respecting which different views may be formed by different persons, but with documentary statements, with known facts of history, and with statistics, respecting which there can be no doubt, and from which arguments resulted of irresistible cogency. The tendency of all these arguments, and the result of our whole examination, proved decidedly antagonistic to the claims of Islam, and we were driven by logical necessity to concede, that on not one of these points brought under our consideration did Islam exhibit a real advance or higher development, as compared with Christianity, but in many respects an unquestionable falling back on an inferior and long superseded standpoint. If, therefore, we accept the force of logical reasoning, or think at all on the subject, we cannot help arriving at the conclusion that Islam is not a higher stage of the true religion; and if we were still to profess a belief that it is, such faith must be blind and unmeaning, because without inward assurance or real conviction. Accordingly it must appear, not merely reasonable, but a positive and sacred duty, acknowledged as such by every thinking and right-minded man, openly and unflinchingly to accept the logical result of the preceding honest and close investigations, namely, that Muhammadanism, while holding some essential principles in common with the two preceding systems, is yet inferior to the earlier in several vital points, and immeasurably below the later in nearly all.

While thus frankly enunciating a conclusion from which both reason and conscience leave no escape, we disclaim all desire of detracting the least from the merits which may justly belong to Islam. It must also be distinctly understood that we have hitherto regarded it mainly in the light of a religion; and as it confessedly unites religion and politics, the result now announced cannot be intended to deter any one, be he Muslim or non-Muslim, from examining whether Islam does not carry the palm before the other political systems.

With this explanation, and the frank statement of the result of our preceding investigation, the author of this pamphlet has finished his proper task on the present occasion. Whether Muslim readers will think their work is likewise ended, after accompanying him thus far, is a different question. If they are reflective and earnest men, they will not rest satisfied with a negative result. Being once convinced on this head, they will probably reason further thus: 'If Islam is not a higher religion than Christianity, can it be a divinely revealed religion at all? Is it the least reconcilable with the supreme wisdom and goodness of God that He should once have given to mankind a superior religion by Jesus Christ, and, six hundred years later, an inferior one by Muhammad? Is it more credible that God should, on the latter occasion, send Gabriel as an express messenger from heaven to reveal what had been known to "the