham are given by Caussin de Perceval, i. 161 ; who also 
 (i. 349) names the different planets worshipped by the 
 various tribes. 
 
P re-Islamic Woi^ship. ^2) 
 
 ascendant, then it is advisable to select at that 
 time such dresses, seals, amulets, incantations, 
 and prayers as may be supposed pleasing to 
 this planetary god. Another step in the down- 
 ward process was taken, when permanent and 
 stationary representations of these gods were 
 felt to be superior to the planets themselves, 
 which were sometimes out of sight when their 
 help was required. Images were therefore 
 formed, and worship was offered to them rather 
 than to the stars they represented.^ 
 
 It will thus be understood how a vague 
 belief in a supreme God continued to underlie 
 the profuse idolatry of the Arabian tribes. " I 
 dedicate myself to Thy service, O God ! I 
 dedicate myself to Thy service, O God ! Thou 
 hast no companion, except him of whom Thou 
 art absolute Master, and of whatever is his." 
 This seems an explicit enough confession of 
 monotheism. Yet in practice great deference 
 was shown to these companions of God, 
 though their powers were but delegated. Thus, 
 if on offering their first-fruits some wdiich bC' 
 longed to God fell over to the idol's portion, 
 they made no restitution. If while irrigating 
 the idol's ground, the water ran over to God's 
 land, they dammed it up ; while if it ran from 
 
 ^ Voqqq}^, Specimen^ 12,'^et seq. : — An admirable account 
 is given of Zabisin in Chamber's Encyclopccdia. 
 
74 MoJiammedanism. 
 
 God's to the idol's, they did not interfere, con- 
 ceiving that the Supreme was more placable 
 than the inferior ; and transferring, as Freeman 
 remarks, their knowledge of earthly courts to 
 that of heaven.' In the Kaabah itself, or con- 
 spicuous in its sacred enclosures, were no fewer 
 than 360 idols, one for each day in the lunar 
 year of Arabia. Chief among these was Hobal, 
 the huge image of red agate, revered as the 
 giver of rain, and holding in his hand the point- 
 less and featherless arrows of divination. Here 
 also — crowning proof of the comprehensiveness 
 of the early religion — was, perhaps, or a painting 
 of the Madonna and child. ^ But the idols 
 against which the Koran inveighs, were the 
 supposed antediluvian relics — Wadd, in the 
 form of a man ; Sawa, represented as a woman ; 
 Yaghuth, worshipped in the shape of a lion ; 
 Yaiik, who was known under the figure of a 
 horse ; and Nasr, under that of an eagle. Still 
 more firmly rooted in the affections of the 
 people, and more obnoxious to Mohammed, 
 were the three goddesses Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and 
 
 ^ See Sale's Intfoditction, and P^reeinan's Lectures, 
 p. 30 
 
 2 Possibly writers have too easily assumed that the 
 mother and child represented the Virgin and our Lord. In 
 India, Devaki and Crishna are so represented ; in Egypt, 
 Isis and Horus ; and in Greece, Venus and Cupid. See 
 Rawlinson's Herod, ii. p. 539. 
 
Arabian Idolatiy, 75 
 
 Manah.^ " What think ye," he says, " of Al- 
 Lat, and Al-Uzza, and Manah, that other third 
 goddess? Have ye male children and God 
 female ? This is an unjust partition. They 
 are no other than empty names, which ye and 
 your fathers have named goddesses." ^ Or as 
 another Sura more fully explains his meaning i^ 
 "They attribute daughters unto God ; but unto 
 themselves children of the sex they desire. 
 When any of them is told that a female child 
 is born to him, his face grows black, and he is 
 deeply grieved ; he hideth himself from the 
 people, because of the ill tidings which have 
 been told him ; considering within himself 
 whether he shall keep it with disgrace, or 
 whether he shall bury it in the dust." Beneath 
 this worship of stars, of the images of inter- 
 mediate gods or illustrious ancestors, lay the 
 deeper depth of Fetishism. As the straw is 
 clutched by the drowning man, so, to those 
 who had nothing else to trust in, a tree, or 
 a stone, or even a lump of dough, was enough 
 to admit of the expression of confidence. And 
 it might be difficult to determine whether, when 
 the Hanifites in time of famine ate their god, 
 the ridicule of their enemies was excited more 
 
 ^ See Wilkinson's note on Alilat in Rawlinson's Herod. 
 iii. 8. And for the sites of the temples of these goddesses, 
 Caussin de Percival's Histoire dcs Arabes^ i. 269. 
 
 2 Sura liii. 3 Sura xvi. 
 
76 MoJLammeda7iism, 
 
 by triumph over their helplessness or in satire 
 of their superstition.^ 
 
 As their notions of the divine government 
 were confused and various, so also were their 
 ideas of the future state. Some believed in an 
 eternal order of nature, which admitted of no 
 act of creation and of no final, designed con- 
 summation in which all beings who had con- 
 sciously contributed to it would play a part. 
 Some admitted a creative beginning of things, 
 but could not believe in any final restoration. 
 Some accepted both,^ and in pursuance of their 
 belief in a state after death tied a camel to the 
 grave, that when the dead man rose he might 
 TxOt be exposed to the ignominy of walking on 
 his own feet to the judgment-bar. Others again 
 believed in metempsychosis, and adopted the 
 curious semi-materialistic notion that out of the 
 blood gathered about the brain of the dead, 
 there was formed a bird, which they called 
 Hamah, and which visited the sepulchre once 
 in a hundred years.^ If the dead man had 
 
 '^ Comederunt Hanifitse dominum suum ob famcm 
 antiquam et inopiam." The saying of a Tamamitc re- 
 ported by Rasmusscn, Additainentn^ p. 76. 
 
 2 Mosheim is of opinion that their ideas of immortality 
 were derived from Jewish or Christian sources, but this 
 seems very doubtful. See Mosheim's Diss, ad Hist. Eccl. 
 ii. 648. 
 
 3 Pocock, pp. 134, 5. 
 
Pre-Islamic Barbarism. ^ ']'] 
 
 been murdered, his spirit having transmigrated 
 into this bird, it hovered over his grave, crying, 
 Oscuni, oscuni ! (give me drink, give me drink !) 
 until the blood of the murderer was shed to 
 satiate it. 
 
 In conjunction with such idolatries and super- 
 stitions, one expects to find a very imperfect 
 civilisation, and some habits and customs which 
 may be termed barbarous. '' An infinity of tribes, 
 some settled, but the greater number nomadic, 
 without community of interests or a common 
 centre, ordinarily at war with one another — 
 such," says one of our best authorities,^ " was 
 Arabia in the time of Mohammed." Tribal wars, 
 family feuds, and marauding expeditions were 
 so much the normal state of things, that it was 
 only by agreeing to suspend hostilities during 
 certain months of the year that the necessary 
 pursuits could be followed with safety. The 
 state of society must have resembled that of 
 the ancient Germans, of whom Tacitus says, 
 " pigrum et iners videtur sudore acquirere quod 
 possis sanguine parare ;" or that significantly 
 hinted at in the suggestive complaint of Wat 
 Tinlinn — 
 
 " They burned my little lonely tower : 
 It had not been burnt this year and more ! " 
 
 Their leisure seems to have been chiefly spent 
 ^ Dozy, Histoi7'e des Mussulmans ^ i. i6. 
 
A 
 
 7 8 Mo ha in me da 71 ism . 
 
 in gambling and drinking. Only a small por- 
 tion in some of the districts, and none at all in 
 others, could read and write/ This inability 
 to read made them prize highly recitations 
 of poetry, whether original or not. These 
 poems were their tribal and family archives, 
 maintaining the memory of heroic deeds, and of 
 ancient friendships and feuds. They were of 
 course numerous ; so much so, that some 
 centuries after Mohammed, Hammad the nar- 
 rator undertook to repeat one hundred pre- 
 Mohammedan poems for every letter of the 
 alphabet, and wore out the patience of his 
 hearers before exhausting his stock. ^ 
 
 The ugliest features, however, of the times 
 of ignorance, were the marriage laws and the 
 custom of burying female children alive. It 
 was customary for the son to inherit the father's 
 wives along with his other property. Female 
 infants have never been much in repute in 
 barbarous countries. To this day the Breton 
 farmer, to whom a daughter is born, says, " My 
 wife has had a miscarriage." ^ In Sparta, of 
 ten exposed children, seven were female. The 
 Hebrew law reckoned a woman ceremonially 
 
 * Pocock's authorities (pp. 156, 7) imply even greater 
 ignorance. 
 
 2 Wright's Early Christianity in Arabia, p. 6. 
 
 3 Lerouvd, Hist, des Fenuncs, pp. 13-17. 
 
Exposure of Female Children. 79 
 
 unclean if she gave birth to a son, but doubly 
 so if she gave birth to a daughter. But while 
 those countries are the exceptions in which the , 
 custom of exposing children has not at some 
 time being practised, it was practised in Arabia 
 in a more than usually cold-blooded manner. 
 Sometimes, indeed, the child was made away 
 with as soon as born, but often she was allowed 
 to attain her sixth year, and then, when she 
 might be supposed to have wound herself 
 inextricably round the affections of her parents, 
 her father would one day say to his wife, " Per- 
 fume and adorn her, that I may take her away 
 to her mothers." This being done, he would 
 lead her to a pit he had prepared, bid her look 
 into it, and, standing behind her, would push 
 her in, and immediately fill it in level with the 
 ground.^ Som.e idea of the extent to which 
 this was practised may be formed from the fact" 
 that one man had saved from this horrible 
 inhumation no fewer than 280 girls. ^ 
 
 But Judaism and Christianity were also 
 largely, if not very purely, represented in Arabia r 
 before the time of Mohammed. Even before 
 the Christian era, the Jews had firmly estab- 
 lished themselves in Arabia. And it is probable 
 
 1 Pocock, p. 336. 
 
 2 Rasmussen's Additanienta ad Hist. Arabuni ante 
 Islam, p. 67. 
 
So Mohammeda7iism. 
 
 that their colonies already thriving in that 
 mercantile country would offer considerable 
 attractions to those who were forced to flee 
 from their own land during and after the Ro- 
 man invasion. Several of the tribes, notably 
 those of Kendah and Kenanah, of Al Hareth Ibn 
 Caab, and the powerful tribe of Hamyarites, 
 professed the Jewish religion.' At one time 
 they could raise an army of 120,000 men,"* 
 which, thanks to the unity maintained by their 
 creed, was probably a larger army than any 
 other community of Arabia could have brought 
 into the field. " Centuries before Mohammed, 
 Kheibar, five days from Medina, and Yemen in 
 South Arabia, were in the hands of the Jews." ^ 
 In Medina itself there was a large Jewish 
 population, said to be descended from those 
 who fled from Nebuchadnezzar, and their in- 
 fluence is clearly understood when we see the 
 pains which the prophet took at the outset of 
 his mission to conciliate them, and the difficul- 
 ties he found in subduing them. In the rites 
 of Islam — in circumcision, fasting, pilgrimage, 
 the Kibleh in prayer — the family connection 
 
 ' " Judaismo addicti erant Himyaritce, Cananitas, Gens 
 Haretsi, filii Cabi, atque Cenditac." — Rasmusscn, Addita- 
 7neHta, p. 76. Pocock, Specimen, p. 136. 
 
 2 Milman's History of the Jeivs^ iii. p. 88. 
 
 3 Deutsch's Islain^ p. 90, and for details see Wright's 
 Christianity in Arabia, p. 23. 
 
CJiristianity hi Ai'-abia. 8r^ 
 
 between the sons of Ishmael and the Beni- 
 Israel is discernible. And the popularity of the 
 Jewish Haggadah and Halachah is witnessed in 
 every legend of Islam and in every Sura of the 
 • Koran. ^ 
 
 As the Judaism prevalent in Arabia was rather 
 of the Rabbinic than the pure Old Testament 
 type, so the Christianity with which the tribes 
 were acquainted was meagre, degenerate, apo- 
 cryphal. It found some acceptance in the tribes 
 of Rabia and Gassan, and a few bishoprics were 
 established in friendly districts.^ It is difficult, 
 however, to estimate the value of this Chris- 
 tianity, or to determine whether it w^ould have 
 been a greater boon to Arabia than Mohammed- 
 anism. On the one hand we have the fact that 
 at Nadjran about 20,000 Christians preferred a _ 
 horrible death rather than abjuration of their 
 religion. On the other hand we have the no- 
 toriously superficial character of the Arabs, 
 coupled with the saying of Ali, regarding the 
 tribe in which Christianity had found its heartiest 
 welcome, "The Taghlib," he said, ''are not 
 Christians ; they have borrowed from Chris- 
 tianity only the custom of drinking wine."^ It 
 
 ^ Deutsch's Isla?n, p. 90, See also Rod well's Koran, 
 passim. 
 
 2 See Caussin de Perceval's Histoirc, \. 348 ; and Pocock, 
 p. 136. 3 Dozy's Histoirc, i. 20. 
 
 7 
 
8 2 Mohammedanism, 
 
 IS not likely that a religion so uncongenial to 
 the Arab character would have made much more 
 way than it had done in previous centuries. 
 And although we find the Christian King Abra- 
 hah leading 60,000 men in a crusade against 
 Mecca, we cannot conclude that these were 
 all Christians. We know, indeed, that they 
 were not. The only inferences we can safely 
 draw are that at this date — the year of Mo- 
 hammed's birth and of the destruction of Abra- 
 hah's army — Christianity was an important 
 factor in Arabian society, and that had this 
 vj crusade been successful, it might have become 
 the dominant religion.^ 
 
 But it was not only Christianity that failed to 
 gain any firm anchorage in the Arab character, 
 their ancestral religions were held with little 
 greater tenacity. They were radically irreligious, 
 capable of adhering to forms of worship even 
 while reverence was entirely avvanting. The 
 story of Amrolcais is typical and significant. 
 Setting out to avenge his father's murder, he 
 entered the temple of the idol Dhou-'l-Kholosa 
 to consult the oracle by means of the usual 
 three arrows, inscribed respectively, Permission, 
 Prohibition, Delay. Having drawn Prohibition, 
 he tried again. But three times over he drew 
 
 ^ Sec Wright's Christianity in Arabia; Gagnier's Vie 
 de MaJionict, i. 70-75. Freeman's Lectures, p. 34. 
 
Sttpcrficiality of Arab Religion. 8 
 
 the same arrow, forbidding his enterprise. 
 Breaking the arrows, and hurHng the fragments 
 at the idol's head, he cried, " Wretch ! had it 
 been thy father who had been killed, you would 
 not have prohibited revenge." ^ It was certainly 
 no hopeful task which Mohammed undertook 
 when he proposed by the influence of religion 
 to combine into one nation tribes so incapable 
 of being deeply influenced by any religion,^ and 
 so irreconcilably opposed to one another ; to 
 abolish customs which had the sanction of im- 
 memorial usage ; and to root out an idolatry, 
 which, if it had no profound hold upon the 
 spiritual nature, was at least bound up with old 
 family traditions and well-understood tribal in- 
 terests. 
 
 But if the difficulties of the task were suffi- 
 ciently apparent, there were also circumstances 
 which made it at least possible. Chief among 
 these was the existence of a small number of 
 persons among whom a spirit of religious in- 
 quiry was cultivated. Not only had there been 
 from time to time men of devout feeling and 
 high moral tone, such as Hinzilah, Khalid, 
 Asad Ibn Karb, and Abdolmottaleb himself,^ 
 
 ^ Dozy, i. 22. 
 
 2 " II lui fallait transformer, metamorphoser, une nation 
 sensuelle, sceptique et railleuse." — Dozy, i. 24. 
 
 3 See the account of his Abrahamic surrender of his best 
 loved son, in Caussin de Perceval, i. 264. 
 
84 Mohaminedanisni. 
 
 all of whom had attempted reforms with more 
 or less success ; but there were also men known 
 as Hanyfs, or Puritans/ who distinctly re- 
 nounced the idolatrous practices of their country- 
 men, and set themselves to seek the pure 
 religion of Abraham. 
 
 It is related of four of these Hanyfs, that 
 during one of the religious festivals of Mecca, 
 they held aloof and conversed with one another 
 in some such term.s as these: " Our tribesmen 
 are in error : they have destroyed religion. Are 
 we to encompass a stone which neither hears 
 nor sees, and which neither hurts nor helps us ? 
 Let us seek a better faith." Whereupon they 
 abandoned their homes and journeyed in foreign 
 lands, seeking the Hanyfite faith, that is, the 
 religion of Abraham.^ These four men were 
 Waraka, Othman, Obaydallah, and Zaid. Of 
 these, the first two were cousins of Khadijah, 
 Mohammed's first wife, and in frequent inter- 
 course with him ; the third was his own cousin ; 
 —^ and all three found their way to Christianity. 
 
 1 Pervert, or convert. See Rodwell's Koraji, p. 216. 
 Sprenger (i. 67) says it originally meant one who does 
 not believe in the true religion, but it is used in the Koran 
 of those who abjured the popular religions and became 
 Moslems. Thus Freethinker, Pervert, or Picrist, may 
 all translate the word according to the point of view of the 
 translator. 
 
 2 Sprenger, i. 81, and Caussin de Perceval, i. 321. 
 
Prentrsors of Mohainined. 85 
 
 With Zaid the search for truth was more per- 
 plexed and less satisfactory in its results. Even 
 as an old man he was seen leaning his back 
 against the Kaabah, vehemently repudiating the 
 idolatrous worship going on around him, and 
 yet sadly stretching his hands upwards with the 
 yearning prayer of the baffled yet whole-hearted 
 man : "'0 God, if I knew what form of worship 
 is the most pleasing to Thee, so would I serve 
 Thee ; but I know it not." In all his travels 
 he had found nothing which gave the light he 
 sought ; and, excluded from his town by those 
 who would not have a censor so keen and bold, 
 he lived his remaining days and died on the 
 neighbouring hill Hira ; and doubtless Mo- 
 hammed was essentially right in saying, " I 
 will pray for him : in the Resurrection he too 
 will gather a Church around him." 
 
 Men. such as these could not but vastly 
 quicken and deepen the thoughts of Mohammed. 
 It was to this little body of seekers for the truth 
 he belonged. He called himself a Hanyf, and 
 during the first period of his prophetic office he 
 aimed at nothing else than to restore the reli- 
 gion of Abraham, the Hanyfite creed. ^ So in 
 one of the most important Suras of the Koran 
 
 I "Er nennt sich selbst einen Hanyf, und wiihrend der 
 ersten Periode seines Lehramtes hat er wenig anderes 
 ^ethan als ihre Lehre bestatigt." — Sprenger's Miih. p. 45. 
 
S6 Mohainmcdanisiii. 
 
 he sa3-s : " Abraham, the founder of Hanyfism, 
 wa^ in fact neither Jew nor Christian, but a 
 Hanvf and a MosHm, and not an Idolater." 
 And whether he intended it designedly, or was 
 unconsciously led, it was of immense import- 
 ance that he did hit upon Abraham as the 
 founder of his religion. For amidst all the feuds 
 and enmities, the variances and irreconcilable 
 ideas and practices of Jews, Christians, and 
 idolaters, there. was but this one point in com- 
 mon, their reverence for Abraham. The Jews 
 at first seem to have expected that ]\Iohammed 
 would be little else than a champion of Juda- 
 ism in a slightly modified form. The Han^-fs, 
 and even the idolaters, would gather round a 
 man who merely proclaimed a return to the 
 religion of their fathers. And the Christians, 
 though they might have their fears, would con- 
 gratulate themselves that here at least was a 
 practical religion and not another obscure and 
 misty heresy. And, above all, let us take note 
 that the society in which such men as these 
 Hanyfs could be produced must have been one 
 in which there was some religious stir and pre- 
 paredness for any definite and resolute teaching. 
 But without ^lohammed himself, without 
 that peculiar force and quality which he and no 
 other man brought to these circumstances, 
 Islam would never have existed. The Arabian 
 
0' 
 
 Oj^iginality of AloJianinied, 1^ ^7 
 
 mind was prepared, and the state of the world 
 gave opportunity for a new power to find play {'A 
 in it, but this preparedness and opportunity 
 none but Mohammed knew how to use. When 
 the irresistible Amru visited Omar at Medina, 
 the caliph expressed a wish to see the sword 
 which had slain so many of the enemiies of the 
 faith. Amru drew a short and ordinary scimi- 
 tar, and, perceiving the surprise of the caliph, 
 said, " Alas ! the sword itself, without the arm 
 of the master, is no sharper nor heavier than 
 the sword of Farezdak the poet." And simi- 
 larl}' we may say that without the mind of 
 Mohammed there was no more material for 
 founding a new religion, no state of matters 
 more suggestive of world-wide conquest in that 
 generation than in any other. The strong arm 
 avails little without its suitable weapon, but 
 the weapon is still more vain without the skil- 
 ful and untiring arm. But for the concurrence 
 of circumstances the greatest religious leaders 
 might have died without a follower or a con- 
 vert ; ^ yet circumstances need their great man 
 quite as much as the great man needs favouring 
 circumstances. We must know the man if we 
 would understand his religion and the causes of 
 its success. 
 
 Tradition provides us with ample materials 
 
 ' Jowett's Epistles of Paul, i. 356. 
 
SS MoJiaminedanism. 
 
 for seeing the man as he appeared to his con- 
 temporaries. Thoroughly incongruous with the 
 substantial nature of his work, and the solid 
 place it has in the world's history, are the fan- 
 tastic details indulged in by some of his early 
 biographers ; such as that his bod}^ cast no 
 shadow, that his spittle sweetened salt water, 
 and that he seemed to tower above all those 
 who approached him, a tradition which may 
 have arisen from the magnificent poise of his 
 head. He himself rather encouraged the belief 
 in the "seal of prophecy" — a mark between 
 his shoulders, on which were inscribed the words, 
 " God is alone, without companions." But 
 eliminating what has obviously no foundation, 
 much remains to depict the man as he was. 
 Like some other great men, he was scarcely 
 above the middle height, but of dignified and 
 commanding appearance. An admiring follower 
 says of him, " He was the handsomest and 
 bravest, the brightest-faced and most generous 
 of men." He had the broad chest and firmly- 
 knit limbs of the man of action, the large well- 
 shaped head of the man of thought and capacity, 
 tlie fine, long, arching eyebrows ^ and brilliant 
 
 ^ " Lcs sourcils longs et dclies qui s'approchaicnt mu- 
 tuellement, sans ncanmoins se toucher, et se confondre 
 tout h. fait." — Gagnier, Vie de MaJiomct^ ii. 313, where the 
 fullest description of the prophet's appearance, disposi- 
 
Pei^sonal Appea^^ance of MoJiammed. 89 
 
 black eyes which sometimes betoken genius and 
 always betoken an emotional nature. His mouth 
 was large but well formed, a kindly and elo- 
 quent mouth, with teeth " like hailstones," in 
 Arab phraseology ; that is, we presume, white 
 and glittering, so as to excuse his favourite and 
 almost constant use of a toothpick. The large 
 blood-vessel in his brow filled and darkened and 
 throbbed when he was angry, which, if it proves 
 him to have been of an excitable temperament, 
 illustrates also the self-control which enabled 
 him habitually to command the storm within. 
 It was in public speaking that the fiery and 
 vehement nature of the man was allowed to 
 appear. " In ordinary address, his speech was 
 slow, distinct, and emphatic ; but when he 
 preached, his eye would redden, his voice rise 
 high and loud, and his whole frame become 
 agitated with passion, even as if he were warn- 
 ing the people of an enemy about to fall on 
 them the next morning or that very night." ^ 
 His gait was as expressive as his appearance. 
 His step is described as resembling that of 
 a man descending a hill, and he walked with 
 such extreme rapidity that those who accom- 
 panied him were kept at a half run. This swift 
 
 tion, and habits, is given. The picture given in Deutsch's 
 hlaiJi (pp. 71-73) is one of the finest specimens of his 
 great hterary skill. ' Muir, iv. 316. 
 
90 ]\IoJiainincdanism, 
 
 and .decided walk seems eminently character- 
 istic. It was that of a man who knew where 
 (LJ he was going, and meant that nothing should 
 prevent him being there. 
 
 His manner was that of the perfect Arab gen- 
 tleman, who knows no distinction of ranks, and 
 is as courteous and formally polite to rags as to 
 purple. He was gracious, unassuming, most 
 patient and kindly to his slaves, adored by his 
 followers, captivating to strangers. He was 
 the most accessible of men : to adopt the ex- 
 pressive simile used by his admirers, " open as 
 the river's bank to him that draweth water 
 therefrom." ^ An unusually delicate considera- 
 tion for the feelings and comfort of those about 
 him betrayed itself in his whole manner. He 
 found it almost impossible to say " No " to any 
 petitioner, and he never declined the invitation 
 or small offering even of the meanest of the 
 people. He understood both joy and sorrow, 
 and — conclusive proof of his wide and genuine 
 humanity — had an equally ready sympathy for 
 both. With all reverence we may say, He was 
 among men as he that serveth.^ In the last 
 years of his life, when his strength was failing, 
 his uncle Abbas proposed that he should occupy 
 
 1 Weil, p. 347. Muir, iv. 304. 
 
 2 'Ml scrvait volontiers ccux qui le servaient." — Gagnier, 
 ii. 320- 
 
Character of Mohammed. 9 1 
 
 an elevated seat in the mosque, that the people 
 might not throng him. " No," said Mohammed, 
 " surely, I will not cease from being in the 
 midst of them, dragging my mantle behind me 
 thus, and covered with their dust, until that the 
 Lord give me rest from among them." ' He 
 had no kindred with the species of great man 
 who gives you two fingerG and the head of a 
 walkins:-stick to shake ; but when anv one ad- ., 
 dressed him he turned full round and gave to 
 them the attention, not only of a glance or of 
 the ear, but of the full countenance. In greet- 
 ing any one he was never the first to withdraw 
 his hand. Habitually taciturn, he was yet de- 
 lightful in his hours of relaxation ; 
 
 " Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading ; 
 Lofty and sour to those that loved him not. 
 But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.'' 
 
 " Ten years," said Anas, his servant, 
 " have I been about the prophet, and he 
 never said as much as ' uff ' to me." He was 
 fond of children, having a kind word for those 
 he saw in the street, and not ashamed to be 
 seen, by astounded Arab chiefs, carrying and 
 fondling one of his own little girls. Indeed, 
 there is no incident in the life of Mohammed so 
 affecting, nor any in which we are more drawn 
 
 I Muir, iv. 255. 
 

