It is certainly not very flattering to our national pride that the Portuguese
should have so long preceded us in the endeavour to place the arguments for our
faith before the Mohammedans. In the beginning of the seventeenth century,
Hieronymo Xavier presented an elaborate treatise on the truth of Christianity to
the Emperor Jehangir. The preface of Dr. Lee's work opens with an account of
this treatise, illustrated by a variety of extracts. Xavier visited Lahore
during the reign of the great Akbar, and having finished his book in the year
1609, presented it to his Successor. The table of contents, and the specimens
which are produced of his reasoning, appear to justify the author's remark that
Xavier was a man of high ability, sparing no pains to recommend his religion to
the Mohammedan or Heathen reader, but that he trusted more to his own ingenuity
than to the plain declarations of Holy Writ. Indeed, from Lee's brief review of
the several chapters and a few of the extracts, we cannot but perceive under
what disadvantage a Roman Catholic labours in attempting to argue with the
Moslem. He is compelled to leave his strongholds, and descend to the relief of
the defenceless outworks; and his skill and subtlety are wasted in arguments for
the reasonableness of relics and miracles, of prayers for the dead and worship
of images. Such arguments imply not simply a loss of time and trouble; they
throw discredit upon the whole reasoning with which they are connected, and
weaken the force of the attack. We have space only for two short extracts:
