investigations of a Sprenger and a Weil have placed in our hands (authorities as good as any open to themselves, and far better than those to which they are in the habit of referring), they will be compelled to give credit to our facts and listen with deference to our conclusions. If we can, front their own best sources, prove to them that they are deceived and superstitious in many important points, and can thus establish the untenableness of some of their positions; while we at the same time admit all statements that are grounded in fact;—we shall have gone a great way to excite honest inquiry and induce the sincere investigator to follow our lead.

The native mind is at present not insensible to the subject. The Urdoo biography of Ghulâm Imâm is by no means a solitary instance. There are many others. One of the most remarkable is, perhaps, that which appears weekly in an Urdoo newspaper, the Asad ul Akhbâr published at Agra. Ever since its commencement in June 1847, the life of Mohammed has formed the leading article of this paper, and the subject is not yet concluded. This biography is consequently much more extensive and elaborate than Ghulâm Imâm's "Nativity," and goes with great detail into the historical traditions and legendary narratives, translated mostly from the late and credulous Persian biographers of Mohammed, whose narratives are possessed of no historical weight whatever.¹

That an article on the biography of Mohammed should have regularly appeared for the last five years as the leader in a miscellaneous Urdoo newspaper, is certainly not one of the least remarkable signs of the times, and warrants the hope that intelligent and thinking Mohammedans are turning their attention