 
 92 JMoJiainniedanism. 
 
 to love the man, than that of the death of his 
 infant child Ibrahim. It is with pure compas- 
 sion we are spectators of the bitter grief and 
 uncontrollable sobbings of the strong man, and 
 hear at last, as he puts the little body back 
 into the nurse's arms, his simple, pious lamen- 
 tation, " Ibrahim, O Ibrahim ! if it were not 
 that the promise is faithful, and the hope of 
 resurrection sure — if it were not that this is the 
 way to be trodden by all, and the last of us shall 
 join the first — I would grieve for thee with a 
 grief deeper even than this." ' 
 
 Carlyle, amending Shakespere, assures us 
 that " the man who cannot laugh is not only fit 
 for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; but his 
 w^hole life is already a treason and a stratagem." 
 Mohammed stands this test well. There was 
 nothing guarded nor constrained in the uncon- 
 trollable fits of laughter with which he treated 
 the drolleries of his child-wife Ayesha ; ^ nothing 
 pompous in the hearty naturalness with which 
 he entered into her games, ran races with her, 
 or told her amusing stories. ^ And yet, with all 
 this fund of playfulness, it is this same Ayesha 
 who tells us that he was " bashful as a virgin 
 behind her veil." The blemishes in his charac- 
 ter are indeed sufficiently obvious, but they are 
 
 I Muir, iv. 165. 2 Wcil. p. 88. 
 
 3 Sprcnger, iii. 62. ^ 
 
B lev lis he s in the Prop he fs CJiaracter. 93 
 
 those of his race. He was not above avaiUng him- 
 self of the dagger of the professional assassin to 
 remove a dangerous enemy. He used the cus- 
 tomary treacheries of Arab warfare. He could 
 even stoop so low as to furnish an officer of 
 his own with ambiguous instructions, carefully 
 screening himself from the infamy and danger 
 of an unjustifiable raid, while he hoped to enjoy 
 the advantages derived from it. But we are to 
 remember the axiom of Captain Burton, that 
 " lying is to the Oriental meat and drink and j vO. 
 the roof that covers him." ^ His courage is not 
 wholly above suspicion ; ^ on the field of battle 
 he almost never played a conspicuous part, and, 
 like Napoleon, was always provided with the 
 means of securing his own safety by swift re- 
 treat. But he had also the Napoleonic power 
 of discerning and winning to himself the fore- 
 most of his contemporaries, and of inspiring one 
 and all of his followers with enthusiastic ardour 
 in his cause. Of an intensely nervous organiz- 
 ation, he was very sensitive to praise and blame. 
 The satirical poets wdio lampooned him he 
 found it much more difficult to forgive than if 
 they had opposed him merely with the sword. 
 
 His style of living was simple even for an 
 Arab. ''The true Bedouin," says Burton, ''is 
 
 ^ Burton's Pilgrimage, ill. 294. 
 2 Weil, 344. Muir, iv. 313-14. 
 
^' 
 
 94 ]\Iohaimnedcniism. 
 
 an abstemious man, capable of living for six 
 months on ten ounces of food a day. The milk 
 of a single camel, and a handful of dates dry, or 
 fried in clarified butter, suffices for his wants." ^ 
 According to the testimony of Ayesha, " months 
 used to pass and no fire would be lighted in 
 Mohammed's house, either for baking bread or 
 cooking meat." " How then did ye live ? " 
 asked some one of her. " By the two black 
 things, dates and water, and such of the citi- 
 zens as had milch cattle would send us a little 
 milk — the Lord requite them ! The prophet 
 never enjoyed the luxury of two kinds of food 
 the same day ; if he had flesh, there was nothing 
 else ; and so if he had dates; so likewise if he 
 had bread." ^ On his death-bed his wife had to 
 borrow oil for the lamp. And when he learned 
 on the same occasion that there w^as a small 
 sum of money in the house, he ordered it to be 
 divided among certain indigent families, and 
 then lying back, said, " Now I am at peace. 
 Verily it would not have become me to meet my 
 
 ' Lady Duff Gordon records the exclamation of an Ef- 
 fendi on hearing how Europeans live. "It is the will of 
 (iod ; but it must be a dreadful fatigue to them to eat 
 their dinner." — Last Letters, p. 85. "An Arab will live for 
 months together upon the smallest allowance ; and then, 
 if an opportunity should offer, he will devour at one sitting 
 the flesh of half a lamb without any injury to his health." 
 — Burckhardt, Notes 07i Bedouins^ i. 242. 
 
 2 Muir, i\-. 329. 
 
Simplicity of the PropJiefs Habits, 95 
 
 Lord, and this gold in my possession."^ He 
 did not like another to do for him anything he 
 could do for himself. He might be seen patch- 
 ing his own clothes, cobbling his own sandals, 
 milking the goats, helping in the house work, 
 or carrying a basket from the market.^ To the 
 last he retained the simple habits of his youth. 
 His establishment was of the plainest descrip- 
 tion, and was for a while retained after his death 
 t3 rebuke the growing luxury of the Moslems. 
 It consisted of nine small huts which a tall man 
 could see over, four built of unbaked bricks and 
 five of palm branches, with curtains of leather 
 or hair-cloth for doors. To each of his wives 
 one of these was allotted, he himself living in 
 one or another of them.^ His bed was a mat 
 coarsely plaited with ropes of palm-fibre, which 
 left its marks on his side when he rose. 
 Abdallah, his servant, seeing this, rubbed the 
 place and said, " Let me, I pray thee, spread 
 a soft covering for thee over this mat." " Not 
 so," replied Mohammed. " What have I to do 
 
 I Muir, iv. 273. 2 Weil, p. 343. 
 
 3 " The house of Haritha was next to that of Mahomet. 
 Now, whenever Mahomet took to himself another wife, 
 he added a new house to the row, and Haritha was obliged 
 successively to remove his house and build on the space 
 beyond. At last this was repeated so often that the 
 prophet said to those about him, * Verily it shameth me 
 to turn Haritha over and over again out of his house.'" 
 Tradition in Muir, iv. 337. 
 
96 Mohainincdanisrn. 
 
 with the comforts of this life ? The world and 
 I, what connection is there between us ? Verily, 
 the world is no otherwise than as a tree unto 
 me ; when the traveller hath rested under its 
 shade, he passeth on." ' His one luxury was 
 perfumes. "The prophet," says Ayesha, "loved 
 three things — women, scents, and food : he had 
 his heart's desire of the two first, but not of the 
 last." 
 
 Add to this that which made all his other 
 qualities tell, his unconquerable determination. 
 He was indomitable. The Arabs have a pro- 
 verb about the man that finds good in evil : 
 " Throw him into the river, and he will rise 
 with a fish in his mouth." Mohammed was 
 such a man ; finding his opportunity in the 
 most unfavourable circumstances, hopeful and 
 sanguine in a quite extraordinary degree. When 
 he and Abu Bekr were lying concealed in a 
 cave, and heard the angry voices of their pur- 
 suers coming closer and closer, his brave and 
 steadfast companion whispered, " What shall 
 we do ? We are but two against so many." 
 Mohammed whispered back, " Not so, we are 
 three ; God is with us." 
 
 Such a man was born to greatness. A man 
 so unlike other men, and yet so interested in 
 
 ' Muir, iii. 297. 
 
Personal Influence of Mohammed. 97 
 
 them — dreamy with the dreaminess of genius, 
 and yet eminently capable and prompt in all 
 practical matters, sympathetic and command- 
 ing — he was bound to move his generation 
 deeply. And undoubtedly it was largely to his 
 personal influence with men, and the impres- • 
 sion his character made upon them, that his 
 religion owed its success. It was those who 
 knew him best and were most constantly with 
 him who first attached themselves to his 
 cause. 
 
 The idea that the success of Islam was due 
 to the sensual inducements it proposed to its ^^ 
 adherents was exploded by Voltaire. To the 
 canons, monks, and curates who thus calum- 
 niated Mohammedanism, he addressed the per- 
 tinent question: "Were there imposed upon 
 you a law that you should neither eat nor drink 
 from four in the morning till ten at night through — 
 the whole month of July ; that you should ab- 
 stain from wine and gaming under penalty of 
 damnation ; that you should make a pilgrimage 
 across burning deserts; that you should bestow 
 at least 2J per cent, of your revenue on the 
 poor ; and that, having been accustomed to 
 eighteen wives, you should suddenly be limited 
 to four, — would you call this a sensual re- 
 ligion ? " ^ As compared with the previous 
 
 I Diet. Phil. s.v. IMahometans. 
 8 
 
p 
 
 © 
 
 98 Alohammcdanism, 
 
 habits of the people to whom it was proposed, 
 Mohammedanism had not any sensual attrac- 
 tions to present ; and if it had possessed such, 
 these would not account for its success. " A 
 motive of sensuality could never of itself make 
 the fortune of a religion." ' But this motive, 
 indirectly and in combination with others, did 
 operate for the advancement of Islam. The 
 soldiers of the Crescent were not primed for 
 battle by doses of arrack and brandy ; but in- 
 toxication of another kind drove them to deeds 
 of impetuous and reckless valour. " I see," 
 cried Khaled's youthful cousin at the battle of 
 Emesa, " I see the black-eyed houris of Para- 
 dise. One of them, if seen on earth, would 
 make mankind die of love. They are smiling 
 on us. One of them waves a handkerchief of 
 green silk and holds a cup of precious stones. 
 She beckons me. Come hither quickly, she cries, 
 my well-beloved." ^ 
 
 For unquestionably the grand cause of the 
 success of Islam was its use of the sword, its 
 amalgamation of propagandism with territorial 
 conquest. The apparent profundity of the well- 
 
 1 " Un motif de sensualitd ne sauroit jamais h, lui seul 
 faire la fortune d'une religion." — Oelsner, Dcs Effcts^ &:c., 
 p. 18. 
 
 2 Irving, Successors of Mahomet , p. 67, and Gibbon, 
 cap. li. 
 
Propagation by the Sword, gg 
 
 known dictum of Carlyle turns out, when 3-ou 
 examine it, to be mere sophistication. " The 
 sword indeed," he says, " but where will you 
 get your sword ? Every new opinion, at its 
 starting, is precisely in a minority of one. In 
 one man's head alone, there it dwells as yet. 
 One man alone of the whole world believes it ; 
 there is one man against all men. That he take 
 a sword, and try to propagate with that, will do 
 little for him. You must first get your sword ! " 
 But Carlyle might have been expected to con- 
 sider that the real difficulty about Mohammed 
 is not at all how he got twenty or a hundred or 
 a thousand people to believe in him — any one 
 almost can do that — but how he has come to 
 establish a religion as widely extended and as 
 permanent as our own. And I affirm that the 
 man must shut his eyes to the broadest, most i 
 conspicuous facts of the history of Islam, who ''y\^ 
 denies that the sword has been the great means ^ 
 of propagating this religion. St. Hilaire, with 
 his usual penetration of judgment and precision 
 of expression, puts the whole matter in a nut- 
 shell when he says, " Without Islam the Arabs' 
 had not been the conquerors of the world, but 
 without war Islam itself had not been." I like 
 the honesty as I admire the penetration of 
 Abulwalid, who plainly declared," My principles 
 are faith in one God and in this" — laying his 
 
 8* 
 
lOO Mohammedanism, 
 
 hand on his scimitar. Until Mohammed ap- 
 ipealed to the sword his faith made very Httle 
 I way. His earhest disciples, Abu Bekr, Ali, 
 Omar, were undoubtedly moved, partl}^ by the 
 influence of the truth, partly by the power 
 Mohammed's personality had over them. But 
 such men as these were not to be won ever}'' 
 day, and had he been allowed to propagate his 
 opinions freely there is no reasonable probabi- 
 litv that he would have been influential bevond 
 his own citv and sreneration. It was his ban- 
 \, ishment from Mecca which made him the 
 founder of a religion. It is with true instinct 
 ^ that Moslems accept the Hegira as their era. 
 Accepted in Medina as a persecuted man, the 
 inhabitants of that rival city found in his wrongs 
 and in his claims no bad pretext for gratifying 
 their jealous}^ and the Bedouin lust of plunder. 
 In point of fact it is not the history of a religion, 
 but the history of an adventurer, or at the best, 
 of a civil revolution, one reads in scanning the 
 life of Mohammed after the Hegira. There is 
 nothing more remarkable about these early 
 annals than the total absence of all religious 
 inquiry and discussion. In the early annals of 
 the Buddhist religion, we find its preachers 
 endeavouring to awaken a mental and spiritual 
 interest, and entering freely into prolonged dis- 
 cussions regarding life and the future. In the 
 
Jlfotive of AloJianimcdan Conqiicst. loi 
 
 early annals of Christianity we read of mental 
 perplexity and spiritual distress, often of years 
 spent in inquiry and investigation, but in the 
 Moslem annals all is different. Here con- 
 verts are made on the field of battle with 
 the sword at their throat. Tribes are in a 
 single hour convinced of the truth of the new 
 faith, because they have no alternative but 
 extermination.^ 
 
 In reading the rapid conquests of Syria, 
 Egypt, Persia, and the brilliant and gallant 
 deeds of the early Moslem warriors, one wholly 
 forgets that there is any difficulty in accounting 
 for the success of Islam. It is m.erely a repe- 
 tition of what has occurred again and again in 
 history when a new race appears on the field, 
 and for a time carries everything before it, till 
 it in turn is conquered by its own prosperity. 
 The Arabs were seized with the passion which 
 has at various times seized the Assyrians, the 
 Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Goths, 
 the French, almost every great race or nation, 
 the passion of being master. Can any one sup- 
 pose that it was the desire to see men enjoying 
 the advantages of a true religion which animated 
 
 I The chapter in Hottinger's learned Historia Oritntalis, 
 entitled " De causis Muham. conservantibus," would have 
 been muca more profitable had it not been levelled at the 
 Romanists. 
 
i' 
 
 1 02 MoJiaivnicdanism. 
 
 Akbah, when, after crossing and conquering the 
 A entire north of Africa, he spurred his horse into 
 V the waves of the Atlantic and cried, " Great 
 God ! if my course were not stopped by this 
 sea, I would still go on to the unknown king- 
 doms of the West, preaching the unity of Thy 
 ' holy name, and putting to the sword the rebel- 
 lious nations who worship any other gods than 
 Thee." 
 
 Pity for the benighted condition of their fel- 
 lows, that pity which lies at the root of all laud- 
 able propagation of one's faith, has scarcel}' at 
 all, if at all, been exhibited by Moslems. Zeal 
 for the glory of God did, I believe, in many 
 instances, animate them, and the persuasion that 
 all who fell in battle went straig:ht to Paradise 
 
 did much to make them unflinching and daring 
 in battle. " Paradise is under the shadow of 
 swords ! " was their battle-cry. " I will come 
 upon you," wrote their commander to the Per- 
 sian king, "with men who love death as much as 
 you love life." " Paradise is before you " — this 
 was Khaled's pithy address to his troops before 
 leading them to battle — "the devil and hell 
 behind. Fight bravely, and you will secure 
 the one ; fly, and you will fall into the other." 
 As Mr. Freeman remarks, "the ordinary and 
 natural inducements of the soldier — average 
 courage, average patriotism, average profes- 
 
Arab Love of Fighting, 103 
 
 sional honour — could not possibly keep him up 
 to a conflict with men whose whole spirit and 
 motives savoured of the extraordinary and su- 
 pernatural." Yet too much must not be made 
 even of the fanaticism of the conquerors of 
 Syria and Persia. This we believe would have 
 availed them little had they not begun for the 
 first time to feel their strength as a united 
 people, and had they not been possessed by that 
 esprit de corps which leads troops to victory, and 
 had they not been naturally a fighting race. It 
 was often the least fanatical among them who 
 did the doughtiest deeds. Khaled, the sword of 
 God, might conceal his thirst for battle under a 
 thin veil of religion, but obviously he fought for 
 fighting's sake : he was never happier than 
 when dashing single-handed among a troop of 
 infidels. It is no time to talk of religious en- 
 thusiasm or anything else but the love of the 
 thing when you see Derar disobeying orders to 
 engage thirty of the enemy single-handed, and 
 leaving seventeen of them dead on the field. In 
 an army which numbered many such men, and 
 in which almost every man had been accus- 
 tomed to plunder from his youth up, there was 
 really not a great deal for fanaticism to do. 
 From one city alone the caliph's fifth part of 
 the spoil took goo camels to transport it to 
 Medina. Obviously there were other motives 
 
^1 
 
 I. 
 
 104 ]\Iohain]}iedanisin. 
 
 at work in such a war than the simple desire to 
 propagate the faith. 
 
 At the same time, as the Romans were said 
 to conquer hke savages but to rule like philoso- 
 phic statesmen, the advance of Islam was due 
 not less to the admirably equitable and salutary 
 government of the early caliphs than to the 
 irresistible prowess of their troops. The im- 
 pression which was made on the inhabitants 
 and governors of conquered countries by the 
 simple habits of these men, as well as by their 
 integrity and devotion to the cause, went far to 
 consolidate their empire. The establishment 
 of the first caliph consisted of a single slave 
 and one camel, and on accepting the caliphate, 
 he ordered his daughter to take strict account 
 of his patrimony that it might testify against 
 him if he should be enriched by the office which 
 he held for others' good, and not his own. His 
 successor, Omar, made his triumphal entry 
 into Jerusalem mounted on a red camel, with his 
 whole camp furniture slung across his saddle- 
 bow in the shape of a sack, one end of, which 
 held his dates, and the other his rice. Before 
 him hung a leathern water-bottle, and behind 
 him a wooden platter ; and be3'ond tliis simple 
 equipment he needed nothing. " Wh}-," asked 
 the Emperor Heraclius, " does he go m patched 
 clothes, and not richly clad like other princes ?" 
 
Eqiuty of Early Caliphs. 105 
 
 "Because," replied some of the faithful, "he 
 cares only for the world to come, and seeks 
 favour in the eyes of God alone." " In what 
 kind of a palace does he reside?" asked the 
 emperor. " In a house built of mud." " Who 
 are his attendants ?" " Beggars and the poor." 
 " What tapestry does he sit upon?" — but here 
 evidently the story becomes legendary. — "Jus- 
 tice and equity." "What is his throne?" 
 "Abstinence and true knowledge." "What is 
 his treasure ?" " Trust in God." "And what 
 his guard ?" " The bravest of the unitarians." 
 To nations which had groaned under heavy 
 taxation, and yet received in return no single '" 
 advantage of good government, it seemed plea- 
 sant and hopeful to submit to men who them- 
 selves were but servants of a great cause. The 
 Romans had attached to themselves all their 
 useful and faithful allies by rewarding their 
 services with Roman citizenship ; the Moslems 
 did not even require that men should show 
 themselves worthy of being enrolled in the 
 number of the faithful, but offered to all con- \ 
 ditions of men equality with themselves on the 
 spot. They only required a prompt, immediate 
 decision. The Koran, Tribute, or the Sword, 
 these were the alternatives offered to all the 
 world. If any preferred to retain their own 
 religion, they might do so by paying tribute; if 
 
e 
 
 io5 MoJiaininecianism. 
 
 , the}' declined to be either Moslems or tributaries 
 of Moslems, the sword alone could settle it. 
 And the very promptitude with which this alter- 
 native was pressed contributed greatly to the 
 success of Islam. A grey-headed Christian 
 priest listening to a sermon of Omar's hinted 
 that he was in error. *' Strike off that old 
 man's head," said the caliph quietly, "if he 
 repeats his words." Such was the summary, 
 unflinching rule that was felt through the whole 
 empire. When Ziyad entered on the govern- 
 ment of Bassora he found the place a mere den 
 
 / of robbers and assassins. He gave notice that 
 he meant to rule with the sword, and that all 
 persons found strolling in the city after evening 
 prayers should be put to death. Two hundred 
 persons forfeited their lives the first night, five 
 the second, and subsequently the city was a 
 model of security and peace. Under this strong- 
 handed government other conquered districts, 
 which had been notorious for lawlessness, be- 
 came so safe and w^ell conducted that the people 
 did not even close their doors at night, but 
 merely set a hurdle across the doorway to keep 
 out the cattle. 
 
 Again, the extreme simplicity of the creed of 
 Islam greatly favoured its rapid propagation. 
 No elaborate explanations were required to 
 teach the ignorant : the rude negro could under- 
 
Simplicity of Creed. / 107 
 
 stand it on its first recital, and it could be ad- 
 ministered at the point of the sword amidst the 
 press of battle. It demanded no long noviciate ; 
 the unhorsed Persian who had fallen to the 
 ground a fire-worshipper might rise from under 
 the lance-point of the Arab a fully privileged 
 Moslem. It was a creed for which the human 
 mind has an instinctive affinity, and which has 
 never roused abhorrence even in the mind of a 
 polytheist. To men who had begun to despair 
 of finding truth amidst the bewildering subtle- 
 ties of a metaphysical theology, it was a relief 
 to find themselves face to face with a simple 
 creed, and to be compelled to believe it. 
 
 " In the fresh passions of a vigorous race 
 Was sown a hving seed ; 
 Strong these contending mysteries to displace 
 By one plain ancient creed.'' 
 
 All these features of the propagation of Islam 
 make its success thoroughly intelligible. Its 
 creed was simple, easily understood, unencum- 
 bered by observances, and not glaringly false. 
 It was offered by men who held their own lives 
 cheap, and other men's still cheaper, and who, 
 with the Koran in one hand and the scimitar in 
 the other, demanded an immediate decision. 
 Its terms were generous, granting at once to 
 those who accepted it every privilege of the 
 Moslem scarred and grey in the service of the 
 
To8 Mohaniniedanism. 
 
 Prophet. It offered a connection with the most 
 promising cause then in the world; and not only 
 at once conferred freedom, equality, and all the 
 benefits of a strong-handed government, but 
 opened paths to position, wealth, and honours. 
 
 Having thus won its way to empire by 
 means not altogether though partly commend- 
 able, the influence of j\Iohammedanism on the 
 world at large has been neither wholly good 
 nor wholly evil. In some respects it has re- 
 tarded, Vvhile in others it has signally advanced 
 what is convenient!}^, if somewhat vagueh', 
 termed civilization. There is nothing in the 
 religion itself which is antagonistic to mental 
 culture, although the instinct of self-preserva- 
 tion has produced a sensitive jealousy of an}-- 
 thing like free thought in connection ' with 
 its theology. 
 
 It has been the boast of Islam that it em- 
 braces sects representing ever}^ shade of opinion, 
 and undoubtedly its creed gains both emphasis 
 and comprehensiveness from its brevity. These 
 sects, it is true, have more than once en- 
 deavoured to exterminate one another with the 
 sword, and theologians who have shown the 
 speculative tendencies of an Abelard or an 
 Erigena, have been as liable to persecution in 
 Islam as those philosophers were in Christen- 
 dom. Averroes himself, by far the greatest of 
 
Inf.iteiice on Mental Culture. 109 
 
 Arabic philosophers, was compelled to do pen- 
 ance for his errors by sitting in the mosque, 
 while the worshippers were expected to testify 
 to their own orthodoxy by spitting in his face, 
 — a form of religious persecution which, as re- 
 cent events have proved, is not yet obsolete in 
 Islam. Commanders of the faithful, supreme 
 in all besides, have been reminded that in this 
 direction they were fettered. jNIamoun, one of 
 the most munificent patrons of learning,^ was 
 suspected of Zendikism ; while ^'athek spent 
 a troubled reign because he denied the eternity 
 of the Koran. At the same time, this narrow- 
 ness and bigotry cannot be laid to the charge 
 of the creed itself. The creed which is satis- 
 fied by a man's adherence to the one article of 
 " God revealed by His prophets," if it does not 
 bring the impulse and the light which might 
 result from greater accuracy and detail, at 
 least leaves the amplest scope for speculation. 
 And the religion which assigned the martyr's 
 crown to every soldier who fell in battle for 
 the cause, and yet proclaimed that the " ink of 
 _J the scholar was more precious than the blood 
 of the martyr," can scarcely with justice be 
 branded as obscurantist.^ 
 
 1 Hottinger s Hist. Or lent alls. p. 5 So. 
 
 2 The instructive pages of Gobineau on this subiect will 
 well repay perusal. Lcs Religions, &c., pp. 24-2S. 
 
1 1 o Mo ham me da n ism . 
 
 It was only to be expected that the severe 
 monotheism of the Saracens would brook no 
 contamination with the profuse polytheism and 
 licentious mythology of Greece and Rome. No 
 accuracy of thought, no delicate finish of lan- 
 guage, could compensate for the stain of error 
 that blots the page of the classical writers. 
 The colourless writings of Hippocrates, Galen, 
 S Euclid, and Aristotle, were freely translated 
 and widely read : but even the liberal son of 
 the splendid Harun Al Rashid, when he pre- 
 ferred to bring books instead of captives as his 
 spoils from conquered Greece, left behind hini 
 in contempt the plays of Sophocles and ^-Es- 
 chvlus, the orations of Demosthenes, the histo- 
 ries of Thucydides and Herodotus — all in fact 
 which would have opened a new world to the 
 Eastern mind. If this was so in the golden 
 age of Saracen history, we can scarcely dis- 
 credit the story of Amru burning the Alexan- 
 R drian library by order of the caliph. " If the 
 books of the Greeks," said Omar, "agree with 
 the Koran, they are superfluous ; if they dis- 
 agree, they are dangerous, and must be de- 
 stroyed " — a saying which, if not uttered by 
 Omar, is at least full of historical verisimili- 
 tude and significance.^ 
 
 But, in the main, education up to a certain 
 
 I Gibbon discredits the story ; \o\\ Hammer receives it. 
 
Impulse given to Editcation. 1 1 1 
 
 point — literature in certain departments, and 
 science in some of its branches — have been 
 materially promoted by the mental awakening 
 produced by Islam. The Arabian mind had 
 always shown itself lively and intelligent, and 
 susceptible of culture, especially in an emo- 
 tional and imaginative direction/ The Koran 
 gave an extraordinary impulse to this pre- 
 existing capability. It was better than an 
 enactment of compulsory education, for it be- 
 came the book of the people, and to be able 
 to read was now an object of pious ambition. 
 To recite the Koran was a work of merit. 
 Alongside of the mosques, schools or colleges 
 were built, or the work of instruction was 
 carried on inside the sacred building itself. 
 " To learn to read," they said, " is worth more 
 than fasting; to teach it, is more meritorious 
 than prayer,"^ Mohammed himself used to 
 
 * Dozy declares that the Arabs are "le peuplc le moins 
 inventif du monde " {Histoirc, i. 12). Though idolaters, 
 they had no mythology ; and after they gave themselves 
 to scientific pursuits, " ils ont montrc la meme absence de 
 puissance creatrice. lis ont traduit et commente Ics 
 ouvrages des anciens ; ils ont enrichi certaines specialites 
 par des observations patientes, exactes, minutieuscs ; mais 
 ils n'ont rien invente, on ne Icur doit aucune idee grande 
 et feconde." 
 
 2 Oelsner, Des Effds, &c., p. 20S, from whose ad- 
 mirable, account of the learning of the Saracens many 
 of the facts here stated are derived. 
 
