the law and the gospel, why then did the all-merciful God not send Islam six hundred years sooner, instead of Christianity, or two thousand years earlier still, instead of the law? why keep it back from mankind for so long a time, if it might just as well have been announced so much earlier?' If such questions arise in the mind of thinking Muhammadans, it would seem that they could hardly help arriving at conclusions hostile to the divine mission of the founder of the religion in which they have been brought up.

IX

CAN THE CLAIMS OF MUHAMMAD AS THE FOUNDER OF A NEW RELIGION BE ESTABLISHED BY THE PROOF OF MIRACLES?

TURNING now to the subject of miracles, we still find Muhammad's claim to a divine mission resting, to say the least, upon a most doubtful foundation. It has already been mentioned (ante p. 11) that Moses and Jesus performed miracles, in order to give the people a rational conviction that they were sent from God; for it is evident that without such a test, any unprincipled man might pretend that he was a special messenger from heaven, and men would have no means whereby to distinguish when God spoke by a prophet, and when He did not. Now, if we apply this test to Muhammad, it will be impossible to concede that his claim to a prophetic mission is as

clearly established as that of Jesus or Moses. It is indeed true, that if we were to believe the traditions of the Muslims, a vast number of miracles took place to establish the apostleship of Muhammad. But even granting the validity of these, we could not be altogether satisfied; for we should still be struck with remarkable discrepancies in the Muhammadan miracles, as contrasted with those of Jesus Christ and the prophets, rendering it difficult to believe the wonders in both cases could have equally proceeded from God. If we are told, e.g. that at Muhammad's request a tree came to him, ploughing up the ground before it, and said in a loud voice, 'I bear testimony that there is but one God, and that thou art His Prophet;' that, on other occasions, animals, mountains, stones, and a bunch of dates, similarly testified of him; or that any dress, short or long, which he put on, would always exactly fit, and the like; we have a class of miracles so puerile and fantastic, and differing so widely from 'the signs and wonders' of the preceding prophets, that we cannot but feel a certain degree of suspicion. How favourably the conduct of Jesus Christ contrasts with such a display of the supernatural, who did all His wonders with the direct and beneficent object of delivering men from pain, sorrow, and sin; and who, according to Matt. iv. 1-11, refused to convert stones into bread to satisfy His own want; and when solicited to make a display of His supernatural power before the