(Luke xix. 20-24). The Law of Moses forbade the Israelites to mingle with the heathen and, through imitating their bad example, fall into idolatry and other sins. The Law of Christ does not merely forbid Christians to be unequally yoked with unbelievers and to imitate them, it commands Christians to make all nations disciples, and to teach them the knowledge of the True God.

In one respect there is a necessary difference between the Old Testament and the New. The Old Testament taught men their sinful state in God's sight, and bade them look forward to the coming of a Saviour, who would be born of a Virgin, at Bethlehem, and who was to make His own life an offering for the sins of His people. The New Testament, on the other hand, tells men of the fulfilment of this promise, and bids them believe on Him who has made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice and atonement for the sins of the whole world. But this difference again is but the completion of the work begun in the earlier revelation.

To some people it may seem that, owing to the gradual but steady growth of learning and civilization, the religion which was suitable in Moses' time was out of date and antiquated in that of Christ; and in the same way that the religion taught by Christ had, in Muhammad's day, some six centuries later, grown old, and that it therefore required to be supplanted by Islam. The answer to this is threefold: (1) Religious rites and ceremonies may become antiquated, and, though at first helpful, may at last, under changed circumstances and through loss of all thought of their spiritual significance, grow useless and even harmful. But the principles of True Religion are unchangeable, like the Moral Law. If they were once true, they must be true in every age. The principles of the Mosaic Law were true in Adam's time, in Abraham's, in Christ's: they are true now, and will be until the Resurrection day, and even beyond it. Therefore the essence of true Religion can never change or become

out of date and effete. (2) If the progress of learning and civilization requires that there should be a corresponding progress in religious practices and ideas, and if we grant (which we do not) that Muhammad's age and country were far superior to what Palestine had been in Christ's time in learning and enlightenment, then it is manifest that Islam, in order to suit a more advanced age and to be fit to be God's final Revelation, must be at the very least as far superior to Christianity in morality, in spirituality, and in freedom from a multitude of purely local rites, ceremonies, and observances, as Christianity itself is in these respects superior to Judaism. Whether this is so or not let those judge who are well acquainted with the teaching of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qur'an. (3) Human nature is the same in all ages in its needs, its longings, and its corruptions. In every age alike, therefore, it requires to be purified by the influence of God's Holy Spirit. In every age man is prone to sin, and requires to be drawn to God. This can be done only though the revelation of God's love. The words of the Apostle, "We love Him because He first loved us," are therefore the expression of the highest conceivable degree of success in drawing man to God and reconciling him to his Creator. The human mind cannot imagine any appeal in religion to any higher or more unselfish part of human nature than that one which is thus affected and made active in God's service by faith in Christ.

Once more: the baseless fancy that the Bible has been abrogated is confuted by the clear and definite statements of God's prophets and apostles, and by those of Christ Himself contained therein. Regarding the Old Testament, Isaiah, for example, says: "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the Word of our God shall stand for ever" (Isa. xl. 8). The Lord Jesus Christ teaches the same truth, that the Old Testament shall not be abrogated, but that even the very slightest essential matter in it shall remain in