it remains, the ordinance must be a formidable bar, not only to national prosperity, but to Mahometan states taking their place in the civilized world. The conditions of inferiority, as declared in the Revelation, are no doubt vague; but they are substantial, nevertheless, and every step taken to cancel them is in abatement of the Divine injunction.

Following upon the wake of war against the unbelievers is the curse of slavery, which, though in a mild and restricted form, has not the less fixed its withering grasp upon the proud master, as well as on his wretched victim. Slaves, male and female—Moslem, heathen, Jew, or Christian—are transferable, like any other goods or chattels. Irrespective of his four legitimate wives, the believer is permitted by the Corân, and encouraged by the example of his Prophet, without any further ceremony or rite, to consort with female slaves taken captive in war, purchased, gifted, or otherwise legally acquired. There is no restriction whatever as to number, nor any of the obligations attaching to marriage. The concubine may be sold again at any moment; only if, she chance to bear her master a son, she becomes (by the precedent of Mahomet and Mary) free. So long as Islâm lives, this curse of humanity will survive along with it.

It has been held that Mahomet, by ameliorating the conditions of slavery, paved the way for its extinction.¹ Rather, while lightening, he riveted the fetter. He enjoined that they should be treated kindly; but there is no obligation whatever on a Moslem to release his slaves; on the contrary, among other

injunctions at the Farewell pilgrimage, the Prophet said:—

"And your slaves! see that ye feed them with such food as ye eat yourselves, and clothe them with the stuff ye wear. And if they commit a fault which ye incline not to forgive, then sell them; for they are the servants of the Lord, and are not to be tormented."¹

And so long as wars and raids last, not only will the existing mass of slaves, through their progeny, perpetuate the curse, but there will be continual addition to their numbers. The barbarous and enslaving spirit of the Corân, though it cowers before the reproach of Europe, is not dead. Leaving out of view the wars of the early Caliphate,² the raids of the Moslems in the present day against the negroes of Central Africa and the heathen tribes of Affghanistan, and even the warfare of the Soonnies of Central Asia against the Sheeas of Persia, still take their stand upon the ordinance; and the result (too often the very object) is an addition to the body of slaves in the Moslem world. The inhuman slave-trade of Africa (though Mahomet himself would no doubt have been the first to condemn it in its barbarous details) thus receives an apparent stamp of legality