1 1 2 MoJiammedanism, 
 
 say, " Teach your children poetry; it opens the 
 mind, lends grace to wisdom, and makes the 
 heroic virtues hereditary." And, what was 
 more to the purpose, when living in T^Iedina 
 among a poorly educated population, he gave 
 liberty to every Meccan prisoner who taught 
 twelve boys of Medina the art of writing.^ 
 And within a comparatively short time after 
 Mohammed, there were crowded universities 
 at Baghdad, Damascus, Alexandria, Bassora, 
 and Samarkand ; and probably at no period of 
 the world's histor}^ was literature so richly re- 
 warded as under some of the Abbasside princes. 
 The victor at the poetic contests received loo 
 pieces of gold, a horse, an embroidered caftan, 
 and a lovely slave; and, apparently in one 
 gift, Abu Taman received from his sovereign 
 50,000 pieces of gold. But it was not in pure 
 literature that the work of the Saracens was of 
 greatest service to the world, but rather in the 
 departments of medicine, philosophy, and the 
 mathematical sciences. In medicine their work 
 has never been adequately appraised, because 
 barely three European students have carefully 
 studied their medical books. But their in- 
 fluence on the study of chemistr}^, algebra, and 
 astronomy, is visible in the very terminology of 
 these sciences. 
 
 ' Sprenger, iii. 131. 
 
Antipathy to Art. 1 13 
 
 The arts of statuary and painting were de- 
 nounced by the early Moslems as incentives to 
 idolatry, and even 3'et a few of their doctors 
 forbid the delineation of anything that has life, 
 under pain of being cast into hell. But this 
 iconoclastic austerity long ago gave way ; and 
 while the statues of men are still forbidden, 
 other works of art are allowed, except in the 
 mosques.' Music, though condemned by the 
 Prophet, had too rooted a place in human 
 nature to be abandoned; and if we are to credit 
 all accounts of their influence, the Saracen 
 musicians must have brought their art to a 
 high state of efficiency.^ 
 
 In philosophy the attainments of the Arabians 
 have probably been overrated rather than de- 
 preciated. ^ As middle-men, or transmitters, 
 indeed, their importance can scarcely be too 
 
 1 Burton's Pilgr. i. 137 ; Syed All's Crit. Exam. 331 ; 
 Lane's Mod. Egyp. ii. 2. 
 
 2 Berington's Lit. Hist, of Middle Ages, 426. 
 
 3 This is the opinion of Berington {Lit. Hist, of Middle 
 Ages, p. 455), who sums up a pretty full and interesting 
 account of Saracenic learning with the remark that it 
 "has experienced too much prodigality of praise ;" and 
 even Oelsner admits that the results are somewhat dis- 
 appointing. Freeman, too, thinks he discerns a prevalent 
 disposition to assert for the Saracens an untrue monopoly 
 of excellence in science and philosophy, and calls atten- 
 tion to the fact that many of the most famous literary 
 men at the court of the caliphs were not Mohammedans 
 at all, but Jews or Christians. 
 
 9 
 
5> 
 
 114 AIoJiaininedaiLisin. 
 
 A highly estimated. They were keen students of 
 Aristotle when the very language in which he 
 wrote was unknown in Roman Christendom ; 
 and the commentaries of Averroes on the most 
 exact of Greek philosophers are said to be 
 worthy of the text. It was at the Moham- 
 medan university in his native city of Cordova, 
 and from Arabian teachers, that this precursor 
 of SpixLoza derived those germs of thought 
 wA w^hose fruit may be seen in the whole history of 
 scholastic theology. And just before Aver- 
 roes entered these learned halls, a young man 
 passed from them, equipped with the same 
 learning, and gifted with a genius and penetra- 
 tion of judgment which have made his opinions 
 final wherever the name of Maimonides is 
 known. Undoubtedly these two fellow-citizens 
 — the Arabic-speaking Mohammedan and the 
 Arabic-speaking Jew — have left their mark deep 
 on all subsequent Jewish and Christian learn- 
 ing. And even though it be doubted whether 
 their influence has been wholly beneficial, they 
 may well be claimed as instances of the intellec- 
 tual ardour which Mohammedan learning could 
 inspire or awaken. 
 
 A recent writer of great promise in the philo- 
 sophy of religion has assigned to the Arab 
 thinkers the honourable function of creating 
 \ modern philosophy. *' Theology and philosophy 
 
Saracen PJiilosophy. \ 1 5 
 
 became in the hands of the Moors fused and 
 blended ; the Greek scientific theory as to the 
 origin of things interwound with the Hebrew 
 faith in a Creator. And so speculation became 
 in a new and higher sense theistic ; and the 
 interpretation of the universe the explication of 
 God's relation to it and its relation to God." ' 
 But speculation had become theistic long before 
 there was an Arab philosophy. The same 
 questions which form the staple of modern 
 philosophy were discussed at Alexandria three 
 centuries before Mohammed ; and there is 
 scarcely a Christian thinker of the third or 
 fourth century who does not write in presence 
 of the great problem of God's connection with 
 the world, the relation of the Infinite to the 
 finite, of the unseen intangible Spirit to the crass 
 material universe. What we have here to do 
 with, however, is not to ascertain whether 
 modern philosophy be truly the offspring of the 
 unexpected marriage of Aristotle and the Koran, 
 but whether the religion promulgated in the 
 latter is or is not obstructive of intellectual 
 effort and enlightenment. And enough has 
 been said to show that there is nothing in the 
 religion which necessarily and directly tends to 
 obstruct either philosophy or science, though 
 '.vhen we consider the history and achievements 
 
 ^ Fairbairn's Studies, p. 398. 
 9- 
 

 1 16 ]\loJiamvudanisin. 
 
 of that race which has for six centuries been 
 tlie leading representative of Islam, we are in- 
 clined to add that there is nothing in the religion 
 which necessarily leads on tlie mind to the 
 highest intellectual efforts. Voltaire, in his own 
 nervous way, exclaims, "I detest the Turks, 
 as the tyrants of their wives and the enemies 
 of the arts." And the religion has shown an 
 affinity for such uncivilized races. It has not 
 taken captive any race which possesses a rich 
 literature, nor has it given birth to any work of 
 n ^j.which the world demands a translation; and 
 precisely in so far as individuals have shown 
 
 • themselves possessed of great speculative and 
 Qi'eative genius, have they departed from the 
 rigid orthodoxy of the Koran. We should con- 
 clude therefore that the outburst of literary and 
 scientific enthusiasm in the eighth century was 
 due, not directly to the influence of the Moham- 
 medan religion, but to the mental awakening 
 and exultant consciousness of power and 
 
 /widened horizon that came to the conquering 
 Saracens. At first their newly-awakened energy 
 found scope in other fields than that of philo- 
 sophy. " Marte undique obstrepente, musis 
 vix erat locus." ^ But when the din of war 
 died down, the voice of the Muses was heard, 
 
 ' Dr. Hunt's Oration Dc Aiitiq. Ling. Arab, quoted 
 by Inchbald, p. 37. 
 
• Its Intolerance. 1 1 7 
 
 and the same fervour which had made the 
 Saracen arms irresistible was spent now in the 
 acquirement of knowledge/ 
 
 Tolerance has frequentl}^ been claimed as one 
 of the virtues of Islam, but, we think, erro- 
 neously. A religion which punishes apostasy 
 with death can scarcely claim to be a tolerant ' 
 religion. It is true that there have been some 
 most notable exemplifications of tolerance 
 amiong Mohammedans. When the pertina- 
 cious and over-zealous Raymond Lully had •) 
 worn out the patience of his Mohammedan i / 
 hosts by his arguments in favour of Christianity, 
 and when they had resolved to silence him by 
 death, he was defended by one of the Saracen 
 muftis. This admirable specimen of the toler- 
 ance of theology remarked "that as they would 
 praise the zeal of a Mohammedan who should 
 go among the Christians for the purpose of 
 converting them to the true faith, so they could 
 not but honour in a Christian the same zeal for 
 the spread of that religion which appeared to 
 him to be the true one." ^ But the whole 
 
 ^ Renan, one of the few audiorities qualified by first- 
 hand acquaintance with the subject to pronounce a judg- 
 ment, considers Islamism incompatible with the highest 
 development of science and philosophy, '"incapable de se 
 transformer et d'admettre aucun element de vie civile et ^^ 
 profane, I'islamisme arracha de son sein tout germe de 
 culture rationelle." See Averroes, p. iii. 
 
 2 Neander, Hist, of Church, vii. 90. For other in- 
 stances, Freeman's Leclurcs, 2nd ed. p. 153. 
 
N 
 
 1 1 8 Mohammedanism. 
 
 spirit of the religion is counter to these indi- 
 vidual instances. Our most reliable authorities, 
 such observers as Lane and Burton, assure us 
 that the toleration which many Moslems show 
 is mere superficial politeness. The children 
 are taught formulas in which they may com- 
 pendiously curse Jews, Christians, and all un- 
 believers. At the same time they exercise 
 remarkable self-control, and do not forget what 
 is due to their own dignity; and, as Lady Duff 
 Gordon's experience proves, they will show 
 themselves more tolerant to those who treat 
 them tolerantly.^ 
 
 And if not remarkable for charity to un- 
 believers, they are singularly long-suffering 
 towards one another. One who spent many 
 years among them writes : "I have often heard 
 an Egyptian say, on receiving a blow from an 
 equal, ' God bless thee ! ' ' God requite thee 
 good ! ' ' Beat me again ! ' In general a quarrel 
 terminates by one or both parties saying, ' Jus- 
 tice is against me ! ' Often, after this, they recite 
 
 ' The true account of this feature of Islam is given 
 with his usual knowledge and impartiality by Dozy, who 
 says {Histoire, ii. 50), " II arriva en Espagne ce qui 
 arriva dans tous Ics pays que les Arabes avaient conquis : 
 Icur domination, de douce et d'humaine qu'elle avait etd 
 au commencement, ddgencra en un despotisme intole- 
 rable." Instances of very gross intolerance on the part of 
 Moslem governments are given in the same volume, 
 pp. 108,9. 
 
Its Results in Arabia. 1 19 
 
 the Fathah together, and then sometimes em- 
 brace and kiss one another."^ And just as we 
 speak of Christian charity and Christian meek- 
 ness, so, when they wish to say that any one is 
 humble, meek, and charitable, they say he has 
 " Moslem feelings ;" " The meekness of a Mos- 
 lem."^ And this meekness is all the more 
 striking because it exists alongside of the manly 
 independence and fortitude which undoubtedly 
 the religion tends to produce. 
 
 But as we endeavour to estimate the good 
 and evil of Islam, it gradually appears that the 
 chief point we must attend to is to distinguish 
 between its value to Arabia in the seventh cen- 
 tury and its value to the world at large. No 
 one, I presume, would deny that to Mohammed's 
 contemporaries his religion was an immense 
 advance on anything they had previously be- 
 lieved in. It welded together the disunited 
 tribes, and lifted the nation to the forefront of 
 the important powers in the world. It effected 
 what Christianity and Judaism had alike failed 
 to effect — it swept away, once and for ever, 
 idolatry, and established the idea of one su- 
 preme God. Its influence on Arabia was justly 
 and pathetically put by the Moslem refugees in 
 Abyssinia, who, when required to say wdiy they 
 
 ^ Lane, i. 386. 
 
 2 Ladv Uuff Gordon's Letters^ p. 257. 
 
1 20 MoJiaunncdanism. 
 
 should not be sent back to Mecca, gave the 
 following account of their religion and what it 
 had done for them. " O king, we were plunged 
 in ignorance and barbarism; we worshipped 
 idols; we ate dead bodies ; we committed lewd- 
 ness; disregarded family ties and the duties of 
 neighbourhood and hospitality ; we knew no law 
 but that of the strong, when God sent among 
 us a messenger of whose birth, truthfulness, 
 integrity, and innocence, we were aware; and 
 he called us to the unity of God, and taught us 
 not to associate any god with Him ; he forbade 
 us the worship of idols, and enjoined upon us- 
 to speak the truth, to be faithful to our trusts, 
 to be merciful, and to regard the rights of others ; 
 to love our relatives and to protect the weak ; to 
 flee vice and avoid all evil. He taught us to 
 offer prayers, to give alms, and to fast. And 
 because we believed in him and obe3^ed him, 
 therefore are we persecuted and driven from our 
 country to seek thy protection." 
 
 The radical vice of Mohammedanism lies far 
 deeper than any mere blot on its morality or 
 error in its doctrinal teaching. It is an ana- 
 ■{] chronism. It is an ignorant attempt to insert 
 into a series of acknowledged revelations an 
 assumed revelation which is incongruous and 
 out of date. Islam claims to be a historical 
 religion, a religion which has regard to God's 
 
Coinpainson with Mosaisin. 1 2 1 
 
 historical connection with the world, and yet it 
 
 has thoroughly misapprehended its own place 
 
 in history. It owes its success, in large mea- ^ 
 
 sure, to its appropriation of preceding revela- /■-'^^ 
 
 tions, but, through ignorance of the real history 
 
 and relation of these revelations, it has so '«" 
 
 bungled this appropriation, as to stultify itself 
 
 and work mischief on earth. 
 
 Its defenders are fond of comparing it with 
 Judaism, in order to bring out that its morality . j 
 
 is at least as high, and its legislation at least as ^ -^t ' 
 advanced and just, as that of Moses. But this 
 line of defence betrays ignorance of the grand 
 distinction between the two religions. Moham- 
 medanism claims to be hnal and complete;) 
 Alosaism distinctly disclaimed both finality and 
 completeness. "A prophet," said Closes, " shall 
 the Lord your God raise up unto you, like t A 
 
 unto me." Every part of the ^^losaic religion -^t^ 
 had a forward look, and was designed to leave 
 the mind in an attitude of suspense and expecta- 
 tion. Accommodations were made to the weak- 
 ness and immaturity of the people, which were 
 abolished in their adult strength. Mosaism 
 must therefore be judged according to its own 
 claims as a temporary and local religion, as the 
 mere psedagogue slave leading men to the teacher 
 but not itself uttering the final truth. But Islam, 
 claiming to be final and universal, must be 
 
122 MoJiamniedanism. 
 
 judged as such ; and professing as it does to 
 supersede not only Judaism but also Chris- 
 tianity, it must be condemned by every point in 
 which we find it a retrogression and not an 
 advance on our own religion. The accommo- 
 dations to a rude and untaught tribe which are 
 judicious, seasonable, and helpful, as a tem- 
 porary expedient, are an insufferable offence to 
 morality when proclaimed as the ultimate law 
 of conscience. The institutions, such as pil- 
 grimage, which are at least harmless, and pro- 
 bably conducive to unity in a local religion, 
 become a ridiculous burden when proclaimed as 
 binding on the whole race. The reforms of Mo- 
 hammed, such as the restriction of polygamy, 
 were good and useful for his own time and 
 place, but by making them final, he has pre- 
 vented further progress, consecrated immorality, 
 and permanently established half-measures. 
 What were restrictions to his Arabs would have 
 been license to other men.^ *' Considered as 
 delivered only to pagan Arabs, the religious, 
 
 ^"Whcn Islam penetrates to countries lower in the 
 scale of humanity than were the Arabs of Mohammed's 
 day, it suffices to elevate them to that level. But it does 
 so at a tremendous cost. It reproduces in its new con- 
 verts the characteristics of its first — their impenetrable 
 self-esteem, their unintelligent scorn, and bhnd hatred of 
 all other creeds. And thus the capacity for all other 
 advance is destroyed." — Osborn's Islam uiider the Afuibsj 
 P- 93- 
 
Its Claim to be the Fi7ial Religion. 123 
 
 moral, and civil precepts of the Koran are 
 admirable. The error of their author was in 
 delivering them to others besides pagan Arabs," 
 and in giving to temporary expedients a sanction 
 which has erected them into permanent laws. 
 A writer w^ho has studied the matter with the 
 insight of a widely-informed historian, says : 
 "The temporary and partial reform effected by 
 Islam has proved the surest obstacle to fuller 
 and more permanent reform. A Mahometan 
 nation accepts a certain amount of truth, re- 
 ceives a certain amount of civilization, practises 
 a certain amount of toleration. But all these 
 are so many obstacles to the acceptance or 
 truth, civilization, and toleration in their perfect 
 shape." ^ 
 
 In plain terms, Mohammed was an ignorant 
 man — a man so ignorant that he did not know 
 his own ignorance. Knowing nothing of the 
 government, policy, or law of Rome, to which 
 all the civilized world has paid its tribute of 
 respect, he presumed that the code of Justinian 
 ought to be superseded by the fragmentary 
 ideas he had jotted down on palm-leaves and 
 mutton bones and thrown higgledy-piggledy into 
 a chest. Knowing nothing of Christianity, and 
 never having even read the canonical Gospels, 
 he imagined he had more to say for the world's 
 ^ Freeman's Lectures, P- S^- 
 
124 Mohamincdanisin. 
 
 good than had fallen from the lips and shone 
 from the life of Jesus Christ. Had his religion 
 preceded Christianity, or had he never enjoyed 
 the means of informing himself regarding it, some 
 apology might have been devised for his extreme 
 presumption in aspiring to the sovereignty of the 
 world in things civil* and spiritual. Na}^, we 
 r^ will go further, and say that had Mohammed 
 1 / preceded Christianity, or had he not proclaimed 
 his own religion as final, it might have been a 
 ^\ blessing of the most extensive kind to the 
 world. Doctrinally and morally it is a half-:way 
 house between heathenism and Christianit}^ 
 but practically it can never serve as such, be- 
 cause it claims to be itself an advance upon 
 Christianity, and final. It is this claim that 
 has choked it throughout. The dead hand 
 of the short-sighted author of the Koran is on 
 the throat of every Mohammedan nation. And 
 it is this claim which stultifies it in the view 
 of any one who has studied other religions. It 
 bears the marks of immaturity on every part 
 of it. It proves itself to be a religion only for 
 the childhood of a race, by its minute prescrip- 
 tions, its detailed precepts, its observances, its 
 appeals to fear. It does not even recognise 
 that there is a higher religion, that the only 
 true religion is a religion of liberty and of the 
 spirit. 
 
Co7iclus2on. 125 
 
 Here is the judgment of one who has spent a 
 large part of his life among Mohammedans, and 
 seven years of it in a careful study of their 
 history. 
 
 "There are to be found," he says, ''in Mo- 
 hammedan history all the elements of great- 
 ness — faith, courage, endurance, self-sacrifice. 
 But enclosed within the narrow walls of a rude 
 theology, and a barbarous polity, from which 
 the capacity to grow and the liberty to modify 
 have been sternly cut off, they work no deliver- 
 ance upon the earth. They are strong onl}' 
 for destruction. When that work is over, they 
 either prey upon each other, or beat themselves 
 to death against the bars of their own prison- 
 house. No permanent dwelling-place can be 
 erected on a foundation of sand ; and no durable ^ 
 or humanising polity upon a foundation of fatal- 
 ism, despotism, polygamy, and slavery. When 
 Muhammadan states cease to be racked by re- 
 Volutions, they succumb to the poison diffused 
 by a corrupt moral atmo.-phere. A Durwesh, 
 ejaculating 'Allah!' and revolving in a series 
 of rapid gyrations until he drops senseless, is 
 an exact image of the course of their history."^ 
 
 Or, hear the conclusion of a very different 
 writer, who has given the most favourable view 
 of Islam that can reasonably be given. 
 
 - Osborn's Islam under the Arabs, pp. 94, 95. 
 
126 Mohammedanism. 
 
 "Thus in the faiths old heathendom that shook 
 
 Were different powers of strife ; 
 Mohammed's truth lay in a holy Book, 
 
 Christ's in a sacred Life. 
 
 So while the world rolls on from change to change, 
 
 And realms of thought expand, 
 The Letter stands without expanse or range, 
 
 Stiff as a dead man's hand ; 
 
 While as the life-blood fills the growing form, 
 
 The Spirit Christ has shed 
 Flows through the ripening ages fresh and warm, 
 
 More felt than heard or read. 
 
 And, therefore, though ancestral sympathies. 
 
 And closest ties of race, 
 May guard Mohammed's precepts and decrees 
 
 Through many a tract of space ; 
 
 Yet in the end the tight-drawn line must break. 
 
 The sapless tree must fall. 
 Nor let the form one time did well to take 
 
 Be tyrant over all." 
 
 / 
 
III. 
 
 B UDDHISM. 
 
" Sai/f le Christ tout sen I, il 71 est point, parmi les foudateiirs de 
 religion, de fig iti-e plus pure 11 i plus touchante que celle du Bouddha.'' 
 Saint Hilaire. 
 
III. 
 
 I CHOOSE Buddhism as a representative 
 religion, because, if 3'ou will allow the 
 paradox, it can only by courtesy be termed a 
 religion at all.' It does not, like other re- 
 ligions, start from some conception of a super- 
 natural world to which man must somehow 
 adjust himself; it does not aim, like other 
 religions, at bringing man into harmony with 
 God ; but it sets itself manfully to solve the 
 problem of human existence and to find de- 
 liverance from moral and physical evil, and in 
 doing so it does not find itself compelled to 
 recognise God at any point of the process. In 
 its attitude towards the idea of a Personal God 
 it resembles modern Agnosticism, but its whole 
 motive was earnestly ethical. The popular 
 religion of India, which Buddhism for a while 
 competed with and almost superseded, had 
 
 ^ " In real fact, Buddhism ought not to be called a re- 
 ligion at all, for where there is no god, there can be no 
 need," &c. — IMonier Williams, Indian Wisdom, p. 57. 
 
 10 
 
I ^o Buddhism, 
 
 o 
 
 entirely disassociated the ideas of religion and 
 morality. The priests had never been the 
 social moralists to whom men looked for in- 
 struction in matters of conduct, neither had 
 they in their own lives shown that there is any 
 necessary connection between the service of 
 God and personal purity. A similar state of 
 matters in the history of the religion of Rome 
 at last produced a reaction against the priest- 
 hood, and gave rise to a very elevated school of 
 moralists, of which Plutarch and Dion, Epic- 
 tetus and Marcus Aurelius, are the well-known 
 representatives. So in India there came a time 
 when the people were prepared to admit the 
 insufficiency of ceremonial to purge them from 
 sin, and responded to a teaching which, though 
 it told them nothing of God, was yet in all 
 other respects true to the deepest convictions 
 of their own moral nature. Sakya-muni did 
 not set himself in declared opposition to the 
 whole popular faith ; he was neither a scoffer, 
 nor, on all points, a dogmatic controversialist. 
 Like his Roman fellow-labourers, he was not 
 so concerned to explode the popular opinions 
 about gods supreme and subordinate, as to 
 show them the way to emancipation from evil 
 \ by righteousness and charity. The words of 
 Seneca might with slight alteration have fallen 
 from his lips: "Would you know what it is 
 
A PhilosopJiical System. 1 3 1 
 
 that philosophy promises? I answer, Prac- 
 tical advice. The lost, the dying, stretch their 
 hands towards you, they implore you, they cast 
 upon you all their hopes. They entreat you to 
 draw them forth from such abject misery, to 
 show them their errors, and enlighten their 
 perplexities by the bright shining of the truth. 
 Tell them, then, what nature declares to be 
 necessary, and what superfluous ; how easy her 
 laws ; how pleasant life and how^ free to those 
 who accept them ; how bitter and perplexed to 
 those who follow their own fancies rather." 
 It was in this character that Sakya-muni pre- 
 sented himself to men. He described himself 
 as " the father and mother of his helpless 
 children, their guide and leader along the pre- 
 cipitous path of life ; shedding the light of his 
 truth like the sun and moon in the vault of 
 heaven; providing a ferry-boat for passengers 
 over this vain sea of shadows ; as a propitious 
 rain-cloud, restoring all things to life ; provid- 
 ing salvation and refuge, by directing men into 
 the final path that leads to the eternal city." ^ 
 But not only did Buddha leave room for a 
 religion, and secure that religion should above 
 all else be moral and practical, but in point of 
 fact it is as a religion and not as a philosophy 
 
 I Beal's Buddhist Sa'iptu7-cs^ p. 137. 
 10-'' 
 
132 Buddhism. 
 
 that Buddhism has been received and is now 
 adhered to by a full third of the human race. 
 
 Buddhism arose in India in the sixth century 
 B.C., but in the religious stratification of that 
 eminently religious and productive country it is 
 by no means the earliest layer. Three religions 
 preceded it : the wild devil - worship of the 
 aborigines, which still, with its significant re- 
 deeming features, lingers among the Sudras 
 and hill-tribes ; the religion of the Aryan in- 
 vaders, which is represented in the Vedic 
 h}'mns, and which has been described as '' a 
 naturalism with a nascent sacerdotalism super- 
 induced ;" ^ and finally Brahmanism, which 
 was this nascent sacerdotalism fully developed, 
 especially in its distinctive features of priestly 
 mediation, caste, and pantheism. 
 
 Whether the pantheism of the Brahmanical 
 religion arose from the priestl}' craving to iden- 
 tify their own caste more closel}^ with the 
 Deity than others, or whether it was evolved 
 by the theosophic speculators who started, in 
 accordance with their race instincts, from an' 
 abstract conception which excluded, alike as' 
 regards God and man, the notion of personalit}', 
 it is difficult to say.- Probably both influences 
 
 ^ Fairbairn's Studies, p. 130. 
 
 2 Fairbairn's Studies give an admirably lucid and pro- 
 found sketch of the growth of Brahmanism. Cf Pfleid- 
 erer's Kelij^ion, ii. 
 
A Reaction against Brahntanis^n. 133 
 
 were at work. What concerns us is to note 
 that the doctrines of emanation and transmi- 
 gration were both the necessary outcome of 
 this pantheistic conception. All things have 
 emanated from Brahma ; all must return to 
 him again. '' As the threads from the spider, 
 the tree from the seed, the fire from the coal, 
 the stream from the fountain, the waves from 
 the sea, so is the world produced out of 
 Brahma." " It is with us when we enter the 
 Divine Spirit as if a lump of salt was thrown 
 into the sea : it becomes dissolved into the 
 water from which it was produced, and is not 
 to be taken out again." But this absorption is 
 regulated. Those who have served and known 
 Brahma will be absorbed into him at death ; 
 those who have not done so must pass through 
 a purgatory proportioned to their guilt. They 
 seized upon the great principle that the punish- 
 ment is of the same nature as the guilt, the 
 reward as the merit ; or, in their own expres- 
 sive and far-reaching maxim, " A man is born 
 into the world he has made." To the guilt 
 contracted in former lives he must trace all 
 the sorrows that afflict him here. The lex 
 talionis is carried out with the most horrify- 
 ing exactness, and with a wealth of realistic 
 invention which Dante might have envied. 
 He who has killed a Brahman, after paying 
 
134 Buddhis7n. 
 
 the first instalments of his penalt}^ b}^ suffer- 
 ing protracted tortures in a graduated series 
 of hells, will be born again in this world as 
 a boar, an ass, a goat, or an outcast, accord- 
 ing to the degree of his guilt. He who has 
 stolen gold from a Brahman will be born again 
 with diseased nails. If he has been a drunk- 
 ard, he will be born with discoloured teeth. If 
 it is grain that has tempted a man's thievish 
 propensities, he shall be reborn as a rat ; if he 
 has shown a partiality for fruit, he shall live 
 again as an ape. And thus only by passing 
 through an almost endless succession of pun- 
 ishments and births and revolting experiences 
 could man win his slow way back to a welcome 
 extinction in Brahma. Nothing could tell 
 more powerfully on the popular imagination 
 than the future thus depicted — a future, the 
 reality of which seemed to be vouched for by 
 the very facts of the present life. 
 
