From this centre radiate every year thousands of
these propagandists, scattering themselves over Arabia and to the
farthest boundaries of Islam, and even beyond, warring upon
idolatry and proclaiming the unity of God. No one can fail, I
think, to receive from such a visit as we paid a much higher
estimate of the vitality of Mohammedanism, and, having seen what
it has to supplant, we cannot refrain from wishing these
missionaries God-speed. The race rises step by step, never by
leaps and bounds. Upon this point I am much impressed by a
paragraph from a lecture delivered by Marcus Dodd, D.D., at the
Presbyterian College, London, which seems to me to take a wider
and sounder view than one usually finds from such a source, and is
therefore specially pleasing. He says: "The great lesson in
comparative religion which we learn from the connection of Judaism
and Christianity is that men are not always ripe for the highest
religion; that there is a fulness of time which it may take four
thousand years to produce. The Mosaic religion, imperfect as it
was, compared with Christianity, was better for Israel during its
period and preparation than the religion of Christ would have
been." Then, referring to the Mohammedan religion, he says: "It is
not denied that this religion did at once effect reforms which
Christianity had failed to effect.
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