begun similarly with the words, "I say in reply, and from the Lord I seek assistance." After general remarks, if he has occasion to notice any particular passage, it is introduced with the title, "Again he says" (quoting the passage), and then proceeds to give his answer as before. This mode of reply is recommended for imitation on similar occasions. The headings mark the alternations of text and commentary as clearly as any division into chapters could, and the whole is a most convenient as well as strictly Oriental mode of composition.

The line of attack shows the subtilty and skill of our adversaries. The Mujtahid, in his letter to Pfander, assumes that the turning-point between us is the doctrine of the Trinity. Rather, the turning-point is the genuineness and integrity of our Scriptures; when that is proved, the truth of the Christian religion and falsity of Mohammedanism follow quite independently of the Trinity or any other Christian doctrine. These form, indeed, valuable subsidiary points, for they prove the Coran to oppose previous revelation, but they are all involved in the soundness of the Scriptures; and till this is proved on our side, or disproved on that of the Moslems, the arguments must remain incomplete and unsatisfactory. To have rendered the present attack in any degree a fair one, the author was bound either to have acknowledged the genuineness of the Bible, or proved its corruption; instead, he passes over the Mizân with the sneer that its arguments had been formerly refuted, and that it might more aptly have been called the Mizâm i Bátil,¹ and proceeds to analyse and discuss the contents of the Miftâh-ul-Asrâr. He is thus enabled to take up at pleasure the most profound and mysterious doctrines of Revelation; he appeals to reason to attest their impossibility, and hence he deduces the corruption of our Scriptures. Further, he denies that the Scriptures, even as they stand, contain the disputed