 The good side of this view of the future there 
 is no space here to enlarge upon. It was un- 
 fortunately the evil tendencies of it which were 
 chiefly developed. Two things resulted from it. 
 The Bralimans, without whom no sacrilice 
 could be performed, and no deliverance from 
 the alarming prospect effected, gained absolute 
 supremac}^, and religion in consequence became 
 more and more a matter of ceremony, less and 
 
Absorption into Brahma. 135 
 
 less a matter of moralit}^ Secondly, as in a 
 pantheistic system there can be no absolute 
 immortality of individuals, and as all persons 
 must eventually be absorbed in the impersonal 
 existence, the rewards and punishments of men 
 must have a limit. Reward as well as punish- 
 ment must terminate. But so long as men do 
 good the}^ deserve reward, as the}' deserve 
 punishment so long as they do evil. Works of 
 all kinds, therefore, must be got rid of. Man's 
 highest state is the state of contemplative ab- 
 straction, in which nothing is done. Here is 
 the doctrine as it appears in various passages 
 of the Upanishads. " As flowing rivers are 
 resolved into the sea, losing their names and 
 forms, so the wise^ freed from name and form, 
 pass into the Divine Spirit, which is greater 
 than the great. He who knows that supreme 
 Spirit, becomes spirit." " Whoever knows this, 
 ' I am Brahma,' knows all. Even the gods are 
 unable to prevent his becoming Brahma." 
 " Know him, the Spirit, to be one alone. Give 
 up all words contrary to this. He is the bridge 
 of immortality." *' Crossing this bridge, the 
 blind cease to be blind, the wounded to be 
 wounded, the afflicted to be afflicted ; and on 
 crossing this bridge nights become days, for 
 ever-refulgent is the region of the universal 
 Spirit." Salvation, that is to say, is to be 
 
136 Buddhism. 
 
 obtained by priestly rites and transcendental 
 knowledge. 
 
 Now, whatever profound thoughts lay about 
 the roots of Brahmanism, and however suitable 
 to the Hindu mind it may originally have been, 
 there can be no question that it held the people 
 of India, as it still holds them, in a bond- 
 age at once tyrannical and degrading. It was 
 against the demoralising ceremonialism and the 
 despotic exclusiveness of this sacerdotal re- 
 ligion that the revolt at last came in the form 
 of Buddhism. Analogous to Christianity in 
 many respects, Buddhism resembles it in its 
 historical origin. Both religions had their 
 roots in an exclusive sacerdotal religion, and 
 both proclaimed deliverance to all without dis- 
 tinction of caste or race. The sufferings of 
 men which the Brahmans had used to confirm 
 their own supremacy and illustrate the perma- 
 nence of caste distinctions, roused in the sym- 
 pathetic heart of Buddha a feeling of kindred 
 with all men, and a purpose to deliver himself 
 and them at any cost. And as the method of 
 deliverance was elaborated by his own experi- 
 ence and thought, it is best understood when we 
 learn the outline of his life and the ideas which 
 formed it. And although the material out of 
 which such an outline can now be sketched is 
 almost entirely legendary, yet legendary as it 
 
j 
 
 Life of Sakya-immi. 1 3 7 
 
 is, I believe it will leave on the mind substan- 
 tially the right impression of this certainly his- 
 torical person.^ 
 
 The names by which he is most commonly 
 designated, Sakya-muni and Buddha,^ are titles 
 which he acquired : the former meaning the 
 Sage 2 of the Sakya tribe, and the Buddha mean- 
 ing the Enlightened. His own name was Sid- 
 dartha, and his family name Gautama. He was 1 J 
 the son of Suddhodana, a rajah of the Sakya \ 
 tribe, who reigned in Kapilavastu, a few days' 
 journey north of Benares. There is some rea- 
 
 ^ " It seems not impossible, after all, that Sakya-muni is 
 an unreal being, and that all that is related of him is as 
 much a fiction as is that of his preceding migrations, and 
 the miracles that attended his birth, his life, and his de- 
 parture." — Wilson's Works, ii. 346. M. Senart {Essaisur 
 la legende die Bicddha^ Paris, 1875) claims to have sifted 
 the legends thoroughly, and his answer to the question, 
 How much of a historical character remains ? is " Bien peu 
 assurement" (p. 509). 
 
 2 Those who have any curiosity to see the other numer- 
 ous names and titles of the Buddha may consult Wilson's 
 Wo7'ks, ii. 9, 10, and Hardy's Manual of Buddhism, p. 
 
 354. 
 
 3 The Dhammapada (268, 269) says : " A man is not a 
 
 Muni because he observes silence, if he is foolish and 
 ignorant ; but the wise who, taking the balance, chooses 
 the good and avoids evil, he is a Muni, and is a Muni 
 thereby ; he who in this world weighs both sides is called 
 a Muni." To which Max ]\Iuller appends the statement 
 that Muni means a Sage, and comes from " man," to 
 think ; and from '' muni " comes " manna," silence. — Bud- 
 dhaghosha's Parables, p. 133. 
 
13B BiLcidJiisin. 
 
 son to believe that these Sakyas were not of 
 Aryan, but of Turanian descent,^ and this, were 
 it estabhshed, would account for his ability to 
 emancipate himself from the idea of caste under 
 which the Hindu mind lay helpless. And un- 
 questionably it is among the Turanians that 
 Buddhism has found most acceptance : although, 
 in presence of the fact that Christianity, of 
 Semitic origin, has been most cordially received 
 b}^ people of Aryan race, this may not be con- 
 sidered evidence of much weight. It is of more 
 importance to observe that Buddhism at a very 
 early period in its history showed a tendency 
 to ally itself with the devil - worship which 
 characterized many of the existing Turanian 
 religions. 
 
 The voluntary incarnation of Buddha is a 
 myth of later formation, and one of many in 
 which there exists a very striking, and, it mus^ 
 be ovv'ned, perplexing similarity to the most 
 striking points in our Lord's career.- It would 
 seem that he grew up to all outward appearance 
 very like other young rajahs, dividing his time 
 ^1 between the relaxing luxuries of an oriental pa- 
 lace and the invigorating exercises and athletic 
 
 ' Bcal's BuddJiist Scriptures^ p. 137. Wilson's Works^ 
 ii. 345. Ikit comp. Hodgson's Essays, p. 123. 
 
 2 The references to Buddhism by the early Christian 
 fathers, and soma hints on the connection between the two 
 religions, will be found in Wilson's Works, ii. 312. 
 
His Eye for Suffering. 139 
 
 contests in which he outdid all competition. 
 But he was born with an eye for suffering and 
 a heart for suffering, and through all the glitter 
 of his luxurious and magnificent life his keen 
 sight penetrated to the coarse and wasting 
 fabric which it overlaid ; through the soft strains 
 of musicians and Natch -girls he heard the 
 moans of those who la}^ in the outer darkness ; 
 through the perfumes of his gardens and halls 
 the smell of death struck on his sense ; between 
 his brooding spirit and all the pride of life with 
 which he was studiously surrounded there 
 floated without ceasing visions of decay and 
 dissolution, of ghastly suffering and never-end- 
 ing bondage. The growth of this distaste for 
 pleasures that could not last, of this yearning 
 for an eternal rest, is depicted in a striking and 
 well-known legend. One day when the prince 
 was going out by the eastern gate of the city to 
 his pleasure-garden he met on the way a decrepit 
 old man, leaning heavily on a stick and tremb- 
 ling in every limb, his veins standing out on 
 his emaciated body, his teeth gone or loose, and 
 his voice broken and quavering. " What is 
 this?" said the prince anxiously to the charioteer. \ 
 " Is this condition peculiar to this man or to his 
 family?" ''By no means, my lord," replied 
 the driver. " This is old age ; suffering and toil 
 have broken this man's strength, and he is now 
 
 / 
 
140 Bttddhism. 
 
 scorned by his kindred, and left without support, 
 ' like a dead tree in the forest. And this comes 
 to all men ; your father, your mother, every 
 creature must come to this." *' Alas ! " said 
 the prince, " how ignorant and mistaken is man, 
 who is proud of the youth which intoxicates 
 him, and sees not the old age which awaits him. 
 Turn back to the city, what have I to do with 
 pleasure, who am destined to such an end ? " 
 I Another time, going out by the south gate to 
 ;his pleasure-garden, he saw on the road a man 
 seized v/ith sickness, lying without shelter and 
 without companion, gasping and cramped, and 
 with dismay in his face. Having again heard 
 from his charioteer that this was no peculiar 
 condition, but a calamity to which all men are 
 liable, he once more felt the incongruit}' of 
 pleasure -seeking, and returned to the city. 
 Similarly, a third time, he met on the road a 
 funeral procession, the dead man stretched 
 stark on his bier, and the relatives throwing 
 dust on their heads, beating their breasts, and 
 uttering piercing lamentations. ''Alas for 
 youth," said the prince, " which old age de- 
 stroys ! Alas for health which sickness invades ! 
 Alas for life which ends in death ! Oh, that 
 there were no old age ; no sickness ; no death. 
 Let us go back. I will meditate how to ac- 
 complish deliverance." 
 
He forsakes the World. \\\ 
 
 This determination was confirmed by a fourth 
 spectacle. This was a bhikshu, or mendicant, 
 walking with the placid expression of a disci- 
 plined spirit, wearing his single poor garment 
 with dignity, and carrying in his hand his alms- 
 bowl. The prince's interpreter, the driver, ex- 
 plained to him that this man walks through 
 life with calmness because he has renounced 
 its pleasures, and has forced himself to conquer 
 himself, and lives now without passion, without 
 env}^, without desire, " This," said the prince, 
 *' is the way of escape. I also will renounce 
 life and its pleasures." 
 
 This resolution was vehemently opposed b\^ 
 his father and the courtiers. But the very 
 means they took to entangle him more deeply 
 in pleasures contributed to his emancipation. 
 For, awaking one night, and rising from the 
 couch where he had gone to sleep in contempt 
 of the Natch-dancers, he saw the lamps un- 
 trimmed, smoky, and defiled with oil; and the 
 sleeping women themselves lying about in un- 
 seemly positions, some grinding their teeth, 
 others dribbling from their mouth, or uneasily 
 moving and muttering.^ This was final. 
 "Never again," he vowed, " will I indulge in 
 the pleasures of sense; never again — this is the 
 
 ^ Bigandet, Life of Gaitdama^ p. ^^. Beal's Romantic 
 Hist, of Buddha, p. 130. 
 
14^ BiiddJiism, 
 
 last time ; from henceforth I entertain such 
 thoughts no more." Going to his wife's cham- 
 ber, he gazed a farewell to her and his infant 
 heir, then summoned his groom, mounted his 
 horse, and forsook once for all his home, his 
 kindred, his kingdom, and every worldly posses- 
 sion. Riding all night, he halted only when 
 ^pursuit was impossible, and halted then only 
 to make his " great renunciation " complete by 
 giving his royal mantle and circlet of pearls to 
 his faithful and remonstrating servant, and by 
 cutting off with his sword the long locks of the 
 warrior, thus reducing himself wholly to the 
 condition of mere undistinguished humanity. 
 
 But though thus strong in his resolve, Sid- 
 dartha was only tasting the hardships and diffi- 
 culties that beset his path from this his twenty- 
 ninth year, till in his thirty-sixth year he won 
 { the peace he sought. The great tempter M^ra, 
 though roughly repulsed for the time, congratu- 
 lates himself with the thought, " Sooner or 
 later some lustful or malicious or angry thought 
 must arise in his mind : in that moment I shall 
 be his master." And " as a shadow follows the 
 body, so from that day," says the chronicle, 
 " did IMara follow the blessed one, striving to 
 throw every obstacle in his way towards the 
 Buddhahood." Not only did his royal palate 
 nauseate the food that was first offered to him 
 
He seeks Deliverance fi'orn Suffermg. 14 
 
 '^ 
 
 as a mendicant, but the ties of home, though so 
 sternly cut, left wounds not soon healed. His 
 father offered him the kingdom if he would re- 
 turn. " Dear son," he said, " the practice of 
 religion involves as a first principle a loving, 
 compassionate heart for all creatures ; and for 
 this reason the very name of a religious life is 
 given to it. Why, then, should you consider a 
 religious life as a term applied only to those 
 who dwell in the lonely mountains? Informer 
 days men lived at home and practised religion. 
 They did not then cast away their jewels, or 
 shave their crowns, and yet they were able to 
 attain to complete emancipation." But to all 
 such remonstrances his son had but one an- 
 swer : " I have given up all fancied joys, and 
 I am searching for joys that endure. Will the 
 man who has eaten poison and vomited it 
 up, return to the tempting dish again ? Will 
 he who has escaped from the burning house 
 voluntarily go back to the flames ? " ^ His 
 father could assure him of no release from sick- 
 ness, death, decay; and it was this he sought. 
 
 It was from the recognised religious teachers, 
 the Brahmans, he first sought direction. And r 
 it is important to observe the difficulties which ' 
 chiefly perplexed him, and the point at which / 
 he felt their system to be weak. After living ' 
 
 ^ Beal's Romantic Hist, of Buddha^ pp. 163-5. 
 
144 BttddJiism. 
 
 for some da3's among a company of distin- 
 guished ascetics, and observing their practices, 
 he begged to be allowed to question them, and 
 receiving permission, he at once pierced to the 
 heart of the matter. " Venerable sirs," he 
 said, " I perceive that your system, although it 
 promises the reward of heaven to certain per- 
 sons, yet provides no means of /z/za/ deliverance. 
 You give up all, friends, relatives, and worldly 
 delights, and suffer pain, that you may be born 
 in heaven ; not considering that after being 
 thus born on high, you may in future years 
 return and be born even in hell. In coveting 
 to be born into heaven you forget that this very 
 continuance involves the recurrence of the evil 
 you now seek to escape from. So it is with 
 men who when they come to die are filled 
 with fear, and seek some happ}^ state of birth, 
 and through this very desire for life the}^ doom 
 themselves to return again to the inconstant 
 state of life they have left. They do not con- 
 sider the ever-recurring evil of future births. 
 Coveting the joys of heaven, the}^ do not con- 
 sider that the very nature of the body, however 
 pure and spiritual, involves the necessity of 
 decay, and therefore of change." He also 
 objects to the means which the Brahmans 
 employed to gain their end. *' If," he argued, 
 " abstention from sufficient food is meritorious, 
 
His Discussions luitJi Brahma ns. 145 
 
 the wild beasts, who are content with grass, 
 ought to abound in merit ; and the man who 
 now suffers hardships ought, as a necessary 
 consequence, to enjoy future happiness." Hav- 
 ing thus disposed of asceticism, he as summarily 
 exploded the practice of sacrifice. "How can' 
 the system which requires the infliction of 
 misery on others be called a religious system ? 
 To seek a good by doing an evil is surely no 
 safe plan. If a man, in worshipping the gods, 
 sacrifices a sheep, and so does well, why should 
 he not kill his child and so do better ? " ^ 
 
 To these difficulties the Brahmans had little 
 to reply. They could only say that it was by 
 such methods all the ancient saints had attained 
 felicity. These teachers make no mention of ab- 
 sorption into Brahma as the final deliverance ; 
 a circumstance which seems to indicate that 
 this doctrine may have been helped to its com- 
 plete development by the teachings of Buddha 
 himself. Resorting in turn to the most cele- 
 brated of the Brahman sophists, Alara and 
 Udra, he questioned them also, not as an itine- 
 rant disputant, of which in these days there 
 were many, but as one who sought a physician, 
 as a wanderer who had lost his way in the 
 midst of a great solitary wild.^ Nowhere could 
 he find the object of his search — an escape from 
 
 I Beal, 157-9. 2 Ibid. 171. 
 
 II 
 
146 Bud.ihisin. 
 
 the miseries and vanities of life into a condition 
 from which no return to life and its troubles was 
 possible. " I search," he said, " for that which 
 is imperishable and permanent." He seemed 
 to himself to be inextricably entangled in an 
 existence in which everything was subject to the 
 ceaseless rotation of decay, death, birth ; decay, 
 death, birth. 
 
 Failing to receive light from other men, he 
 resolved to give himself to meditation, and re- 
 tired for this purpose to the solitude of Uru- 
 vela. Here for six years he lived in the jungle 
 with five other ascetics who attended him, 
 already feeling that he was the greatest and 
 most resolutely true teacher they had met. 
 Even from this solitude the fame of his medi- 
 tation and mortification, says the chronicle, 
 " spread abroad like the sound of a great bell 
 hung in the canopy of the skies." But the 
 crisis was at hand^ His physical strength gave 
 way under his austerities. He swooned, and 
 was thought to be dead. Recovering conscious- 
 ness, it was only to fall into an agony of mental 
 conflict, which the legends vainly strive to de- 
 pict by a more than Miltonic picture of a battle 
 between Buddha and Mara, armed with the 
 most appalling instruments of destruction. 
 Doubtless, in his state of physical inanition, the 
 knowledge of his failure as yet to find deliver- 
 
He becoincs the Bitddha. 147 
 
 ance opened the long-closed doors of his memory 
 and flooded his spirit with regrets, and with the 
 fond memories of his youthful life so utterly in 
 contrast to the squalor and discomfort of the 
 jungle. But gathering his energies for one 
 supreme effort, he forced his mind, as the night 
 wore through, to a strict sequence of thought, 
 and as morning dawned the light he had so 
 long sought broke upon him. 
 
 Such then was the process by which Sid- . 
 dartha painfully won his way to Buddhahood. \ 
 Henceforth he was the Buddha, the Enlightened. 
 At this point, however, the legendary histories, 
 which speak of this eminence as one to which 
 no other man could attain, are apt to make us 
 forget that it was by a purely and confessedly 
 human process he won his way to light, and 
 that originally this title, the Buddha, can have 
 meant nothing more than that he was recognised 
 as a singularly successful thinker. The tradi- 
 tional accounts affirm that there had been many 
 Buddhas before him, and that he expected his 
 religion would last only for 5000 years, when 
 some new Buddha would appear and supersede 
 him. But the fact is that no historical person 
 had borne this title before Sakya-muni. The 
 Buddhaship was not a well - known vacancy 
 waiting to be filled ; it was an unknown office, 
 an insignificant title, which now at last was 
 
 II* 
 
/ 
 
 148 BitddJiisin. 
 
 lifted into exceptional, unique significance, by 
 the importance of the person to whom at first it 
 was almost casually given. 
 
 But no sooner did Sakya-muni become the 
 
 \ Buddha than he was appalled at the laborious 
 enterprise that awaited him in communicating 
 
 'his newl3^-attained light to all men.^ He knew 
 what it had cost himself to accept this light. 
 He knew how men shrank from any teaching 
 which forced truth into their convictions. Was 
 it not hopeless to attempt the deliverance of 
 men by such a system as his — a system involv- 
 ing change of character and entirely averse to 
 all mere magical formulas or rites ? But his 
 compassion prevailed. For a time the struggle 
 was severe, but soon we find him making his 
 way to the great religious centre of Northern 
 India with the resolve : " I now desire to turn 
 the wheel of the excellent law ; for this purpose 
 am I going to that city of Benares, to give light 
 to those enshrouded in darkness and to open 
 the gate of immortality to men." At first he 
 gained disciples rapidly. His princely appear- 
 ance and bearing, the indubitable thoroughness 
 of his often-tested self-abnegation and charity, 
 his skill and persuasiveness and originality in 
 teaching, and the reasonableness and purity of 
 
 ' On the interposition of Brahma at this critical junc- 
 ture, vide Bigandet, p. 105. 
 
He publishes his Discovery. 149 
 
 his doctrine, contributed to his success. He 
 was soon in a position to attempt to " set 
 rolling the royal chariot -wheel of a univer- 
 sal kingdom of right." ^ Calling his disciples 
 about him, he conferred upon them the power 
 hitherto reserved to himself, to admit members 
 to the Buddhist Society, and sent them out in 
 all directions to explain his religion to all. 
 " Bhikshus," he said, "having myself escaped 
 from all sorrows, I desire my own profit to re- 
 dound to the good of others : there are yet a 
 vast number of men enthralled by grief — for 
 these we ought to have some care and compas- 
 sion. Go now% therefore, and teach the most 
 excellent law. Explain the beginning, the 
 middle, and the end of the law to all men with- 
 out exception ; let everything respecting it be 
 made publicly known, and be brought to the 
 broad daylight." ^ During the remaining forty- 
 five years of his life this was his regular pro- 
 cedure : while the rainy season lasted he and 
 his apostles lived together under shelter, but as 
 soon as it became possible for them to itinerate 
 they scattered again in every direction, still 
 turning the wheel of the law. 
 
 Buddha's own skill in teaching and his me- 
 
 1 Rhys Davids in Encyclopcsdia Brit. p. 428. Cf Beal, 
 p. 244. 
 
 2 Beal, p. 285. Bigandet, p. 122. 
 
I5Q B/itddhisin, 
 
 thod, as well as the missionary ardour of the 
 new religion, are illustrated by the following 
 incidents. Kisagotami had been married earl}^ 
 and while still a girl gave birth to a son. 
 When the boy was able to walk by himself he 
 died. The young girl in her love for it carried 
 the dead child clasped to her bosom, and went 
 from house to house asking if any one could 
 give her medicine for it. At length a wise man 
 understanding her case thought with himself, 
 *' Alas ! this Kisagotami does not understand 
 the law of death. I must comfort her." " My 
 good girl," he said, '' I cannot myself give 
 medicine for your child, but I know of one who 
 can." " Oh, tell me who that is," said she. 
 "The Buddha can give 3^ou medicine; you 
 must go to him." She. went to Buddha, and 
 doing homage to him., said, " Lord and master, 
 do you know any medicine that will be good 
 for my child?" "Yes," said the teacher; "I 
 know of some. Get me a handful of mustard 
 seed." But when the poor girl was hurrying 
 away to procure it, he added, " I require 
 mustard seed from a house where no son, hus- 
 band, parent, or slave, has died." " Very good," 
 said the girl, and went to ask for it, carrying 
 still the dead child astride on her hip. The 
 people said, " Here is mustard seed ;" but when 
 she asked, " Has there died a son, a husband, 
 
]\Iissio7imy Ardour. 151 
 
 a parent, or a slave, in this house ? " they re- 
 plied, ''Lady, what is this that you ask? the 
 living are few, but the dead are many ! " Then 
 she went to other homes, but one said, " I have 
 lost a son;" another, "I have lost my parents;" 
 another, " I have lost my slave." At last, not 
 being able to find a single house where no one 
 had died, she began to think, " This is a heavy 
 task that I am on." And as her mind cleared, 
 she summoned up her resolution, left the dead 
 child in a forest, and returned to Buddha. 
 "Have you procured the mustard seed?" he 
 asked. "I have not," she replied: "the people 
 of the village told me, ' The living are few, but 
 the dead are many.' " Then Buddha said, " You 
 thought that you alone had lost a son : the law 
 of death is that among all living creatures there 
 is no permanence." Thus he cleared away her 
 darkness of mind, helped her to contentment, 
 and numbered her among his disciples.^ 
 
 The other incident is told as follows : — A 
 rich merchant, of the name of Purna, being 
 converted to the teaching of Buddha by some 
 of his companions on shipboard, resolved to 
 forsake all and fix his residence with a neigh- 
 bouring but savage tribe, in order to win them 
 to the same religion. Buddha at first tried to 
 dissuade him from so perilous an undertaking. 
 
 ^ MaK Miiller's Lecture on Nihilism, p. i6. Biiddha- 
 ghosha's Parables, p. 98. 
 
\ 
 
 152 Bttddhism. 
 
 *' The men of Sronaparanta, where you wish 
 to fix your residence," he said, " are violent, 
 cruel, passionate, fierce, and insolent. When 
 these men address you in wicked, brutal, gross, 
 and insulting language, when they storm at 
 you and abuse you, what will you do, O 
 Purna?" 
 
 *'When they address me in wicked and in- 
 sulting language, and abuse me," replied Purna, 
 " this is what I will think. These men of 
 Sronaparanta are certainly good and gentle 
 men, who do not strike me either with their 
 hands or with stones." 
 
 "But if they strike you, what will you 
 think?" 
 
 " I will think them good and gentle, because 
 they do not strike me with cudgels or with the 
 sword." 
 
 " But what if they do strike you with the 
 sword?" ; 
 
 " I will think them good and gentle, because 
 they do not completely deprive me of life." 
 
 "But if they do deprive you of life, what 
 then?" 
 
 " I will think the men of Sronaparanta good 
 and gentle, for delivering me with so little pain 
 from this body full of vihness." 
 
 " It is well, Purna," said Buddha ; " with 
 your perfect patience you may dwell among the 
 
BttddJia s Last Words. ' 153 
 
 Sronaparantakas. Go thou, O Purna, thyself 
 deHvered, deliver others ; thyself arrived at the 
 other shore, help others thither; thyself com- 
 forted, comfort others ; having attained com- 
 plete Nirvana, guide others to it." 
 
 Thus commissioned, Purna betook himself to 
 that desperate mission, and by his imperturb- 
 able patience, won the inhabitants to attend to 
 his teaching/ 
 
 The zeal of these indomitable missionaries, 
 who certainly have tamed many of the fiercest 
 and rudest races upon the earth, was kindled at 
 the undying flame of Buddha's own universal^ 
 charity.^ With his latest breath he continued 
 to preach his gospel of deliverance. The last 
 night of his life, when his friends would fain 
 have secured him a little quiet, he overheard 
 the voice of a well-known Brahman philosopher 
 pleading to be allowed to ask him one or two 
 questions. Buddha desired them to admit him, 
 and addressed him in the following remarkable 
 words : " This is not the time for discussions. 
 To true wisdom there is only one way, the path 
 is laid down in my law. Many have already 
 followed it, and conquering the lust and pride 
 
 I St. Hilaire, Le Bouddha et sa Religion, pp. 95-97. 
 
 ^ " Le proselytisme lui-meme n'est qu'un effet de ce 
 sentiment de la bienveillance et de charite universelle qui 
 anime le Buddha." — Burnouf, Introd. a rhistoire du Du.l- 
 dhisme Iiidieii, p. 37. 
 
