Divine favour which they enjoy, to infringe them without punishment. ((δ) The Bible informs us that Salvation consists in deliverance from the love and power of sin, and in restoration to our

Salvation.

pristine nature and the bringing of our whole being into harmony with the will of GOD. According to Muhammadan belief, Salvation means escape from the punishment of sin, while their mystics would probably explain the word as signifying deliverance from mental ignorance regarding GOD. (ε) We Christians hold that Redemption is to be obtained freely through the Atonement wrought out for us by Christ Himself, and that it may be obtained by all alike. Muslims are not agreed how it may be gained, whether by a man's own righteous works or by Muhammad's intercession, while others think that Hasan and Husain's deaths were of the nature of an atonement or propitiation for sin. The

Atonement.

Muhammadan doctrine of Reprobation,¹ an essential part of their fatalism, is necessarily opposed in toto to our belief that GOD willeth not the death of a sinner but rather that he should be converted and live, and that the Divine Love and Wisdom has therefore provided for all men who desire to avail themselves of it a way of salvation

through Christ. (ζ) We Christians look forward to an eternity of happiness amid the many

Heaven.

mansions of our Heavenly Father's home, where nothing that defiles can enter, but where we shall know even as we are known, and shall be renewed in the image of our Creator and our Redeemer. Muhammad promised his followers a heaven of carnal delights and of sensual pleasures, where they would be unrestrained by any moral law, and would be encouraged to enjoy themselves to the full by the removal of even those unpleasant consequences which excess of any kind produces here on earth.

Islam a Sensual Religion.

In a word, in spite of the truths which may be found in it, Muhammadanism as a religion is sensual in the extreme, and is utterly and hopelessly unfitted to quench the thirst for the knowledge of GOD which at the present time, just as it did even in old Homer's days, asserts itself in some degree in the breasts of all men worthy of the name.

§ 7. To a Christian, who views these matters not from the standpoint of modern theories of religion and sceptical Hibbert lecturers but from that of the Word of GOD, it must be clear that, in

Muhammadan View of Christ.

endeavouring to form a right estimate of Islam as a religious system, the most important question we must ask is, 'What view does Islam take of Christ?' Whether Muhammadanism has many grand doctrines or not,—whether that system is in a position of enmity towards science or not,—whether in some mysterious way Islam may or may