Of the three works thus chiefly relied upon, we have no knowledge of the first. But the second and third do not possess any pretensions whatever to critical accuracy, being simple digests, popularly constructed from the current histories on the subject. From such sources a treatise adapted for the uncritical portion of the European public might, perhaps, have been well compiled, but it was a wrong step to lean upon such authorities, in the preparation of a biography intended for the natives of India.

The Biography of their Prophet, it is true, is not a favourite study with the Mohammedans of the present day; it forms no part of the usual course of scholastic study or theological reading; and is only taken up by those whose religious or antiquarian tastes attract them to the subject. Still the main facts of Mohammed's life are generally known; and the natives of India can, at any rate, readily ascertain them by reference to the historical works scattered about the country. Lives of the Prophet by Christians will challenge the closest examination. If errors be detected in them, their effect will not simply be neutralised : their tendency will be positively injurious. The natives will be impressed with the idea that our sources of information are imperfect and erroneous, and will conclude that our judgment of Mohammed and of his religion, founded upon these, is imperfect and erroneous. They will thus be fortified in their scornful rejection of Christian evidence, and in their self-complacent reliance on the dogmas of Islam.

This is, therefore, not a mere speculative criticism, in which the Reviewer may be accused of searching for faults merely for fault-finding's sake. The most apparently trifling misrepresentation has a real and important bearing on the controversy with the Mohammedans. It is a subject in which every Christian man has a deep interest at stake. And as such we take it up. Let us therefore look for a moment at the two authorities from which the Life of Mohammed, published by the Tract and Book Society of Bombay, is mainly constructed.

The Life of Mohammed, by Washington Irving, does not aim at being more than a popular treatise. "The author lays no claim to novelty of fact, nor profundity of research." His