154 Biiddhisvi. 
 
 and anger of their own hearts, have become 
 free from ignorance and doubt and wrong belief, 
 have entered the calm state of universal kindli- 
 ness, and reached Nirvana even in this life. 
 Except in my religion the twelve great disciples 
 who practise the highest virtue, and stir up the 
 world to free it from its indifference, are no- 
 where to be met with. O Subhadra, I do not 
 speak to you of things I have not experienced. 
 Since my twenty-ninth year have I striven after 
 the supreme wisdom, and followed the path 
 that leads to Nirvana." ^ Shortly after he said 
 to his disciples : " Beloved, that which causes 
 life, causes also decay and death. Never forget 
 this, let your minds be filled with this truth. 
 I called you to make it known to you." These 
 were the last words of the Buddha. 
 
 Here, then, we have the essence of the sal- 
 vation Buddha had to proclaim. Life involnes 
 death. Wherever there is life, decay must fol- 
 low. In every form of existence there are 
 already the germs of dissolution. To get rid 
 of decay and its accompanying misery w^e must 
 get quit of life ; of life, not merely in this pre- 
 sent world, but of life in every form. For in 
 the Buddhist philosophy there is no such con- 
 ception as a purely spiritual existence. He is 
 a heretic who holds that man has a soul or 
 ^ Rhys Davids in Encyc. Brit., and Bigandct, p. 314. 
 
Its Postulates. 155 
 
 permanent self separable from the body. What- 
 ever is material is subject to change and dissolu- 
 tion, and there is no life which is not material. 
 These are the postulates, the ultimate facts on 
 which Buddhism proceeds. As long, therefore, 
 as man /s, he must be miserable. His only 
 salvation is, not to be. There is no cure. The 
 only escape from evil is escape from existence. 
 The great problem comes to be, how to commit 
 suicide ; suicide not of that pitiful and delusive 
 kind which rids a man of life in one particular 
 form, but which rids him of existence in every 
 form. The ultimate good to which the indi- 
 vidual looks forward is annihilation ; the con- 
 summation of all things which is to be prayed 
 for and striven after is absolute universal no- 
 thing. 
 
 The two fixed ideas of Buddhism, as it ap- 
 peared in the mind of its founder, are the 
 materialistic nature of all existence and the 
 doctrine of transmigration. These are the root 
 principles out of which the system sprang.^ 
 The fundamental axioms of Buddhism, or, as 
 they are technically called, the Four Great or 
 Excellent Truths,^ which constitute the dis- 
 covery of Buddha, are these : i. That in all 
 
 ^ Its Atheism, its Nihilism, are already contained in 
 these root ideas, 
 
 ^ See Burnouf, pp. 299 and 629. Hardy's Almiical, 
 p. 496. 
 
 V 
 
156 Ei!ddJiitin. 
 
 existence there is sorrow. 2. That all exist- 
 ence results from attachment to life, or desire. 
 3. That existence may be extinguished by ex- 
 tinguishing desire. 4. That desire may be ex- 
 tinguished by following the path to Nirvana. 
 No doubt it will at once occur to you that the 
 very foundation of this system is false. You 
 will deny its first proposition, that in all ex- 
 istence there is sorrow. Some lives are wretched 
 and a living death, but others are' bright and 
 full of joy. But from the materialistic point of 
 view life is haunted with the shame and miser}' 
 of the decay it carries in it, and from which 
 there is no escape but into some other form of 
 existence also destined to decay and corruption. 
 Besides, the actual suffering and disappoint- 
 ment and sense of the vanity of life are so com- 
 mon, that any religious teacher who offers relief 
 from these feelings is sure of much success. 
 He was not a Buddhist who said, " There are 
 moments of depression when we seem to feel 
 still in need of some explanation why organic 
 life should exist at all." 
 
 " A life 
 With large results so little rife, 
 Though bearable, seems hardly worth 
 This pomp of worlds, this pain of birth." ^ 
 
 ' Andrew Wilson's Abode of Show, p. 310. Comp. 
 Shelley's stanzas written in dejection near Naples. 
 
Jlliseiy of all Existence. 157 
 
 Possibl}^ if we could detect the leading motives 
 which have first disposed men to accept any 
 religion, we should see that one of the most 
 influential of these motives has always been the 
 pressure or fear of misery, even of a physical or 
 worldl}^ kind. And it is also to be considered 
 that in the countries where Buddhism has found 
 its most permanent and influential acceptance 
 life is diflicult and precarious. In India there 
 was, in addition to the natural shrinking from 
 the known distresses of the present and the un- 
 known calamities of the future, the loathing of 
 existence which had been produced by the doc- 
 trine of transmigration.^ So long as personal 
 existence is retained the same risk attends every 
 life as attends the present life. " The being 
 who is still subject to birth," as one of the 
 Buddhist writings reminds us, " may at one 
 
 ^ Some suggestive remarks on the ditTerence between 
 the Western optimist view of life, and the Eastern pes- 
 simist view, will be found in Sir Coom^.ra Swamy's Sutta 
 Nipata^ Introd. p. xxviii. et scq. To the quotations there 
 given we may add the apparently self-contradictory utter- 
 ance of John Stuart Mill. " It seems to me not only pos- 
 sible, but probable, that in a higher, and, above all, in a 
 happier condition of human life, not annihilation but immor- 
 tality may be the burdensome idea ; and that human nature, 
 though pleased with the present, and by no means impa- 
 tient to quit it, would find comfort and not sadness in the 
 thought that it is not chained through eternity to a con- 
 scious existence, which it cannot be assured that it will 
 always wish to preserve." 
 
158 BiiddJiism. 
 
 time sport in the garden of a dewa, and at 
 another be cut to a thousand pieces in hell ; at 
 one time he may be Maha Brahma, and at an- 
 other a degraded outcast ; at one time he may 
 eat the food of the dewas, and at another he 
 may have molten lead poured down his throat ; 
 at one time he may sip nectar, and at another 
 be made to drink blood ; alternately he may 
 become wild with pleasure, and then with pain ; 
 he may now be a king who can receive count- 
 less gems by the mere clapping of his hands, 
 and now a mendicant, carrying a skull from 
 door to door to gather alms." ^ 
 
 The personal upbringing and experience of 
 Buddha had no doubt much to do with his de- 
 preciation of life. The side of it which had been 
 represented to him as most valuable and attrac- 
 tive he had found to be utterly nauseating. 
 And when he gazed on the ignominious decay 
 of all that was outwardly bright, and put to 
 himself the question whether there is actually 
 any being who has not suffered or may not 
 suffer, he may have erred in the form rather 
 than in the substantial meaning of his an- 
 swer. For, is there any moral existence which 
 does not involve suffering ? - The higher we 
 ascend in the scale of being, the greater 
 
 ^ Hardy's Manual, p. 454. 
 
 2 See Wilson's Abode of Snow. 
 
Death no Delivera^ice. 159 
 
 capacity and readiness for suffering do we 
 find. As we ascend, we find indeed that we 
 are rising out of reach of that suffering which 
 springs directly out of the moral wrong-doing 
 of the sufferer, but we also find that, very much 
 in the same proportion, there increases an in- 
 ability to be happy while any other being is 
 suffering, an incapacity to enjoy a solitary bliss, 
 a craving for an equal distribution of suffering 
 and blessedness, a will to share the one and 
 communicate the other. Is not God God pre- 
 cisely because He shrinks from no responsi- 
 bility His creatures lay upon Him; turns away 
 from no suffering their sin or need entails ; and 
 does not rest until they are partakers of His 
 blessedness ? Buddha, therefore, was probably 
 not so far wrong in his first proposition, that 
 all existence involves sorrow, as in failing to 
 consider that there are deeper evils than sorrow, 
 and in refusing to lift his eyes to the eternal 
 issues of things and take into his reckoning the 
 permanent results of suffering on character. / 
 
 But admitting that all existence is miserable, 
 and that the great aim of man is to escape from 
 misery, ought not consistent materialists to 
 have relied upon death as their deliverer from 
 life and its accompanying sorrow ? Is not the 
 dissipation of the bodily organism precisely the 
 deliverance by extinction which men are sup- 
 
1 60 BiLddhism. 
 
 posed to long for ? Far from it, says Buddha. 
 When the bod}^ dies, there remains the aggre- 
 j:!:ate moral result for good or evil of the life led 
 in the body, and this moral result of the present 
 life is the seed of a new existence. Every form 
 of life now in existence, and indeed every form 
 of existence animate or inanimate, is the result 
 of previously existing things, and especially of 
 the moral value of these previously existing 
 things ; so all that now exists will by its moral " 
 character reproduce and determine the next 
 generation of existences. This is the Buddhist 
 / d^trine of Karma. Karma means " act ; " and 
 the doctrine of karma is that a man's condi- 
 tion in this present life is the consequence of 
 his actions in a previous state, and that he 
 determines by his actions in this life what his 
 future condition will be. Until a man's karma 
 is satisfied, until he has entirely exhausted the 
 consequences of his past actions, he must ^con- 
 tinue to be reborn in one form or another. A 
 young Brahman came to Gautama and said : 
 " From some cause or other mankind receive 
 existence ; but there are some persons who are 
 exalted, others who are mean ; some who die 
 young, others who live to a great age ; some 
 who suffer from various diseases, others who 
 have no sickness until they die; . . . some who 
 are of mean birth, others who belong to the 
 
Kami a, 1 6 1 
 
 highest castes. What is the cause of these 
 differences ? What is it that appoints or con- 
 trols these discrepancies? " To which Buddha 
 repHed : " All sentient beings have their own in- 
 dividual karma, or the most essential property 
 of all beings is their karma ; karma comes by 
 inheritance not from parentage but from previous 
 births ; karma is the cause of all good and evil. 
 ... It is the difference in the karma that 
 causes the difference in the lot of men, so that 
 some are mean and others are exalted, some 
 are miserable and others happy." ^ From this 
 law Gautama himself was not exempt, but de- 
 clared that he obtained the Buddhaship "neither 
 by his own inherent power nor by the assistance 
 of the dewas, but by the meritorious karma of 
 previous births."^ Slowly had he won his way 
 to this high position, having passed through 
 every form of life — being born as a bird, as a 
 stag, as an elephant, even as a tree or plant ; 
 having experienced every rank and condition of 
 human life by successive births into each, and 
 only after exhausting this long probation and 
 rising to increasing altitudes of purity and self- 
 sacriiice, being born at last into the heaven 
 from which Buddhas descend to earth. 
 
 Though quite untenable, and not even pro" 
 fessing to justify itself to reason, there is much 
 
 ^ Hardy, pp. 44.5, 6. 2 Ibid. p. 448. 
 
 12 
 
1 62 BitddhisDi, 
 
 that is commendable and attractive in this 
 theory of karma. If it does not so much as 
 attempt to explain the origin of the universe, it 
 at least points to a moral and not a physical ne- 
 cessity as regulating the amount of life and the 
 nature of life in all worlds. As it is the karma 
 of the individual which necessitates his being 
 born again and again until he can attain Nir- 
 vana, so it is *' by the aggregate karma of the 
 various orders of living beings that the pre- 
 sent worlds were brought into existence." ^ 
 Buddhism declines to say anything about the 
 originating of karma, or what it was which 
 brought the first living beings into existence 
 before any karma existed; but confining itself to 
 the present actual world, it refuses to rest the 
 condition of man, his miseries and his existence, 
 on anything but a moral foundation. ' For the 
 same reason it refused to recognise a personal 
 Creator, because that would be to rest the blame 
 of human existence on the v/rong shoulders, and 
 charge a Creator with all the actual misery 
 exhibited wherever life is seen. And undoubtedly 
 if it makes individuals feel responsible for all the 
 ills that befall them, it acts also as a powerful 
 incentive to virtue. The man who believes 
 that every evil act will inevitably have its con- 
 sequence, and that as he sows he shall reap ; 
 
 Hardy, p. 396. 
 
Personal Identity. i6 
 
 '» 
 
 the man who is convinced that sloth, selfishness, 
 fraud, or lust, in this life, will necessitate his 
 being born at death into the terrible Buddhist 
 hell ^ or into some vile crawling creature, and 
 that from that condition he can only slowly and 
 laboriously win his way b}^ righteous living back 
 into his present state; the man who accepts 
 such a doctrine has at least one powerful induce- 
 ment to virtue. 
 
 It is obvious that were such a doctrine preached 
 to Europeans it would at once be met by the as- 
 sertion, that as we have no consciousness of any 
 life prior to this, in which we sowed what now we 
 are reaping, so we shall have no remembrance 
 of our present selves in any future state. There j 
 is no continuity of personal identity. It is not 
 really I w^ho am to be reborn, but another per- 
 son who is to be born and bear my guilt or en- 
 joy my merit. When I die, there remains only 
 my karma, and this karma of mine necessitates 
 the birth of a man or a beast ; but in this man 
 or beast there will be no consciousness of 
 identity with me, nor will my consciousness be 
 
 ' Adulterers, after being boiled for immense periods in 
 the lowest hell, are transferred into the Lohakumbha hell- 
 pot, the bottom of which they reach in 30,000 years. The 
 same time is spent in coming up to the surface ; and so 
 on. Well may they say : " To the fooHsh, who know not 
 the law of the righteous, the life to come is long." — Buddha- 
 ghosha's Parables J p. 132. 
 
 12''^ 
 
1 64 Bitddhism. 
 
 continued in that life of retribution. ( The sin 
 is punished, but not the sinner. Buddhism, 
 denying, as it did, the immateriahty of the soul, 
 had this objection in view at a very early period, 
 and met it by the analogical reasoning which 
 was so much in vogue. The king Milinda, in 
 the course of conversation with Nagasena, the 
 Buddhist sage, criticises the doctrine of karma 
 thus : *' If the same man is not again produced, 
 that being at least is delivered from the conse- 
 quences of sinful action." ^ To which Nagasena 
 replies, " How so? If there be no future birth there 
 is deliverance ; but if there be a future birth, 
 deliverance does not necessarily follow. Thus 
 a man steals a number of mangos, and takes them 
 away ; but he is seized by the owner, who brings 
 him before the king, and says, ' Sire, this man 
 has stolen my mangos.' But the robber replies, 
 ' I have not stolen his mangos ; the mango he 
 set in the ground was one, these mangos are 
 other and different.' Will this plea be sus- 
 tained ? Or a man while eating his food allows 
 his lamp to flare up and set fii^ito the thatch, 
 and, the flame extending, th^Q^liole village is 
 burned. But when the villagers seize him, he 
 says, ' Good people, I did not burn your village; 
 the flame that I kindled was one, but the flame 
 
 ^ Hardy's Maruml, p. 429. 
 
The Four Great Truths. 165 
 
 that burned your village was another.' Will 
 they listen to him ? " 
 
 If, then, all life is a misery, and if the bodil}' 
 death of the individual leaves still a germ 
 which will produce a renewal of life and of 
 misery, how is this germ to be got rid of? 
 The answer is given in a standard Buddhist 
 writing in the following explicit terms : ^ "What , 
 are the four sublime truths? Sorrow, the* 
 production of sorrow, the extinction of sorrow, I 
 the path which conducts to the extinction of\ 
 sorrow. What is the sorrow which is the first 
 great truth ? It is birth, old age, disease, 
 death ; it is being bound to what you hate and 
 separated from what you love ; it is powerless- 
 ness to obtain what you desire and seek. What 
 is the production of sorrow ? It is the cease- 
 less, ever - recurring desire, accompanied by 
 pleasure and passion, to find satisfaction in 
 one thing or other. What is the extinction of 
 sorrow ? It is the complete destruction of this 
 ever-recurring desire ; it is detachment from 
 this desire — its abandonment, extinction, anni- 
 hilation ; it is the perfect renunciation of this 
 desire. And what is the path which conducts 
 to this ? It is the path which is laid down by , 
 these eight things: right views, right will, 
 right effort, right action, right living, right 
 ' Burnouf's Introd. p. 629. 
 
 ■UW 
 
1 66 Bttddhisin. 
 
 /t 
 '/ speech, right thought, and right meditation." 
 
 Desire, in short, is the root-evil which must be 
 destroye d. The _thirst for life and its short- 
 lived empty pleasures must be got rid of. 
 The ignorance which betrays men, causing 
 them always to renew their belief in the satis- 
 fying nature of life, must be dispelled. They 
 must learn to see things as they are, and to 
 understand that as man never is, so never will 
 he be blessed, save by ceasing to be. Igno- 
 rance and desire, these are man's disease ; 
 ignorance which cannot see the impermanence 
 and vanity of all things ; desire which attaches 
 jiman to life, and carries him, like the crow on 
 the elephant's carcase, down the river, till he 
 finds himself seated on a skeleton picked clean, 
 and hopelessly lost in mid-ocean. The sup- 
 pression of desire, therefore, by the help of 
 \./Vwisdom, is the Buddhist means of salvation. 
 Here is the doctrine in Sakya-muni's own 
 words. "Existence is a tree; the merit or de- 
 merit of the actions of men is the fruit of that 
 tree and the seed of future trees ; death is the 
 withering away of the old tree from which the 
 others have sprung ; wisdom and virtue take 
 away the germinating faculty, so that when the 
 tree dies there is no reproduction. This is 
 Nirvana." ^ Or, as the same doctrine is taught 
 
 ' Wilson, ii. 364. 
 
Path to Nirvmia. 167 
 
 in another Buddhist writing: " The heart, scru- 
 pulously avoiding all idle dissipation, diligently 
 applying itself to the holy law of Buddha, 
 letting go all lust and consequent disappoint- 
 ment, fixed and unchangeable, enters on Nir- 
 vana." ^ 
 
 But it must not be supposed that the mere 
 conquest of sensuality, nor even the eradication 
 of all malevolent passion, is enough to lift the 
 disciple into Nirvana. The highest condition, 
 the Buddhist's perfect blessedness, is attained^ 
 only by those who have so absolutely conquered 
 self that they do not even desire continued 
 existence for themselves, but have given up 
 their hold of everything, and have thus attained 
 perfect inward peace and charity. It is this 
 sublimated Stoicism, this condition of perfect! 
 self-renunciation, which constitutes the Bud-/ 
 dhist Nirvana, and which destroys the possi-* 
 bility of any future existence. Thus, when a 
 young Bramatchari asked Buddha to explain 
 to him his secret, he replied, "Illustrious youth, 
 if a man let go his hold on the world so as to 
 store up no further karma, this man will under 
 stand the character of permanence and of non 
 permanence." Similarly to another inquirer 
 he says, " When the world, weary of sorrow, 
 turns away and separates itself from the cause 
 ^ Beal's Buddhist Scriptiwcs^ p. 159. 
 
1 68 Btiddhism. 
 
 of all this sorrow, then, by this voluntary rejec- 
 tion of it, there remains that which I call ' the 
 true self.' " ^ 
 
 Nirvana, then, is the moral condition which 
 accompanies the eradic ation of self:will, self- 
 assertion, self-seeking, self-pleasing. And had 
 this been the ultimate aim of Buddhism, 
 nothing could have been w^orthier of human 
 effort. But this moral self-renunciation is only 
 a means to the great end of annihilation, ex- 
 tinction of self in every sense. Self is to be 
 renounced, not that man may come into a 
 loving concord with the will of God and with 
 every living creature, but that he may himself 
 escape the misery which inevitably accompanies 
 all existence. The moral condition of Nirvana 
 is attained in order that at death there may be 
 no re-birth. The oil is withdrawn and the 
 flame dies out, so that no other wick can be lit 
 from it. Unconsciously it would, no doubt, 
 be the moral attainment which satisfied high- 
 minded Buddhists ; but theoretically the moral 
 attainment is not the ultimate end in view, but 
 only the means by which the man attains to 
 non-existence. He reaches the highest develop- 
 ment, not to become serviceable to the world 
 
 ^ Beal's Buddhist Sc?ip. pp. i8o, 185. An instructive 
 comparison of the system of Schopenhauer with that of 
 Buddha will be found in Helen Zimmern's Arthur Scho- 
 penhauer, c. X. 
 
Nirvana. 1 69 
 
 at large, but to pass away into nothingness. 
 " He that hateth his Hfe in this world, shall 
 keep it unto life eternal " — that is the well- 
 balanced, far-seeing, quiet enunciation of the 
 real law of existence; but the Buddhist Nir- 
 vana is a travestie of this, and magnificent as 
 is the conception of man's highest moral state, 
 it is stultified by the end for which it is to be 
 attained. 
 
 And thus, though the framework of the 
 Buddhist ethic is beautiful and all but perfect, 
 the moving spirit of it is radically selfish. It 
 not only professedly excludes all consideration 
 of a higher will than a man's own, but it also 
 excludes all idea of duty. It takes its depar- 
 ture from man's sense of misery, not from his 
 sense of sin ; it builds its well-proportioned and 
 exquisitely-chiselled temple not on conscience, 
 but on man's craving for happiness; and its 
 ultimate aim is not to free men from inward 
 evil, but to emancipate them from misery, that 
 is, from existence. And therefore, while the 
 admirable purity and elevation of its moral 
 teaching must have found a hopeful response 
 in many a soul, it has signally failed in moving 
 the multitude. It has in it the makings of the 
 purest moral system men have ever developed, 
 but it lacks the two elements which are chiefly 
 needed in any system which is to be extensively 
 
1 70 Buddhism. 
 
 efficacious among men : it lacks the appeal to 
 conscience which furnishes the steady support 
 of a sense of duty, and it lacks the idea of a 
 personal God which calls out the still stronger, 
 if as yet less constant, principles of love and 
 hope. 
 
 / But not only does Buddhism show us how 
 hopeless it is to endeavour to communicate to 
 nations a high morality apart from a pure 
 religious faith, it also shows us that the purest 
 natural instincts point to the same morality 
 which our religion teaches. It gives us the 
 proof that in bidding us extinguish self, our 
 Lord commands that which the truest human 
 wisdom working in a purely human interest 
 itself dictates. 
 
 The most competent living authority on 
 Buddhism, Mr. Rhys Davids, has elaborated 
 a theory which, though it owes, I think, more 
 to his own elevated moral sentiment than to 
 Buddhist principles, yet deserves to be noticed, 
 both on account of its intrinsic beauty and in 
 deference to its originator. It is a theory in 
 which the Comtists will recognise that Bud- 
 dhism has anticipated them not only in their 
 materialism and agnosticism, but alsc in their 
 worship of humanity and sacrifice of the indi- 
 vidual to the race. For the theory is this : 
 that the Buddhist, in seeking Nirvana, knows 
 
A 7inihilation. 171 
 
 that this involves his own personal extinction, 
 but is upheld by the hope that he will thus 
 lessen the sum of human misery. By destroy- 
 ing his karma, by annihilating this seed of a 
 new existence, he withdraws one individual life 
 from the sum of beings who are going the 
 weary round of ever- recurring births. "The 
 true Buddhist saint does not stain the purity 
 of his self - denial by lusting after a positive 
 happiness which he himself is to enjoy here- 
 after. His consciousness will cease to feel, but 
 his virtue will live and work out its full effect 
 in the decrease of the sum of the misery of 
 sentient beings." ^ He helps forward the uni- 
 verse to its goal of non-existence. He leaves 
 behind him no inheritance of misery. He him- 
 self ceases to be, and no one takes his place ; 
 there is one unit the less to live and to suffer. 
 This is the Buddhist analogue to the Positivist 
 offset to personal annihilation so winningly pre- 
 sented by George Eliot : — 
 
 " O may I join the choir invisible 
 Of those immortal dead who Hve asrain 
 In minds made better by their presence : live 
 In pulses stirred to generosity, 
 In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn 
 For miserable aims that end with self. 
 In thoughts sublime that pierce the nightlike stars, 
 
 ^ Cojiteinporary Review, ]2iW\.\2irY, iSyy. 
 
1/2 Buddhism, 
 
 And with their mild persistence urge man's search 
 To vaster issues. . . . 
 
 This is Hfe to come." ^ 
 
 Certainly it is competent to a Buddhist to 
 cherish this desire for the universal good, and 
 the religion out of which such thoughts can be 
 even logically evolved is thereby proved to be 
 worthy of earnest study and of much considera- 
 tion. Neither ought it to be overlooked that, 
 with the exception of Christianity, no religion 
 has laid such stress upon the grace of universal 
 charity as Buddhism lays. Buddha himself 
 said, "A man who foolishly does me wrong, I 
 will return to him the protection of my ungrudg- 
 ing love ; the more evil comes from him the 
 more good shall go from me." " A wicked 
 man who reproaches a virtuous one is like one 
 who looks up and spits at heaven ; the spittle 
 soils not the heaven, but comes back and defiles 
 his own face." Again, in a very remarkable 
 passage, " To feed crowds by the hundred is not 
 to be compared to the act of feeding one really 
 good man ; to feed good men by the thousand 
 is not to be compared to the act of feeding one 
 lay-disciple ;" and so on through all the ranks 
 of Buddhist saintship, till we come to the 
 
 ' To the same purpose Mr. John Morley has conse- 
 crated some of the most eloquent passages in the English 
 language. 
 
Universal Charity enjoined. 173 
 
 highest : "To feed Pratyeka Buddhas by the 
 thousand myriad is not like feeding one Buddha, 
 and learning to pray to him from a desire to save 
 all living creatures. To feed one good man, how- 
 ever, is of infinitely greater merit than attend- 
 ing to questions about heaven and earth, spirits 
 and demons, such as occupy ordinary men. 
 These matters are not to be compared to the 
 religious duties we owe to our parents. Our 
 parents are very Divine." ^ And, as here hinted, 
 it is not only love to parents and Buddhists 
 that is enjoined, but universal charity ; love for 
 all living beings, and that of the most substan- 
 tial kind. "As a mother, even at the risk of 
 her own life, protects her son, her only son, so 
 let there be good-will without measure among 
 all beings. Let good-will without measure — 
 unhindered love and friendliness — prevail in 
 the whole world, above, below, around." But 
 although Buddha himself practised this univer- 
 sal charity and engaged in his search after truth 
 for the world's sake as well as for his own, there 
 is no evidence that he desired extinction in order 
 to lessen the sum of misery and not rather to 
 terminate his own. Indeed the words in which 
 Buddha exultantly celebrated the dawn of light 
 in his mind imply that his escape from the 
 danger of re-birth was a subject of congratula- 
 
 ^ Beal's Bud. Scrip, pp. 193, 4. 
 
1 74 BtiddJiisvi. 
 
 tion exclusively to himself. " Through various 
 transmigrations have I passed, always vainly 
 seeking to discover the builder of my tabernacle. 
 Painful are repeated transmigrations. But now, 
 O builder, thou art discovered. Never shalt 
 thou build me another house. Thy frames are 
 broken, thy ridge-pole shattered. To Nirwana 
 my mind is gone. I have attained to the ex- 
 tinction of desire." ^ 
 
 Buddhism stands in no need of any doubtfully 
 imported merit. It has a genuine and obvious 
 merit of its own. It proclaims the fundamental 
 truth that men obtain deliverance from their 
 j evil destiny and enter into blessedness only 
 1 when they attain to perfect life and character. 
 No sooner was this salvation proclaimed, than 
 the vast sacerdotal system of India, with its 
 ritual and its caste, was felt to be a useless 
 encumbrance. Buddha did not make war upon 
 caste, but as he had discovered salvation by 
 considering the nature of man, and as his sal- 
 vation was equally applicable to all men, caste 
 lost its religious character wherever Buddhism 
 - gained ascendency. Buddhism has thus the 
 merit of anticipating Christianity in two of its 
 most striking features — its universalism and its 
 ethical character. All men may be saved, and 
 they are saved, not at all by outward rites or 
 
 I Various versions given in Hardy's Manual^ pp. iSo, i. 
 
Practically a Failure. 175 
 
 mechanical performances, but by themselves 
 being emancipated from inward evil. 
 
 Practically, however, Buddhism must be 
 admitted to have been to a large extent a 
 failure. In no country has it rooted itself more 
 firmly than in Mongolia, and here, while its 
 high morality is ignored, the germs of evil which 
 the system carried in it have found luxuriant 
 development. From the first, Buddhism re- 
 served its highest blessings for the man of con- 
 templation, who could pass through the world 
 as the stick floats down the river — unattracted 
 to either bank. Its fundamental principles also 
 discouraged the increase of population. If life 
 could only be miserable, the celibate has a 
 higher degree than the married man. So that 
 although a man may be a good Buddhist while 
 supporting a family by ordinary business in the 
 world, the actual result of the system is, that in 
 those countries where its influence is most felt 
 not less than one-third of the male population 
 become lamas or monks. In one monastery 
 there are said to be as many as thirty thou- 
 sand lamas, and several others throughout 
 Tibet and Mongolia number their inmates by 
 thousands. It so happens that in some districts 
 this restriction of population is a boon, owing 
 to the sterility of the soil and the difficulty 
 of emigration. Buddhism and polyandry are 
 
176 BiiddJiisin. 
 
 evils that work for good. But the withdrawal 
 of so large a part of the population from pro-' 
 ductive labour, and their exemption from taxes, 
 as well as the constant anxiety produced in the 
 empire of China^ by so large a body of men con- 
 tiguous to their border, and ready to act at the 
 word of the Dalai Lama, seriously retard the 
 civilization of these countries. Lamaism, while 
 it is the strength of the Buddhist religion, is, 
 according to the most recent explorer, " the 
 most frightful curse " of Mongolia.^ Cruelty 
 and immorality, the two vices against which 
 \primitive Buddhism most emphatically declared 
 
 , I itself, are here common and unopposed. The 
 Buddhist who before sitting down will brush 
 his seat lest he crush an insect, will slaughter 
 his prisoners in cold blood ; and the religion 
 wdiich originally laid such stress upon medita- 
 
 : tion and wisdom, is now represented, if wx 
 
 .! except Burmah, by a priesthood that is dis- 
 
 \ gracefully ignorant. 
 
 All religions undergo rapid and important 
 alterations. The difference between any religion 
 as it exists in the actual popular acceptation of 
 it, and the same religion as it existed in the 
 mind of its founder, is generally marked and 
 
 ^ Wilson, ii. 373. Wilson's Abode of Snow, p. 224, &c. 
 Prejevalsky's Mongolia, i. 76. 
 2 Prejevalsky, i. 80. 
 
Deterioration of BiiddJiism. 1 7 7 
 
 significant. Every religion is modified by the 
 racial characteristics of the nations among 
 whom it finds acceptance. It is dragged down 
 to the comprehension and forced into the forms 
 of thought of a half-educated people, and it is 
 compelled to assume a dress which effectuall}^ 
 disguises and hampers it. It is difficult to 
 identify the dialect of Somersetshire and that of 
 Berwickshire as the same language ; but it is 
 still more difficult to detect any close relation- 
 ship between the superstitious and idolatrous 
 religion of the Northern Buddhists and the 
 original system of Buddha. No religion, indeed, 
 not even Christianity, has suffered such altera- 
 tion at the hands of its devotees as Buddhism 
 has suffered. 
 
 In two particulars only can this alteration be 
 here noted. It might have been expected that 
 if the original ritual of Buddhism was too scant 
 for the popular mind, it would at least preserve 
 its adherents from formalism. The actual re- 
 sult is the very opposite. The perfunctory per- 
 formance of religious rites and the necessarily 
 accompanying superstition have attained gigan- 
 tic proportions in Buddhist countries. It is 
 true that the ritual of the Parsees, as well as the 
 most sacred canon of the Hindus, are in a 
 language not understood by the priests them- 
 selves, while the breviary of the Roman Catho- 
 
 13 
 
I /S Buddhism, 
 
 lies is in a language not understood by the 
 people ; but among the Buddhists the prayer 
 which may be said to be their Paternoster, and 
 which is repeated many times a day by millions 
 of lips, is wholly unintelligible both to priests 
 and to people. Intelligent travellers have tried 
 in vain to discover the meaning of the mystical 
 words, " Om mani padme hum;" and competent 
 scholars disagree as to their origin and interpre- 
 tation;^ and yet these are the first syllables 
 which the child is taught to pronounce, and 
 the last breath of the dying Buddhist is shaped 
 into these unintelligible but saving words. 
 *' The wanderer," we are told, " murmurs them 
 on his way, the herdsman beside his cattle, the 
 matron at her household tasks, the monk in all 
 the stages of contemplation ; they form at once 
 a cry of battle and a shout of victory. They 
 are to be read wherever the Lama Church has 
 spread, upon banners, upon rocks, upon trees, 
 upon walls, upon monuments of stone, upon 
 household utensils, upon human skulls and 
 skeletons." ^ A cry of distress or a sigh of relief 
 or confidence need not be articulate in order to 
 be both genuine and intelligible to the person 
 
 ^ A facsimile of this prayer is given by Schlagintweit, 
 Budd}iis7n iji Tibet, '^. 120. The interpretation which has 
 found greatest acceptance is : " O the jewel in the lotus. 
 Amen." Wilson thinks it means, " Glory to Manipadme." 
 
 2 Hecley and Kocppen, quoted by Prcjevalsky, i. 282. 
 
Its Formalism. 179 
 
 to whom it is uttered ; and it ought not to be 
 denied that through these sacred words many 
 a true and profound emotion has found expres- 
 sion. To pray inarticulately is at all events 
 better than not to pray at all. But the charge 
 of formalism is made good when another feature 
 of Buddhist prayer is adduced. Praying by 
 proxy is common in all religions, but praying 
 by machinery is apparently the invention of 
 Buddhism. These mysterious words, " Om 
 mani padme hum," are written or printed many 
 times over on long scrolls of paper, which are 
 wound within a small brass cylinder. This 
 cylinder rotates upon an axis, and as often as it 
 is set spinning so many prayers are said. These 
 cylinders are carried by the lamas, who keep 
 them spinning as they converse with you ; they 
 are fixed in the walls of houses, and as often as 
 any of the family passes, another turn is given 
 to the wheel ; they are also provided with fans 
 and set on the tops of houses, where the wind 
 keeps them moving, or in a stream, which drives 
 the praying mill for behoof of the community. 
 
 The most significant change, however, which 
 has passed upon Buddhism is its abandonment 
 of atheism. In speaking of Buddhism as an 
 atheistic religion, it is essential to distinguish 
 between the original and consistent system and 
 the aftergrowth which sprang from the root of 
 
 13 * 
 
I So Buddhism. 
 
 human instinct and national prepossession. 
 Buddha himself makes no recognition of a per- 
 sonal God, but this creed was found too abstract 
 and impersonal for popular acceptance, and the 
 religious instincts of the masses introduced 
 various forms of quasi-divine worship. 
 / / That the original system of Buddha was athe- 
 ( istic is unquestionable. There is a conversa- 
 tion recorded in which Sakya-muni interrogates 
 Alara, the wisest of the Brahmans, as to the 
 existence of an Isvara or Supreme God who 
 alone deserves worship. Alara mentions the 
 Great Brahma as such a Being. But, objects 
 Buddha, what becomes of him at the end of the 
 kalpa, when this present heaven and earth are 
 entirely burnt up and destro3^ed — where then 
 is your Creator? Again, Buddha argues that if 
 all things had been created by Isvara, then all 
 things must have been good, and there could 
 have been no possibility of evil ; there could 
 have been no causes of sorrow, neither could 
 there have been any difficulties of belief; this 
 very question regarding the existence of Isvara 
 could have found no place, but all men would 
 have known him as their Father — an argument 
 which in other religions also has led men to 
 abandon monotheism. 
 
 Alara has indeed the best of the discussion 
 when he presses Buddha regarding the origin of 
 
Its Atheism. iSi 
 
 the world and man, but as intelligent Buddhists 
 in our own day evade this difficulty by declaring 
 it to be a profitless inquiry, so Buddha himself 
 at this point disclaimed the character of a dis- 
 putant, and declared himself to be speaking as 
 one " who participates in the great mass of 
 evil which exists, and who seeks only a physi- 
 cian." ' 
 
 These utterances are sufficiently explicit. It 
 is also obvious that the fundamental principles 
 of Buddhism are inconsistent with theism. 
 These principles do not necessitate nor invite 
 to the recognition of any beings which are not 
 radically of the same nature as man, and which 
 are not exposed to the same risks as he. It 
 agrees better, as one of our best authorities 
 affirms, with the genius of the system pro- 
 pounded by Gautama " to suppose that, like 
 other sceptics, he believed in neither angel nor 
 demon, than to imagine that the accounts of 
 the dewas and other supernatural beings we 
 meet with in works called Buddhistical were 
 known at its first promulgation."^ 
 
 But supernaturalism asserted itself immedi- 
 ately, and the various polytheists who accepted 
 Buddhism compensated themselves for the de- 
 
 I Vy^d^s Romantic Hist. p. 173. Alabaster's Wheel of 
 the Law, passim. Hardy's Manual^ p. 375. 
 ^ Hardy, pp. 40, 41. 
 
1 8 2 Buddhism. 
 
 privation of their ancestral gods by setting 
 Buddha above them, and paying him a similar 
 worship. Brahma and Indra were repudiated 
 as supreme gods ; but Brahma is represented 
 as paying religious honours to the discarded 
 robe of Sakya-muni, while Indra descends from 
 the heaven of the thirty-three gods to secure the 
 dish from which the Buddha had eaten, and to 
 set it up as an object of worship in his own 
 heavenly abode. 
 
 Universally among Buddhists attributes which 
 are recognised as divine are attributed to 
 Buddha, especially the attributes of supremacy 
 and omniscience. He is " the joy of the whole 
 world ; the helper of the helpless ; the dewa of 
 dewas ; the brahma of brahmas ; the very com- 
 passionate ; more powerful than the most power- 
 ful ; able to bestow Nirvana on him who only 
 softly pronounces his name, or gives in his name 
 a few grains of rice. The eye cannot see any- 
 thing, the ear cannot hear anything, nor the 
 mind think of anything more excellent or more 
 worthy of regard than Buddha." ^ Of all per- 
 sonal beings Buddha is the highest. 
 
 It may indeed be thought ^ that this does not 
 amount to deification. And this is true so far 
 as regards instructed Buddhists ; but it would 
 appear that the common people in Nepaul wor- 
 
 ^ Hardy, p. 360. ^ St. Hilaire, p. 168. 
 
Objects of Worship. 183 
 
 ship one Supreme Buddha, called Adi-Buddha, 
 relying upon him for protection and salvation, 
 and " treating him to all practical intents and 
 purposes as if he were the highest God, a per- 
 sonal being of unlimited wisdom, goodness, and 
 power, the very creator and sustainer of the 
 world." ^ 
 
 But besides Buddha himself there are others 
 to whom worship is paid, although possibly only 
 of that lower kind which a devout Romanist 
 pays to the saints. The heroes and benefactors 
 of the Buddhist Church could readily fill a Com- 
 tist calendar, and are surrounded with a legend- 
 ary halo which lifts them as much above the 
 ordinary level of humanity as demigods and 
 saints are exalted by the mythologies of Greece 
 or the Acta Sanctorum of more modern times. 
 And it is significant that the ancient atheism 
 as well as the modern was compelled to deify 
 humanity, that the individual might at least 
 have the satisfaction of looking up to and trust- 
 ing in something higher than himself. Images 
 ofthese saints profusely adorn or disfigure the 
 Buddhist temples. Conspicuous among them, 
 however, are images of the Buddhist Trinity, 
 Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Tradition tells 
 us that when Buddha felt himself dying he 
 called Ananda to him, and said, " Ananda, when 
 ' Eitel's Lectures, p. 117. 
 
184 Bitddhisni. 
 
 I am gone you must not think there is no 
 Buddha ; the discourses I have delivered and 
 the precepts I have enjoined \i,e.^ Dharma] 
 must be my successor and representative, and 
 be to you as Buddha." And among the seven 
 imperishable precepts he gave to his disciples, 
 the first in order was '' to keep assemblies " 
 [Sangha] . From the earliest times admission 
 was given to the Buddhist Church on the re- 
 petition of the confession, " I take refuge in 
 Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha ; " and with its 
 wonderful gift for personification, the Eastern 
 mind has elevated these three to a quasi-divine 
 rank. 
 
 But by far the most remarkable development 
 of Buddhist belief and worship belongs to the 
 mystical period of its history. During this 
 period Amitabha, the Eternal, originally a title 
 of Buddha, began to be worshipped by the 
 Chinese as the compassionate and loving Father 
 of men, or as the " universal Self." But as 
 " Self" manifests itself by Speech, Speech was 
 regarded as the Son or manifestation of the 
 Eternal Self, and was adored under the name of 
 Avalokiteshwara, the manifested God.^ This 
 Divinity, who has " a thousand arms and a thou- 
 sand eyes and a merciful heart," and who has 
 bound himself by an oath " to save completely 
 ' Beal's Buddhist Sa'ip. p. 374. 
 
Popular Biiddhisni. 1S5 
 
 all that breathes," is accepted by many millions 
 as the invisible head of the present Buddhist 
 Church, and is popularly believed to listen with 
 compassion to the prayers of all in distress, to 
 assist in the propagation of the faith, and to give 
 entrance into the heavenly Paradise which has 
 superseded the blank Nirvana in the hopes of 
 the multitude. 
 
IV. 
 THE PERFECT RELIGION, 
 
" On its historical side, Christianity null fiovcr in the air sj long 
 as all religions are not recognised in their essential relation to it, 
 as negative or positive preparations for it. " DoliNER, 
 
 '' TJic glory of Christianity is not to he as unlike other religions 
 as possible, but to be their perfection andfullilnient," JowEi'T. 
 
 " Pour condamner le Cliristiauisme, ilfaiit ne pas le coniprendre." 
 St. Hilaire. 
 
IV. 
 
 ONE cannot fail to notice in the literature 
 of the day a tendency more or less pro- 
 nounced to put all religions, including the Chris- 
 tian, more nearly on one level, and especially 
 to deal with them as if they were all alike out- 
 growths from the same root, man's religious 
 faculty. This tendency has been stimulated by 
 the comparative method of studying religions, 
 which has brought to light the large number of 
 resemblances existing in the various religions 
 of the world, but which has as yet been back- 
 ward in detecting, analysing, and defining essen- 
 tial distinctions. Archaeological researches have 
 discovered the common origin of many customs, 
 traditions, and beliefs, now found in countries 
 widely separated from one another. Historical 
 knowledge has done much to show us the pro- 
 cesses by which a rude and barbarous tribe 
 may be developed into a refined and highly 
 civilised nation ; and as we see how such a sys- 
 tem as our own civil constitution has been 
 gradually elaborated out of the summary des- 
 
190 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 potism of a tribal chief, the thought cannot but 
 occur to us, May not the most perfectly elabo- 
 rated religious system have also grown up with- 
 out other aids than those which are given in 
 human nature and in history governed solely by 
 natural laws ? As man was created with a 
 faculty of speech, and with instincts and emo- 
 tions prompting him to communicate with his 
 fellows, but was not endowed with any actual 
 language, may not his religious equipment have 
 been of a similar kind? As he was certain to 
 create for himself a language sufficient for his 
 occasions, and competent to bring him effectually 
 into all needed communication with his fellow- 
 men, was it not enough that he possessed also 
 a religious faculty enabling him to hold fellow- 
 ship with God, and sure to find utterance for 
 itself in ways not unpleasing nor unintelligible to 
 Him who had implanted the faculty ? 
 
 Certainly this is a suggestion much more 
 worthy of discussion than the theories which 
 found acceptance last century, to the effect that 
 religions were the product of fear or the con- 
 trivances of priests. It is now generally agreed 
 that religion is universal ; and that, being uni- 
 versal, it is necessary; that the faculty for hold- 
 ing intercourse with the unseen and supernatural 
 is an essential part of human nature/ From 
 
 ' See Fairbairn's Sindu'Sf p. 303. 
 
Universality of Religion, 191 
 
 man's universal use of some form of food, we 
 conclude that food is necessary, and that man's 
 power of assimilating it is an essential part of 
 his nature. Similarly, when we find that, with 
 some inconsiderable exceptions, all men have 
 some form or other of religion, we conclude that 
 the religious faculty is essential to human na- 
 ture, and will always find for itself some ex- 
 pression. To quote the words of M. Renan, 
 who will not be suspected of undue bias in the 
 matter: " Is religion destined to die away like 
 the popular fallacies concerning magic, sorcery, 
 and ghosts ? By no means. Religion is not 
 a popular fallacy : it is a great and intuitive 
 truth, felt and expressed by the people. All the 
 symbols which serve to give shape to the religious 
 sentiment are imperfect, and their fate is to be 
 one after the other rejected. But nothing is 
 more remote from the truth than the dream of 
 those who seek to imagine a perfected humanity 
 without religion. The contrary idea is the 
 truth. The effect of progress in humanity will 
 not destroy or weaken religion, but will develop 
 and increase it." ^ Indeed even Cicero foresaw 
 that time would only serve to purify religion and 
 render it more stable. " We see," he says, 
 "that imaginations and mere opinions wear out 
 and disappear. Who now believes in the cen- 
 ^ Renan, The Apostles (E. T.), pp. 286, 7. 
 
192 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 taur or chimasra ? What old woman is so 
 silly as to trouble herself nowadays with the 
 horrors of hell, which once formed a part of 
 every one's creed ? For time destroys the fab- 
 rications of opinion, but confirms the decisions 
 of nature. And therefore, both in our own and 
 other countries, the worship of the gods and 
 the sanctities of religions grow daily stronger 
 and purer." ^ '' More and more," says another 
 inquirer into this subject, " as they become 
 better known to us, the original forms of all re- 
 ligions are seen to fall under the category of 
 nature and less under that of mind or free will. 
 Religions, like languages, are inherent in all 
 men everywhere, having a close sympathy or 
 connection with political and family life. It 
 would be a shallow and imaginary explanation 
 of them that they are corruptions of some 
 primeval revelation, or impostures framed by 
 the persuasive arts of magicians or priests." ^ 
 Religion, then, must be defined as that which 
 satisfies this faculty for dealing with the super- 
 natural. The etymological definition of Lactan- 
 tius, which declares religion to be that by which 
 we are connected with or bound to God, whether 
 right or wrong as etymology, is true as a defini- 
 tion. Newman's definition is also careful and 
 
 ^ De Nat. Dcor. ii. 2. 
 
 2 Jowett, St. PauVs Epistles^ ii. 437. 
 
DeJinitio7i of Religio7i. 19 
 
 exact : '' What is religion but the system of 
 relations subsisting between us and a supreme 
 Power ? " ^ More recently it has been said^ that 
 religion is ''man's belief in a being or beings 
 mightier than himself and inaccessible to his 
 senses, but not indifferent to his sentiments and 
 actions, with the feelings and practices wdiich 
 flow from such a belief/' That which is com- 
 mon to all religions is the effort they make to 
 bring man into harmony with th6 supernatural, 
 with that which he cannot control by physical 
 force. And it may be added that, if we define 
 religion from that which is found to be common 
 to all religions, it is the effort to come into 
 satisfactory relations with some personal being or 
 beings in whom the supernatural centres. In 
 presence of much of the current philosophy it 
 is indeed a great assumption we make when we 
 assume that personality is a higher form of ex- 
 istence than impersonality. But we are now 
 only accepting what the religions of the world 
 teach us, and unquestionably they teach us 
 nothing more distinctly than this, that the re- 
 ligious faculty in man considers personality the 
 true form of the supernatural. Brahmanism 
 has attempted to substitute for a personal God 
 a being universally diffused and constituting all 
 forms of life, but the unsophisticated cravings 
 
 I Univ. Ser. p. 19. ° Flint's Bab-dLcci. Lect. ii. 
 
 14 
 
V 
 
 194 ^^^^ Perfect Religion, 
 
 of the Hindus demand personal objects of wor- 
 ship and trust. Buddhism began its career 
 without taking account of God at all, but has 
 only succeeded thereby in giving birth to a 
 peculiarly degraded polytheism. 
 Sii If religion, then, be the medium of communi- 
 
 J7\[^y» cation between God and men, that religion is 
 j/ , the best which most perfectly brings God and 
 
 \ man together. In other words, the best religion 
 
 ^'^^ -^ must furnish us with the true idea of God, and 
 must enable us to come into the most perfect 
 \^ harmony with Him that is possible. No sooner, 
 then, is the definition of religion clearly before 
 the mind, than it condemns as imperfect many 
 forms of religion which have been largely ad- 
 hered to. All religions which propose to bring 
 men into harmony with God by rites and merely 
 substitutionary sacrifices, all religions which 
 furnish men with the means of appeasing an 
 angry God but with no means of loving Him, 
 must be dismissed as unsatisfying. Proof is 
 afforded that such religions do not satisfy the 
 healthiest religious cravings, by the fact that 
 alongside of sacerdotalism there has commonly 
 grown up a development of m3'sticism or theo- 
 sophic speculation.^ This is the effort of nature 
 to find a more real approach to God than 
 priestly rites afford. 
 
 ^ See this finely illustrated in Fairbairn's Studies, p. 143. 
 
Fallacioits Criterio^is. 195 
 
 Again, no sooner do we clearly see what 
 religion is than we are at once compelled to dis- 
 miss certain criterions which have sometimes 
 been applied to distinguish Christianity from 
 other religions. We cannot, c.g.^ cite in proof 
 of the superiority of Christianity the fact that 
 for defence of its truth, and in reliance upon it, 
 many suffered martyrdom. Every religion has 
 had its victims. The martyrs of Babism have 
 left as touching memorials of their constancy as 
 those w^e read in the annals of the Christian 
 Church. The freeness and confidence with 
 which women and girls submitted to torture or 
 faced the beasts in the amphitheatres convinced 
 observant spectators that in the religion for 
 which they died there was certainly something 
 strengthening, and probably something true. 
 Many were moved in precisely the same way as 
 Justin, who himself subsequently laid down his 
 life for his religion. " I myself," he says, 
 " while a Platonist heard the Christians evil 
 spoken of, but when I saw them fearless in 
 regard to death and all else that men count 
 terrible, I began to see that they could not 
 possibly be wicked sensualists." That is to 
 say, martyrdom may provoke inquiry, but can- 
 not prove the truth of a religion. Neither can 
 success be accepted as a criterion. To use the 
 
 words of John Henry Newman, *' It is indeed 
 
 14* 
 
196 
 
 The Perfect Religion, 
 
 by no means clear that Christianity has at any 
 time been of any great spiritual advantage to the 
 world at large. . . . The true light of the world 
 offends more men than it attracts ; and its divine 
 origin is shown, not in its marked effects on the 
 mass of mankind, but in its surprising power of 
 elevating the moral character where it is received 
 in spirit and in truth." ^ We need not expect, 
 therefore, to find that we can rank religions in 
 proportion to the number of their adherents. 
 
 In short, we must judge of the actual religions 
 of the world by their relative competency to 
 give men the highest idea of God, and to bring 
 men into the profoundest harmony with Him. 
 
 I. — That religion is the best which gives us 
 the highest idea of God; and that idea of God 
 is the highest which is most satisfying to the 
 intellect, most educating to the conscience, most 
 quickening to the spirit, and, therefore, most 
 influential on the conduct. We would say that 
 that religion is the true religion which gives us 
 the true idea of God ; but we are proceeding by 
 the method of comparing actual religions one 
 with another, and must therefore, for the pre- 
 sent, content ourselves with saying that, in com- 
 parison with other religions, that is the best 
 which gives us the highest idea of God. Now, 
 it were affectation to profess any difficulty at 
 ^ University Sc7i)ions^ p. 40. 
 
It gives Highest Idea of God. 197 
 
 this point. It is not pretended by any writers 
 whose thoughts on this subject have been ac- 
 cepted as a distinct development of rehgious 
 thought in the country, that there is any higher 
 or worthier idea of God to be found in any 
 rehgion than in Christianity. Nay, it is not 
 pretended that there is any higher or worthier 
 idea of God present to the mind of the most dis- 
 cipHned or spiritual thinker than that which was 
 conveyed by Christ. No such idea has been 
 published. Tlie_xeligion of Christ has actually 
 coiweyed__to_tlie world its best idea of God. It 
 is this idea which has satisfied the most ad- 
 vanced races, and the most religious natures 
 among these races. And it has satisfied them 
 by the combination which it alone presents of 
 infinite exaltation and infinite lowliness, of ab- 
 solute holiness and inexhaustible love. 
 
 Now, if we inquire what lay at the root of 
 this superiority of the Christian idea of God, 
 the first explanation we meet with is that this 
 was the idea given by God Himself. Other j 
 ideas of God fall short, and the human spirit 
 grows past them ; but this idea remains unsur- 
 passed, for the simple reason that while the 
 former embody men's thoughts about God, the 
 latter embodies God's revelation of Himself. 
 No explanation could be more satisfactory or 
 better fit the facts ; but is it true ? I cannot 
 
198 The Perfect Religion, 
 
 be expected to bring before you what is com- 
 monly and justly adduced in proof of a revela- 
 tion, but may be allowed to pursue a single 
 line of inquiry suggested by the question, Have 
 we any means of determining whether in the 
 one case we have only men's thoughts about 
 God, and in the other a revelation by God Him- 
 self? I think we have. And although every 
 revelation will always be its own best evidence 
 to those who are mentally and spiritually in its 
 own plane, it may yet be worth while to offer 
 that which bears some resemblance, not indeed 
 to demonstration, but to scientific proof of a 
 revelation.^ 
 
 Scientific inquiry, if it has not been able to 
 measure the idea of revelation all round, and 
 explain to us its method, has at least enabled 
 us to approximate to a definition of it. If we 
 find any race in possession of an idea, the roots 
 of which we cannot trace to any inquiry on 
 their part or to any contact with other races, 
 we may fairly say that this is a revelation ; 
 supposing always that this idea is found to 
 be true, and is concerned with matters super- 
 natural. The line can, apparently, be drawn be- 
 tween the outcome of unassisted human thought 
 
 I As Rothe says : "The existence of a Divine Revela- 
 tion is not to be rigidly demonstrated. It exists only for 
 faith, — only for him to whom it proves itself by begetting 
 faith in him." 
 
Definition of Revelation. 199 
 
 and supernatural enlightenment. The religious 
 faculty natural to man may, by centuries of 
 sustained effort and instructive experience, pro- 
 duce surprising results, but these results may 
 be distinguished from the attainments made by 
 a race under the continuous influence of a 
 special revelation, and from the truths com- 
 municated by God's interposition. We are on 
 all hands surrounded by results of the steady 
 application of men's natural faculties so aston- 
 ishing that we may well be cautious in denying 
 anything to their power. Man has, e. g., a 
 natural capacity for music, and the picture 
 which Lucian gives of Hermes constructing the 
 first lyre out of the shell of a dead tortoise may 
 rather overrate the ingenuity of those who first 
 attempted to express the feeling for music that 
 was in them. If we listen to the tom-toms that 
 stir the painted savage to his war-dance, and 
 then to the most overpowering of Beethoven's 
 symphonies, we apprehend the range of human 
 faculty and the development of which it is sus- 
 ceptible. But, keeping this in view, and bear- 
 ing in mind also that to establish the fact of a 
 revelation it must be shown that the faculty of 
 the race to which it was given was not com- 
 petent to attain the idea it accepts, we think 
 this can be made good regarding the idea of the 
 Incarnation of our Lord. 
 
y 
 
 200 The Pel' feet Religion, 
 
 It is the Incarnation, God revealed in hu- 
 , man nature, which is the essential formative 
 
 i 
 
 characteristic of Christianity. It is the Incar- 
 nation which is the Revelation to which all 
 other revelation was preliminary and prepara- 
 tory. But if the science of religion has reached 
 any trustworthy conclusions at all, one of these 
 certainly is that the idea of incarnation is alien 
 to the Semitic mind. The characteristic of the 
 Semitic conception of God is that it sets an 
 impassable gulf between God and man, while 
 the mythologies of the Aryan peoples exhibit a 
 familiar intercourse between heaven and earth. 
 It is often difficult to say who is a god and who 
 is a man, or whether the recognised god has 
 more of the human or of the divine. Let us 
 hear one of our very best authorities on this 
 point. ^ "Neither as monotheisms, nor as po- 
 lytheisms, do the Semitic religions attribute a 
 fatherly, humane character to 1;heir gods. Even 
 the Old Testament knows only an abstract ideal 
 fatherhood, which the Hebrews as a nation 
 realise, but the Hebrew as a man almost never 
 does. The Semitic God dwells in inaccessible 
 light — an awful, invisible presence, before which 
 man must stand uncovered, trembling ; but the 
 Indo-European God is pre-eminently accessible, 
 
 ^ Fairbairn's Studies, p. 36 ; comp. Doiner's Person of 
 Christ, Introd. 
 
Inca7niatio}i not a Semitic Idea. 201 
 
 loves familiar intercourse, is bound to man by 
 manifold ties of kinship." 
 
 If, then, this professed incarnation had oc- 
 curred upon the ground of an Indo-European 
 religion, it might plausibly have been referred 
 to the natural craving of the Indo-European 
 for such manifestations. The idea is not alien 
 to the mind of that race, and this circumstance 
 would have prejudiced the fact. But occurring, 
 as the incarnation does, among a Semitic 
 people, it is impossible to believe that this idea 
 was a natural growth — the mere result of the 
 unaided working of Semitic instincts. These 
 instincts lay all in an opposite direction. Even 
 the Jews who became Christians showed a 
 strong repugnance and almost incapacity to 
 believe in our Lord's divinity. They fell back 
 into Ebionism and betrayed their Semitic na- 
 ture. In. the mind of Mohammed the idea of 
 an incarnation could find no place. It was 
 with a revulsion of feeling and a passion- 
 ate indignation, altogether unlike the quiet 
 unconcern of our European Unitarians, that 
 the Arabian prophet denounced as horrible 
 blasphemy the idea that Jesus was God. 
 Here, then, we have the root-idea of a religion 
 springing up from a soil in which there was 
 nothing which could naturally produce it ; that 
 is to say, we have an idea which perfectly 
 
 ) 
 
202 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 answers to the definition of a revelation which 
 the science of rehgion gives us — an idea 
 ''given," not acquired. I confess I do not 
 see how to evade the conclusion that this is 
 a genuine revelation. 
 
 The case is very much strengthened when we 
 consider that the idea was conveyed by the fact 
 of incarnation. The idea did not first arise in 
 the mind of a religious teacher, neither did it 
 first take possession of a race and subsequently 
 give birth to the fact. It was the fact which 
 gave birth to the idea in the minds of the few 
 who understood it ; it was the overpowering 
 evidence of the fact itself which overcame the 
 Semitic repugnance in so far as it was over- 
 come. Men felt that it was not an idea about 
 God they were receiving by revelation, but that 
 God was revealing Himself. It is the fact of 
 the incarnation that is the revelation. 
 
 What we have, then, in the Christian religion 
 is this : we have the highest idea of God which 
 has ever actually been conceived by any race or 
 individual ; and it may therefore safely be said 
 the highest possible. But this idea has been in 
 point of fact conveyed through the incarnation. 
 The prominent idea, therefore, in the Chris- 
 tian conception of God is that which the incar- 
 nation presents ; that is, the idea of a God who 
 can and does become incarnate, a God there- 
 
¥^ 
 
 Christianity cannot be rivalled, 203 
 
 fore of a moral nature similar to our own, and 
 of a boundless love. But this incarnation, 
 while it proves itself to be a revelation of God 
 by giving us the highest possible conception of . 
 
 God, has also been proved to be a revelation by , , '^ 
 
 the soil in which it took root. There seems . \i ' 
 therefore sufficient ground to affirm that Chris- 
 / tianity is not only the best religion, but the only . ^ ^ ^^ V 
 true religion. Its Founder blesses mankind not 
 by His superior moral teaching mainly, nor^^ 
 only by His giving us better information about 
 God than other teachers, but by His bringing 
 God into the world, by showing us our God 
 suffering with and for us, and thus bringing an 
 altogether new thing into the world, a thing 
 in respect of which no other teacher can rival or 
 imitate Him. It is because He and He alone 
 has done this, that the religion thus founded 
 alone deserves the title of the true religion, and 
 stands upon a distinctly different footing from 
 all other religions. There is that in it which 
 essentially distinguishes it from those religions 
 which can be traced to the unaided operation of 
 the religious faculty in man. In Mohammed- 
 anism we find no evidence of revelation strictly 
 so called. It is very easy to detect the roots of 
 Mohammedanism in the pre-existing social con- 
 dition of Arabia, and in the religions to which 
 Mohammed had access. Buddha, again, by 
 
\^'^ '^^ 
 
 204 The Perfect Religion, 
 
 the atheistic principle of his rehgion, repudi- 
 ated all idea of revelation.^ 
 
 There are other peculiarities of the Christian 
 religion which confirm the impression that it 
 essentially differs from other religions, and is 
 not the mere outgrowth of the natural faculty 
 of a race or of highly gifted individuals. It 
 connects itself w^ith a series of revelations 
 extending in one line through the entire pre- 
 ceding history of the world. The argument in 
 favour of a primitive revelation has, so far as 
 I see, been rather evaded than met. It is quite 
 true that no revelation could create in man the 
 religious faculty ; you might as well tr}^ to 
 create in man the gills of a fish by throwing 
 him into the water. But does the fact that 
 man was created with a capacity to know God 
 imply that antecedently to any revelation he 
 knew Him ? The innate belief in the super- 
 natural, and the accompanying craving for 
 communion with a personal God, implies only 
 such knowledge as the infant has of the lan- 
 guage he has a capacity for learning but has 
 yet to learn. This capacity for knowing God 
 implies that unless the true idea of God is pre- 
 sented, man will for himself conceive some 
 idea of the Divine ; but it certainly does not 
 
 ' On the claims of later Buddhism to be a revealed 
 religion, see MUller's Ancinit Simskrit Lit. pp. 82-6. 
 
Primitive Revelation. 205 
 
 imply that without the presentation to him of 
 the true idea he will himself arrive at it. It is 
 quite conceivable that man should have been 
 enabled to make such use of the revelation of 
 God in nature and providence as to prepare him 
 for receiving the personal revelation in the in- 
 carnation. Paul, indeed, distinctly affirms that 
 this was possible. But the history of natural 
 religions proves that men have not in point of 
 fact so used their natural advantages. And 
 that idea of God which is recognised as the 
 highest connects itself historically with what 
 professes to be a primitive revelation. 
 
 The difficulty that is started by the question, 
 How could this revelation be made ? does not 
 seem a very serious one. Why must it have 
 been, as is asserted, either oral or written ? 
 Why may it not have been by an impression 
 produced on the mind, or by dream or vision, 
 or by any of those methods to which the human 
 mind in an unsophisticated state has shown 
 itself susceptible ? Whatever was the method 
 by which the communication was made, here is 
 the fact, that the earliest tradition known to 
 exist among men contains in it a prediction 
 which authenticates itself by its fulfilment at 
 least 1500 years after its being committed to 
 writing. Where did this prediction — that the 
 seed of the woman would bruise the serpent's 
 
 \ 
 
2o6 The Perfect Religion, 
 
 head — come from? It is vague, but it has just 
 the same vagueness which every embryo has. 
 The hues are already there on which the definite 
 organism is to be developed, and by these lines 
 the w^hole future development is already deter- 
 mined. 
 
 Again, the development of the idea of God on 
 this line has this distinguishing feature, that it 
 is historical. It is not the result of human 
 speculation, however earnest and enlightened, 
 but of impressions made from without, by God 
 Himself, on the history of a people. In the 
 sacred books of other religions we have hymns 
 full of devotional feeling and thoughts about 
 God which surprise us by their truth, but in the 
 Bible we have mainly a history of what God 
 Himself has done in the w^orld to pave the way 
 for His appearing in it. Instead of the fanciful 
 mythological stories which pleased the Greek 
 mind in its childhood, we have a serious, pro- 
 saic, ever-progressing, consistent revelation of 
 God in national history. It is the Being who 
 moves the history, and makes Himself felt at 
 every critical time of it, who by doing so com- 
 municates the knowledge of Himself, His ways, 
 and His purposes. It supplies, that is to say, 
 the very element which constitutes revelation 
 as distinguished from conjecture or research, 
 and unquestionably that very element which 
 
Revelation through History. 207 
 
 has always been lacking' in other religions. Dr. 
 Newman has expressed this in his own un- 
 rivalled manner. " While Natural Religion was 
 not without provision for all the deepest and 
 truest religious feelings, yet presenting no tan- 
 gible history of the Deity, no points of His per- 
 sonal character (if we niay so speak without 
 irreverence), it wanted that most efhcient incen- jy^ 
 tive to all action, a starting or rallying point— ' r^^ 
 an object on which the affections could be ' 
 
 placed and the energies concentrated. Common 
 experience in life shows how the most popular 
 and interesting cause languishes if its head be 
 removed ; and how political power is often 
 vested in individuals merely for the sake of the 
 definiteness of the practical inipression which a 
 personal presence produces."^ In short, men 
 need to know God not as they learn a doctrine, 
 but as they become acquainted with a person. 
 
 It is, I think, in this direction that we find 
 the most valuable light on the connection be- 
 tween Christianity and other religions. The 
 idea of God presented by Christ has in its 
 essential features l)een very nearly approached 
 by Hindu and Greek speculation. The Chris- 
 tian idea is indeed absent from all the other 
 great religions. These religions have certainly 
 not succeeded in setting before the minds of 
 ' University Scrnio/is, p. 23. 
 
2o8 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 men such a conception of God as can be justi- 
 fied to a well-informed and religious mind. But 
 under these religions individual speculators have 
 constantly been arising to proclaim the fallacy 
 of the popular conception and to revive the con> 
 ception of one Supreme and more or less 
 Spiritual Being. And, moreover, there is dis- 
 cernible in various polytheistic religions a back- 
 ground of monotheism and that sense of an 
 Invisible Upholder of all things w^hich seems 
 ineradicable from the human mind. But this 
 vague monotheistic craving, and this high and 
 admirable speculation of thoughtful and earnest 
 men, have come to nothing, and have told far 
 less than they might have been expected to tell 
 on the religions of the world, for lack of the one 
 thing which Christianity has — certainty in its 
 declaration of the God men instinctively crave. 
 In other words, there is recognisable here pre- 
 cisely the distinction we should expect between 
 revelation and speculation or craving. We find 
 that majestic and loving Presence which men 
 of deep religious feeling have always longed for 
 now- fixed in a definite form before men's eyes 
 and proclaimed with authority and assurance. 
 We find, therefore, this idea becoming the pro- 
 perty, not of a few exceptional men, but of all ; 
 becoming the informing spirit of a religion. 
 Had men of profound religious feeling never 
 
Revelation and Spccidation, 209 
 
 *' felt after " such a God as Christ reveals, we 
 
 might have doubted whether this were the God 
 
 most suited to our nature because the God who 
 
 created it; but had this God never been revealed 
 
 in Christ we should now have been no further 
 
 on than were the scholars of Plato or Marcus > 
 
 Aurelius, with occasional passing conceptions of « 
 
 the true God, but lonsfin^: that we knew Him. r, , 
 
 The relation betw^een revelation and speculation i ^^ 
 is precisely the relation between Christianity and! 
 the best thoughts of men under other religions. * 
 
 This is not reasoning in a circle. We do not 
 receive the assurance because we first believe 
 this to be a revelation, but the professed revela- 
 tion is in a form which gives definiteness and 
 assurance. In the person and life of Christ 
 there is brought before men's minds, without 
 effort on their part, the very God wdio has been 
 felt after by the highest-minded men. We have 
 God in history, God in the world visible to men. 
 
 II. — We pass now to the second function 
 which religion performs. Every religion aims not 
 only at giving men a true conception of the super- 
 natural, but also at bringing men into harmony 
 with the supernatural. The best religion will be 
 that which furnishes the highest idea of the super- 
 natural and at the same time brings men most 
 efficiently and perfectly into harmony with it. 
 Now it is manifest that the Christian religion, 
 
 15 
 
 ^ 
 
2IO The Perfect Religion. 
 
 founded as it is in the Incarnation, exhibits the 
 closest possible harmony between man and that 
 which is beyond nature. It is only at first sight 
 that the union which Brahmanism preaches 
 seems more complete. The absorption of the 
 human soul into the soul of the world involves 
 the extinction of man's personality, and therefore 
 cannot be its fullest development. The union 
 presented by Christianity is the closest possible 
 between two persons — an absolute conformity of 
 will. The union between God and man which 
 the Christian religion proclaims is exhibited in 
 the incarnation, and is there shown to be of so 
 perfect a kind that God and man can act as one 
 person. The smnimnn bomun held out to man 
 is the highest conceivable — a perfect personal 
 union with God. It is not a mere external 
 Paradise that Christianity presents to our hope, 
 it is not mere deliverance from punishment nor 
 a liberal reward of virtue, but this religion pro- 
 poses nothing short of that utmost good which 
 man can imagine — such a resemblance in cha- 
 racter to the Highest Being as will bring us 
 into the most perfect harmony with Him and 
 consequently with all that His will rules. 
 
 This is the union with God which Christi- 
 anity proposes — a personal union dependent on 
 character; and undoubtedly it is, so far, superior 
 to other religions. But does it actually accom- 
 
Christian Ethics. 
 
 21 I 
 
 plish what it proposes ? The accompHshment 
 of its end involves the highest moral teaching 
 and the strongest moral influence. 
 
 We may assume, as pretty generally ad- 
 mitted, that no religion surpasses the Christian 
 in moral teaching. This indeed is involved in 
 the admission that Christianity presents the 
 highest conception of God; because this con- 
 ception of God is given through a human life, 
 and this human life must therefore present us 
 with the highest conception of human attain- 
 ment and of human character. The morality 
 of Buddhism may very fairly be compared with 
 Christian morality, but it is unnecessary to 
 enter into any detailed comparison of the ideal 
 Buddhist with the ideal Christian, because Bud- 
 dhism has notoriously failed to make men moral. 
 And it is not enough that a religion provide 
 healthy moral teaching, it must also furnish us 
 with the most powerful moral energy. It must 
 be able to bring men to the perfect character it 
 depicts. We must compare religions not only 
 in regard to the ideal their founders have con- 
 ceived, but also in regard to their actual results 
 on races and individuals. 
 
 To estimate the value of a religion by its results 
 is always a task of great difficulty, for the in- 
 fluence of a religion never operates in a solitary 
 and separate manner, but always in complication 
 
 15* 
 
2 1 2 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 with the influences of government, civilisation, 
 and race. Much has recently been attributed 
 to Islam which is unquestionably due to the 
 native and ineradicable ferocity and barbarism 
 of the Turks. The characteristics of race and 
 ^\ even the habits of a heathen ancestry survive 
 and crop up through all the growth of the 
 imported religion. In the very birthplace of 
 Islam, among the Bedouins of the desert, it 
 would be difficult to say whether their customs 
 are more pagan or Mohammedan. They use 
 pagan oaths and call their children by heathenish 
 names ; they practise the scarification common 
 among savages in proof of manhood ; they 
 decide disputes by the ordeal of licking red-hot 
 iron, and are addicted to other customs too 
 shocking for ears polite.^ To judge of Islam 
 by such adherents would evidently be as unfair 
 as to judge of Christianity by the licentious 
 and infamous Coptic monks. The Bedouins 
 themselves decline being accepted as fair speci- 
 mens of the product of Islam, though, like most 
 other people, they ascribe their irreligion to 
 their unfortunate circumstances. "We pray 
 not," they say, ** because we must drink the 
 w^ater of ablution ; we give no alms, because 
 we have to ask them ; we fast not the Ramazan 
 month, because we starve throughout the year ; 
 
 ^ Burton's Pilgrim, iii. 79, 80. 
 
Difficidty of zueigJiing Moral Results. 213 
 
 and we do no pilgrimage, because the world is 
 the house of Allah."' 
 
 Again, if we look about for a fair representa- 
 tion of the character formed by the Koran, we 
 are perplexed by the endless varieties of belief 
 and consequently of character embraced in 
 Islam. To which of its seventy- three sects 
 are we to look for the fair average Moham- 
 medan ? Is the Persian freethinker, who dares 
 to find contradictions in the Koran and to wish 
 there were no Friday in the week,^ the fit 
 specimen, or shall we rather look to the fanati- 
 cal Wahabi, who adds smoking as well as 
 drinking to the catalogue of deadly sins ? Shall 
 we inspect the habits of the Hayetis and Hada- 
 thites, who ascribe divinity to Jesus, or those of 
 the quietist Sufis, of whom the orthodox Moslem 
 holds such an opinion that he thinks it more 
 meritorious to kill a Sufi than to save ten 
 human lives ? Were we to accept the first 
 Khalifs and their followers as the normal type 
 of Mohammedan character, we should say that 
 a manly contempt for the luxuries and pomps 
 of life, an unrivalled enthusiasm for the propa- 
 gation of Islam, prompt and untiring energy, 
 unostentatious piety, fearlessness and disin- 
 terested loyalty, were its most striking features. 
 
 ^ Burton's Pilgrim.; and cf. Burckhardt's Notes, i. 379. 
 ^ Gobineau, Les Religions, p. 118. 
 
2 14 TJie Perfect Religio7i. 
 
 But some of these elements are sadly lacking 
 in the degenerate days of secure prosperity and 
 well-established empire. 
 
 Again, in estimating the results of a religion, 
 allowance must be made for the influence of 
 individual temperament. We would as little 
 accept the blood-thirsty Khaled as the noble 
 Hosein as a fair representative of the influence 
 of Islam. It is related of Hosein that a 
 slave, having accidentally thrown over him 
 the contents of a scalding dish while he sat 
 at dinner, fell on his knees and repeated the verse 
 of the Koran, " Paradise is for those who bridle 
 their anger." *' I am not angry," said Hosein. 
 The slave proceeded, " And for those who for- 
 give men." " I forgive you," answered Hosein. 
 Whereupon the slave audaciously finished the 
 verse, " God loveth the beneficent." " I give 
 you your liberty and 400 pieces of silver," 
 replied the faithful Moslem. 
 
 Such are some of the cautions to be observed 
 in an inquiry into the results of any religion. 
 It must be borne in mind that in order to have 
 a deep impression, the seal must not only be 
 deeply cut, there must also be a sufficient depth 
 of wax to receive its impress. No doubt Chris- 
 tianity shows better than some other religions 
 because it has been accepted by superior races. 
 It has not the whole credit of European civilisa- 
 
Comparison of Ethical Forces. 2 1 5 
 
 tion ; but, on the other hand, it has fairly the 
 credit of approving itself to these superior races, 
 and, to say the very least, of allying itself with 
 every beneficent agency. That language is the 
 best which adapts itself most readily to every 
 advance in science and philosophy, and most 
 perfectly covers all the requirements of a rapidly 
 developing social state ; and that religion is the 
 best which, even if it be not considered the root 
 of all that is acceptable among the most civil- 
 ised races, does at least keep pace with the most 
 fully and rapidly developing civilisation. 
 
 It is of course out of the question to attempt 
 here any detailed comparison of the moral con- 
 dition of Christian and other countries. The 
 superiority of Christianity may be more sum- 
 marily established. The only religion which can 
 reasonably be compared wdth Christianity in 
 point of moral influence is Mohammedanism. ' 
 The teaching of Buddhism is much purer and 
 more elevated, but it has failed to make its 
 adherents moral. Mohammedanism, while pro- 
 mulgating a much less lofty code, has succeeded 
 to a very considerable extent in enforcing that 
 code. In the words of Dean Stanley : " Within 
 a confined circle the code of the Koran makes 1 
 doubtless a deeper impression than has been 
 
 made on Christians by the code of the Bible."' 
 
 ^ Easte?'}i Chunii, p. 279. 
 
2 1 6 The Pei'fcct Religio7i. 
 
 But the means by which Mohammedanism 
 effects this is not the most perfect moral agency. 
 It is, like police regulations, effective within a 
 certain circumference, but leaving a large mar- 
 gin beyond ; and, like every external law, it 
 proposes to form the character through the con- 
 duct, and not the conduct through the character. 
 The Koran tells men their duty and enforces its 
 precepts by the promise of rewards and' by the 
 threat of punishment. It provides no higher 
 impulse to conduct than a sense of duty may 
 inspire. Now, a sense of duty is an influence 
 with which no man can dispense ; but it is not 
 the most effective moral force, neither can it 
 alone bring human character to a perfect devel- 
 opment. Man has not attained resemblance to 
 his ideal, to his God, if he still needs any ex- 
 ternal constraint to compel him to duty, and 
 has not that love of what is right which alone 
 raises God Himself above all outward law. 
 There is something lacking in our resemblance 
 to God until we not merely do what He com- 
 mands, and recognise as right what He delights 
 in, but ourselves are possessed by a spontaneous 
 delight in all that is right, and do it because, 
 like God, we love it. That religion which makes 
 no provision for transforming ourselves as well as 
 our conduct, that religion which cannot make 
 us like God by furnishing us with a genuine 
 
Christian Injittaice alone Adcqtiate. 217 
 
 relish for all that is holy, is not the best, the 
 ultimate religion. But if there be a religion 
 which offers us the very spirit of God, which 
 recognises that law does not bring life with it, 
 and which, therefore, makes provision not only 
 for our instruction but also for communicating to 
 us an inward and spontaneous and permanent 
 relish for all that we ought to do, this can alone 
 claim to be the ultimate religion. Happiness is ^ 
 a word and no more to us until religion accom- 
 plish this for us. Now this is the rational and 
 perfectly satisfying prospect which Christianity . 
 affords, and in proof that it is not a dream, the 
 Founder of the religion exemplifies in His own 
 veritable life upon earth that the attainment of 
 perfect conformity with God is possible to human 
 nature, and He offers to all His disciples the 
 very spirit which made Him what He was — the 
 same source of inward life which was always 
 sufficient for Himself. 
 
 We are now in a position to say how much 
 truth there is in the assertion so frequently 
 made, that the difference between religions is a 
 difference of degree and not of kind. If by this 
 it be meant that all religions satisfy in a greater 
 or less degree the religious cravings of men, the 
 assertion is a very harmless, and, at the same 
 time, very obvious one. All food might in the 
 same way be said to be of one kind, because 
 
2l8 
 
 The Perfect Religion, 
 
 even the human flesh, which would fill a Euro- 
 pean with disgust, satisfies the appetite of the 
 cannibal. All language may on the same prin- 
 ciple be said to be of one kind, because even the 
 birdlike chirping of the aborigines of Malacca 
 expresses their desires and wants, perhaps better 
 than Greek or English could. But a classifica- 
 tion so wide becomes useless. The difference 
 between Aryan and Semitic languages is not a 
 difference of degree but of kind. A language of 
 the one kind can by no process be improved 
 into a language of the other kind. You might 
 as well try to improve a camel into a dray-horse. 
 Both are beasts of burden, but the difference 
 between them is not a difference in degree. 
 The one cannot be improved into the other. 
 And it seems to tend rather to confusion than to 
 / clearness of thought to assert that religions differ 
 only in degree, and that there is no essential 
 difference between a natural and a revealed 
 religion. What should be affirmed is that 
 the religious faculty in men differs only in de- 
 gree ; that the man who at present is a poly- 
 theist may have this faculty so developed as to 
 become a monotheist ; as a negro who has grow^n 
 up speaking his own barbarous tongue, will, if 
 educated, prefer and need Arabic or English. 
 But the negro dialect does not develope into the 
 higher language, neither does the lower religion 
 
Religions diffe7^ in Kind. 2 1 9 
 
 develope into the higher. The one must be 
 laid aside that the other may be assumed, as 
 the Red Indian must doff his feathers and buf- 
 falo robe before he puts on the dress of a higher 
 civilisation. 
 
 It need scarcely be added that, notwithstand- 
 ing this essential distinction among religions, 
 scientific investigation must, as far as possible, 
 discard all prepossession in favour of any parti- 
 cular religion, and must especially avoid any 
 classification of religions which prejudges the 
 whole question of the relation which religions 
 hold to one another. We cannot start on any 
 such investigation by classifying religions into 
 true and false, natural and revealed, or any 
 divisions which may not be warranted by the 
 results of the investigation. A scientific inquiry, 
 however, may very well conclude with such a 
 classification. And, I may add, that there is 
 nothing absurd in even antecedently expecting 
 that religions may fall into two great classes of 
 natural and revealed, because in religion we 
 have these two great factors to deal with — the 
 natural faculty in man and its confessedly super- 
 natural object. And it is not an unlikely thing] 
 that, according as the one or the other of these 
 factors predominates, an essentially distinct re- 
 ligion may be produced. The racial or ethno- 
 logical classification of religions is convenient 
 
2 20 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 and significant ; and, had we to deal with a 
 purely natural product, such as language or art, 
 it might be not only serviceable but sufficient. 
 In religion, however, we have to deal with a 
 supernatural element, and a racial classification 
 seems to me to leave no room for a factor which 
 may be found more influential in differentiating 
 or producing new religions than even race dis- 
 tinctions. 
 
 III. — Having determined the comparative 
 intrinsic value of Christianity and other religions, 
 two important questions remain to be answ^ered. 
 Have these inferior religions answered the pur- 
 poses of religion ? and, Have they in any case 
 answered these purposes better than Christianity 
 itself would have done ? 
 
 To the first of these questions every one will, 
 I presume, answer in a general affirmative, while 
 in regard to the degree in which the purposes of 
 religion have been accomplished by the various 
 faiths of the world, a considerable variety of 
 opinion will be found to prevail. If the purpose 
 of religion is to bring men into harmony with 
 God, it must be acknowledged that some of the 
 religions of the world have not done much to- 
 wards the accomplishment of this end. They 
 have maintained in men's minds a false concep- 
 tion of God, and have misdirected the natural 
 yearnings of men to attain a lasting harmony 
 
Purposes sei'ved by Imperfect Religions. 221 
 
 with Him. But there is one important purpose 
 which all religions have served — they have kept f 
 the religious faculty alive from one generation ! 
 to another. The efforts this religious faculty | 
 has made to satisfy itself have been often like 
 the vain wavings and ineffectual graspings in- 
 stinctively made by the tentacles of some marine 
 creature to anchor itself in a storm, efforts 
 which, however ineffectual, do yet keep alive the 
 instincts which guide them and betray the 
 normal habits of the animal. So every move- 
 ment and utterance of the religious faculty in 
 man has served at least to keep it alive, and 
 hereby at once to evince and to maintain, if not 
 to develope, his capacity for the highest religion. 
 This is the first purpose which is served by 
 every religion. 
 
 Other purposes also are served. Some of these 
 are well presented by Professor Max Miiller in the 
 following passage. " An old Samoyede woman 
 who was asked by Castren whether she ever 
 said her prayers, replied : ' Every morning I 
 step out of my tent and bow before the sun, and 
 say, *'When thou risest, I, too, rise from my 
 bed." And every evening I say, "When thou 
 sinkest down, I, too, sink down to rest." ' That 
 was her prayer, perhaps the whole of her re- 
 ligious service ; a poor prayer it may seem to 
 us, but not to her, for it made that old woman 
 
2 2 2 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 look twice at least every day away from earth 
 and up to heaven ; it implied that her life was 
 bound up with a larger and higher life ; it en- 
 circled the daily routine of her earthly existence 
 with something of a Divine halo. She herself 
 was evidently proud of it, for she added, with 
 a touch of self-righteousness, ' There are wild 
 people who never say their morning and even- 
 ing prayers.' " ^ It is easy, no doubt, to go 
 too far in the direction of spiritualizing rude 
 superstitions and formal observances, but a 
 religious mind will always import its own sen- 
 timent into the forms it has access to ; and it 
 is to be considered that the best of religions, in 
 common with the lowest, are for the religious and 
 not for the irreligious. ' And, as in the instance 
 of this old woman, so in countless others it wdll 
 be found that religions of a somewhat low type 
 have exercised an elevating and comforting in- 
 fluence on their sincere adherent. To pray daily, 
 even to a deaf and unconscious god, is certainly 
 to acknowledge dependence on, and a hopeful 
 connection with, a higher and intelligent power. 
 Apart altogether from the question whether 
 such misdirected prayer does not move the com- 
 passion of the living God, it certainly introduces 
 into the life of the worshipper an influence which 
 must be, in however limited a degree, elevating 
 ' Max MulIcr's/;//;W. p. 201. 
 
Superior Men and Inferior Religions. 2 2 
 
 -1 
 
 and counteractive of selfish and sensual motives. 
 In the well-chosen words of Professor Jowett, 
 *'The first step has been made from sense and 
 appetite into the ideal world. He who denies 
 himself something, who offers up a prayer, who 
 practises a penance, performs an act, not of 
 necessity, nor of choice, but of duty; he does 
 not simply follow the dictates of passion, though 
 he may not be able to give a reason for the per- 
 formance of his act. He whose God comes 
 first in his mind has an element within him 
 which in a certain degree sanctifies his life by 
 raising him above himself. He has some com- 
 mon interest with other men, some unity in 
 which he is comprehended with them. There 
 is a preparation for thoughts yet higher." ^ 
 
 That which compels us to make large allow- 
 ance for religions which seem to have little in 
 them that is either true or impressive, is the cir- 
 cumstance that they have in all ages and coun- 
 tries proved themselves capable of nourishing 
 men of remarkable religious insight and fervour. 
 It is a familiar fact that a deeply religious spirit 
 may find more nutriment and stimulus in a re- 
 ligion of a somewhat low type than a man of feeble 
 religious faculty will find even in the highest 
 religion. The history of Hinduism brings before 
 us many instances in point. Here, e.g.^ are some 
 
 ^ Jowett's Epistles of Paid; ii. 465. 
 
2 24 ^^^^ Perfect Religion, 
 
 of the devout utterances of Dadu, a religious 
 reformer who Hved about the 3'ear 1600. 
 
 *' Dadu sayeth : Thou, God ! art the author 
 of all things which have been made, and from 
 Thee will originate all things which are to be 
 made. Thou art the Maker and the Cause of 
 all things made. There is none other but 
 Thee. 
 
 '' He is my God, who maketh all things perfect. 
 Meditate upon Him in whose hands are life and 
 death. 
 
 '' I believe that God made man, and that He 
 maketh everj^thing. He is my friend. 
 
 " Let faith in God characterise all your 
 thoughts, words, and actions. He who serveth 
 God placeth confidence in nothing else. 
 
 " If He that perfecteth mankind occupy a place 
 in your hearts, you will experience His happi- 
 ness inwardly. Ram is in everything, Ram is 
 eternal. 
 
 *' In order that He may diffuse happiness, God 
 becometh subservient to all ; and although the 
 knowledge of this is in the hearts of the foolish, 
 yet will they not praise His name. 
 
 " Dadu sayeth: I will become the sacrifice of 
 the Godhead ; do unto me, O God, as Thou 
 thinkest best. I am obedient to Thee. My 
 disciples ! behold no other God. Fix your heart 
 
Religions in what Sense False. 225 
 
 on God and be humble as though you were dead. 
 He that partaketh of but one grain of the love 
 of God shall be released from the sinfulness of 
 all his doubts and actions." ^ 
 
 It is, however, only one part of the truth 
 which is expressed by a very eminent authority, 
 when he says : " However imperfect, however 
 childish a religion may be, it always places the 
 human soul in the presence of God ; and how- 
 ever imperfect and however childish the concep- 
 tion of God may be, it always represents the 
 highest ideal of perfection which the human 
 soul, for the time being, can reach and grasp. 
 Religion therefore places the human soul in the 
 presence of its highest ideal, it lifts it above the 
 level of ordinary goodness, and produces at 
 least a yearning after a higher and better life — 
 a life in the light of God."^ This statement 
 must be corrected by the remembrance that 
 there have been religions in the world which 
 did not place the human soul in the presence 
 of its highest ideal — religions which prevailed 
 for many centuries and among nations other- 
 wise enlightened, and which represented the 
 Divine as more licentious and treacherous than 
 the human. Zeus and Hermes represented the 
 ideal of a barbarous age, and these representa- 
 
 1 Wilson's Works, i. 106-109. 
 
 2 Max Muller's Int7'od. p. 263. 
 
 16 
 
2 26 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 tions, receiving the prestige of worship, cramped 
 the national thought and moraHty, and instead 
 of nourishing the roots of all helpful social and 
 political agencies, unceasingly retarded and 
 counteracted them. In fact, as a still more 
 trustworthy authority informs us, " they changed 
 the truth of God into a lie." They were /cz/se 
 religions ; as false as the geographies or the 
 cosmogonies of the same origin ; true only in 
 so far as the religious faculty in man declares 
 for a supernatural of some kind. In short, 
 there is no stronger argument for the necessity 
 of a revelation than the history of natural reli- 
 gions. Whatever may be said of individuals, it 
 must be acknowledged that the great religions 
 of the world present most misleading conceptions 
 of God and of the way to become one with Him.' 
 But while we condemn many religious sys- 
 tems as exhibiting more of error than of truth, 
 we must beware of pronouncing judgment on 
 the individuals who by means of these sys- 
 tems, or in spite of these systems, have en- 
 deavoured to find God and to live the highest 
 and purest life conceivable by them. It is 
 my belief that no man is savingly united to God 
 without the aid of Christ's Spirit. At the 
 same time I believe that God's care and com- 
 passion extend not only to those to whom His 
 
 ^ See Jowett's strongly condemnatory criticism of the 
 Greek religion in the paper above cited. 
 
S^. Paid and the Heathen. 227 
 
 extraordinary revelations have penetrated, but 
 to all men under whatever religion they are now 
 living; and if we are at all to judge who have 
 the Spirit of Christ, we must judge not by men's 
 possession or lack of a knowledge which has 
 been impossible to them, but by their conduct. 
 Christ has been made known to us that we 
 may become like Him : if others are liker Him 
 than we are, although they have never heard 
 the name of Jesus, they will enter the kingdom 
 of God before us. Salvation is resemblance to 
 Christ ; ^ it is the possession of the Spirit of 
 Christ, and if the fruits of that Spirit are found 
 in the life of those who have known nothing of 
 the historical Christ, we should welcome the 
 idea thus suggested, that apart from this know- 
 ledge our Lord may have found means of com- 
 municating His Spirit to some.^ 
 
 IV. — But is it not possible, after all, that 
 these religions may have actually been more 
 suitable and more beneficial than Christianity 
 
 ^ This resemblance, however, must extend not onh^ to 
 the moral character, but also to the attitude towards God 
 maintained by Christ. 
 
 2 The truth I am trying to present was never better 
 formulated than in the words of the wise and liberal 
 authors of the Westminster Confession : " All other elect 
 persons [besides infants], who are incapable of being 
 outwardly called by the ministry of the word, are regene- 
 rated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh 
 when, and where, and how He pleaseth." 
 
 16* 
 
J 2 28 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 could have been to the races which adopted 
 them ? 
 
 *' Speaking generally," says Herbert Spencer, 
 " the religion current in each age and among 
 \ each people has been as near an approximation 
 to the truth as it was then and there possible 
 for men to receive." ^ Similarly we find Max 
 Miiller asserting that '' in one sense every reli- 
 gion was a true religion, being the only religion 
 which was possible at the time, which was com- 
 patible with the language, the thoughts, and the 
 sentiments of each generation, which was ap- 
 propriate to the age of the world. "^ This opinion 
 has been held by men of various creeds. The 
 Brahman says, " Men of an enlightened un- 
 derstanding well know that the Supreme has 
 imparted to each nation the doctrine most suit- 
 able for it, and He therefore beholds with sa- 
 tisfaction the various ways in which He is 
 worshipped." ^ The complacent Chinaman re- 
 echoes the same idea when he replies to the 
 zealous missionary, " Our Josh, your Josh ; 
 your Josh for you, our Josh for us; all very 
 good Josh." Mohammed himself seems at 
 times to have entertained a somewhat similar 
 view at least of the Jewish and Christian reli- 
 
 ^ First Principles^ \i. ii6. 
 
 2 httrod. to Sc. of Rclig. p. 261. 
 
 3 Hardwick's Christ and other Masters^ i. 27 (2nd ed.). 
 
The Absolute aiid Relative Best. 229 
 
 gions. " Unto every one of you have we given 
 a law and an open path ; and, if God had 
 pleased, He had surely made you one people ; 
 but He hath thought fit to give you different 
 laws, that He might try you in that which He 
 hath given you respectively. Therefore, strive 
 to excel each other in good works : unto God 
 shall ye all return, and then will He declare 
 unto you that concerning which ye have dis- 
 agreed." ' 
 
 Now, although it is easy to give to such utter- 
 ances the accent of indifferentism, and to con- 
 demn them offhand as putting all religions on a 
 level, there is no doubt that the theory they sug- 
 gest is w^orthy of the most patient consideration. 
 The theory that the religion which is absolutely 
 the best is not therefore relatively the best, but'- 
 is found unsuitable and even inapplicable to cer- 
 tain races in a certain stage of their develop- 
 ment, is a theory which claims to base itself in 
 the soundest philosophy of history, and which 
 brings illustrations of its truth from the actual 
 successes and failures of various creeds. When 
 Solon was asked if he had promulgated among 
 the Athenians the best laws, he replied. "The 
 best they are capable of receiving." And so a 
 religion not absolutely the best may be the best 
 which a given nation is capable of receiving. 
 
 ^ Sura V. (Sale's Translation). 
 
230 The Perfect Religion, 
 
 The great lesson in comparative religion 
 which we learn from the connection of Judaism 
 and Christianity, is that men are not always 
 ripe for the highest religion; that there is 
 a fulness of time which it may take four 
 thousand years to produce. The Mosaic reli- 
 gion, imperfect as it was compared with Christi- 
 anity, was better for Israel during its period of 
 tutelage and preparation than the religion of 
 Christ would have been. And the question is, 
 How far does this principle apply to the reli- 
 gions which are not the historical forerunners 
 of Christianity? Though Christianity as a his- 
 torical fact was prepared for by Mosaism alone, 
 may its acceptance as the ultimate religion not 
 be prepared for by any one of the great religions ? 
 May not these religions as well as Mosaism 
 serve in their measures as pedagogues, keeping 
 the nations from running away from all religious 
 teaching ? Have they not kept alive in men the 
 thirst for God and some faint knowledge of His 
 accessibility and oversight of the world ? 
 
 In answer to these questions, it is obvious to 
 remark, in the first place, that Mosaism, being 
 itself a revealed religion, stands on so different 
 a footing from natural religions that we cannot 
 . argue from it to them. There is evidence that 
 I it was designed as a preparation for Christi- 
 anity ; the providential design of the other 
 
Faihii^e of CJiristianity in Arabia. 231 
 
 religions is as yet unascertained, and they can 
 be considered preparations for Christianity only 
 in the limited sense of keeping before men's 
 minds some idea of God and of religious duty. 
 Experience indeed seems to show that practi- 
 cally they are in many cases hindrances to the 
 acceptance of any better religion. 
 
 And it is to be remarked, secondly, that the 
 above-cited assertion of Mr. Spencer is purely 
 gratuitous and incapable of verification. Apart 
 from experiment, it cannot be ascertained what 
 religion any age or people is capable of re- 
 ceiving. Christianity has been accepted by thei 
 most unpromising races; and, for all Mr. 
 Spencer knows, had it been offered, it might 
 long ago have been accepted by tribes that have 
 lived for centuries, and are still living, under 
 such "approximation to the truth" as devil- 
 worship or Sivaism affords. 
 
 But the primitive history of Mohammedan- 
 ism in Arabia is sometimes cited as an instance 
 in which it seems that where Christianity could 
 effect little or nothing for a people, an inferior 
 religion effected much. And although Mo- 
 hammedanism is no fair specimen of natural 
 religion, having so largely borrowed from Juda- 
 ism, yet it is worth while to look at the facts, and 
 estimate exactly the amount of truth there is in 
 the assertion. It is not denied that this religion 
 
 / 
 
w 
 
 232 The Perfect Rcligi07i. 
 
 did at once effect reforms which Christianity had 
 failed to effect ; it accomphshed more for Arabia 
 in a few years than Christianity had accom- 
 phshed in centuries. It aboHshed at a stroke 
 the idolatry against which Christianity had 
 fought in vain, and it introduced an idea of God 
 which, though imperfect, w^as at least similar 
 to, as it was borrowed from, the Jewish idea. 
 And to this day Mohammedanism has a greater 
 influence on the outward conduct of the masses 
 than Christianity has. And Mohammedanism 
 has this greater influence precisely because it is 
 an inferior religion, trusting more to law than 
 to the spirit. The command to abstain from 
 wine is no more emphatic than the Christian 
 command to avoid drunkenness, but it is im- 
 bedded in a religion of precept, rule, and out- 
 w^ard authority; w^hereas Christians are left 
 more to their individual feeling and conscience, 
 and are encouraged to become a law to them- 
 selves. Mohammedans are treated as children, 
 and behave themselves as boys in school. Chris- 
 tians are treated as men, and often show that 
 they are not worthy of such treatment. 
 
 It is therefore idle to imagine that if Moham- 
 med had become a Christian, and had preached 
 the religion of Christ with the same zeal and 
 determination which characterised his preaching 
 of Islam, the result would have been an exten- 
 
Christianity too good for Arabia, 233 
 
 sion of Christianity as wide and enduring and 
 fruitful as the extension of Mohammedanism 
 has proved. It is idle to make any such sup- 
 position as this, because had Mohammed been 
 a Christian he could not have used the instru- 
 ments he did use, either for the extension of his 
 religion among surrounding nations, or for the 
 enforcement of its precepts upon those who 
 accepted it. It is not the seeming accident 
 that the one religion enjoyed the services of an 
 apostle more zealous and skilful than any en- 
 joyed by the rival creed ; it is not this which 
 gave success to Islam wdiere Christianity had 
 failed, but that the more spiritual creed by its 
 very spirituality precluded the use of such in- 
 struments of propagation and enforcement as 
 the inferior creed could use. The comparative 
 failure of Christianity in Arabia and in the 
 neighbouring countries where Islam enjoyed its 
 most signal triumphs is not accounted for by 
 that which is accidental, but only by that which 
 is essential to the one religion and to the other. 
 Christianity failed, in so far as it did fail, because 
 its nature required it to attempt to "guide by 
 the eye " men whose dispositions and habits 
 could be governed only by the more palpable 
 and inviolable restraints of bit and bridle. It 
 failed because the Arabs did not desire to be 
 "righteous overmuch," but desiderated a re- 
 
i 
 
 234 T/ie Perfect Religion. 
 
 ligion which gave them Hberal allowances both 
 in this world and the next. They took, to Mo- 
 hammedanism because it solved the problem 
 and showed them how they could please God 
 by pleasing themselves. They enlarged their 
 inheritance in heaven by conquering a broader 
 heritage on earth, and took the kingdom of 
 heaven by pillage and slaughter. The purer 
 the form, therefore, in which Christianity had 
 been presented to the Arabians, the less likely 
 was it that they would accept it. 
 
 It is, however, pertinent to inquire whether 
 the rapid acceptance of Islam and the conse- 
 quent improvement in morality was worth the 
 price paid for it. The triumph of Islam was 
 the doom of the highest form of religion. No 
 doubt it was not verv probable that Christianity 
 would either be intelligently accepted in Arabia 
 or would become in a pure form the sole religion 
 of the countries now Mohammedan ; but the 
 triumph of Islam turned this improbability into 
 an impossibility. These countries are less open 
 to Christianity than those more barbarous lands 
 in which religions much more unlike our own 
 have prevailed. In point of fact Islam has not 
 educated its adherents to the reception of a 
 more spiritual religion than itself. Spiritual 
 men it has reared : under all religions there 
 arise men whose spiritual desires burst the 
 
Conditions impervio7ts to Christianity. 235 
 
 bonds of the system that first helped them to 
 understand things divine. But the nations 
 which have accepted Islam cannot be said to be 
 any nearer accepting Christianity now, or any 
 better prepared for the highest form of religion 
 than the Arabs to whom Mohammed preached. 
 Now, an illustration of the nature of the evil 
 thus wrought in the world lies to our hand. 
 Most of our statesmen and leaders of opinion 
 vehemently object to anything like paternal 
 government or the infringement of the liberty 
 of the subject. They do not question that a 
 strong hand might put down some of our 
 national vices, and make us show better on 
 statistical tables of morality. An entire repres- 
 sion of the liquor traffic and a relentless punish- 
 ment of offenders would go far to remove one 
 stain from the face of society. Why then is 
 this not done ? Because it is believed that the 
 gain would be more apparent than real, and that 
 it would not compensate for the loss of indi- 
 vidual liberty. That is to say, it is recognised 
 that nothing is so precious as self-government, 
 and that enforced virtue is apt to develope into 
 some more hideous and deep-seated vice. They 
 recognise that a country may really be in a 
 healthier and far more hopeful state when liberty 
 is turned into license than when outward re- 
 spectability is secured by ignominious despotism. 
 
V 
 
 236 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 But the gain which Mohammedanism brought 
 was of a kind analogous to that which is secured 
 by outward authority : it secured immediate 
 reformation at the price of future growth. 
 
 The conclusion then which, it seems to me, 
 is fairly deducible from these facts, is this, that 
 there are conditions of societ}^, as there are 
 states and stages of the individual character, to 
 which Christianity appeals in vain,^ or in which, 
 if it does succeed in finding a nominal accept- 
 ance, it remains inoperative. And undoubtedly 
 in such a case it is better that there be an 
 j inferior religion accepted than none at all, sup- 
 / posing always that this inferior religion be one 
 which is not wholly false and evil. But if this 
 inferior religion be one which by its nature is 
 unsusceptible of progress, and still more if it 
 turns the present incapacity to accept Chris- 
 tianity into a formal opposition to it, it may 
 
 ^ These states are not always charactererised by a 
 backward civilization, or by a low physique. What does 
 characterise them, is a question too vast to discuss here. 
 Christian missions have succeeded among the most de- 
 graded races, while among nations in more favourable 
 conditions their success has been tardy and doubtful. 
 Our Scotch missions in India are wisely worked on the 
 understanding that no great immediate success is to be 
 looked for, but that every agency which indoctrinates the 
 community with a healthy morality in business, or with a 
 respect for law, or with the Christian ideas of excellence 
 in any department of human life, necessarily aids in 
 securing the ultimate triumph of Christianity. 
 
Practical Results, 237 
 
 reasonably be questioned whether the perma-' 
 nent disabihty it entails does not far outweigh 
 the immediate benefit it confers. In other words, 
 we conclude that what is true in every other 
 department of human life is true also of religion. 
 The Red Indian, who receives most important 
 information from a few rude figures carved on 
 the bark of a tree, can make no use whatever 
 of a written description of the country. A 
 despotism is not the absolutely best form of 
 government, but it is undeniably the best for 
 nations at a certain stage of political develop- 
 ment. But the benefit of its adoption by any 
 people will be shown especially in the success 
 with which it trains them to acknowledge and 
 adopt some higher and more perfect form of 
 government. A milk diet is very poor food for 
 the adult, but it is the only food which an 
 infant can receive or find any nourishment in. 
 Its suitableness for the infant, however, may be 
 measured precisely by its success in fitting him 
 to long for and utilize the food of the adult. 
 The government of one race by another, as in 
 our Indian Empire, is not an ideal political con- 
 dition, but probably a large proportion of the 
 subject race would acknowledge that self- 
 government had become impossible to them, 
 or, at all events, that their subjection brings 
 them advantages superior to any they could 
 
238 The Perfect Religion. 
 
 otherwise have attained. If, however, these 
 advantages do not fit them for self-government, 
 if famiharity with our customs, laws, literature, 
 government, and history, does not lift them 
 above the condition in which we found them, 
 and make them capable of the highest forms of 
 national life, it may be questioned, and it will 
 be doubted, wdiether, after all, their present con- 
 dition of subjection has been, even relatively 
 the best. In like manner it may be granted 
 that Islam was more akin to the Arabs of the 
 seventh century than Christianity, and did good 
 w^hich " Christianity had not done, but it is the 
 reproach of Islam that it has not trained its 
 adherents to the reception of Christianity.' 
 
 It may still be asked. What is the practical 
 outcome of these facts and principles ? what is 
 their bearing on missionary effort ? If there 
 are tribes so rude that they cannot conceive of 
 God at all without a visible symbol of His 
 presence ; if there are races so savage that 
 they must pass through the discipline of a legal 
 religion before they can be trusted with a re- 
 
 ^ It is awkward to omit what is really an essential cle- 
 ment of this argument — the discussion of the question 
 whether there are any races strictly non-progressive ; but 
 space is denied me, and I can only say that, while it 
 seems as if some nations, like some families, had already 
 exhausted their chances and must now die out, it cannot 
 be said that any which survive are incapable of progress. 
 
Conchision. 239 
 
 ligion that is wholly inward ; if there is no 
 department of human affairs in wdiich we need 
 more carefully to distinguish between what is 
 absolutely and what is relatively the best — may 
 not a missionary err in preaching the gospel to 
 every creature, and might he not be better em- / 
 ployed in preaching some religion which the' 
 people would accept ? Now, in the first place, 
 missionaries do in fact recognise some indi- 
 viduals and races as hopeful, others as hopeless ; 
 and in doing so they follow the example of 
 their Master. Again, it is obvious that the 
 only infallible w-ay to detect who are capable of 
 accepting Christianity is to offer it to all. He 
 would be a very presumptuous man who should, 
 previous to experiment, take upon him to say of 
 any nation or race that it was impervious to 
 Christian truth. Neither can any one predict 
 at what stage or period or turn of affairs any 
 country will at length yield to a persistent and 
 wise, though hitherto ineffectual attempt to 
 Christianize it. The religion of Christ is fitted 
 to become the universal religion, although it is 
 impossible to foresee what agencies may be re- 
 quisite to bring all nations to the point of 
 accepting it. And while we may be glad that 
 in the absence of Christianity men have derived 
 some comfort, hope, and stimulus from inferior 
 religions, every one w^ho appreciates the work 
 
240 TJie Perfect Religion. 
 
 of Christ will do what he can that as rapidly as 
 possible He may be acknowledged by all men 
 as "the way, the truth, and the life." Besides, 
 in the midst of nations which as a whole lack 
 the moral tone that predisposes to the recep- 
 tion of the most spiritual religion, there may 
 be exceptional individuals far surpassing the 
 general national character. It was so to some 
 extent with the Jews. As a whole they proved 
 themselves unable to accept the religion of 
 ' Christ, and yet among them were found excep- 
 tional men who so appreciated and received the 
 religion, that on them the Church was built. 
 Above all, the man whose own convictions of 
 the truth are profound will utter himself in 
 the face of all discouraging appearances. To 
 quote the words of one whose own experience 
 of the receptiveness of his generation has been 
 somewhat mixed : " The highest truth the wise 
 man sees he will fearlessly utter ; knowing that, 
 let what may come of it, he is thus playing his 
 right part in the world — knowing that if he can 
 effect the change he aims at — well : if not — 
 well also ; though not 50 well." ^ 
 
 I Herbert Spencer's FUst P7'inciples, p. 123. 
 
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