ISLAM.
[To rat Burros or TEE "Ereormea."] Sur,—To deal exhaustively in twenty minutes either with Islam or with Christianity, much more with both, is clearly impossible.. Twenty octavos would not suffice. The inexorable gong of the President of the Congress must therefore be blamed for some at least of the shortcomings of an address which I was not per- mitted to finish. You will therefore perhaps allow me on one, or two important points to set myself right with your readers.
I have no wish, as you seem to think, to turn Africa over to Moslem missionaries. I think Christianity immeasurably the higher and better faith. But, as you admit, Islam in Africa is- more successful as a missionary religion than Christianity ; and, as you also admit, the Moslem converts are more manly—that is, better as men—than the Christian converts. If so, it follows that, speaking comparatively, Christianity in Africa is a failure, while Islam is a success.
We agree, then, as to the facts ; any differences are only as to the causes and the remedies of this state of things.
The cause, or one cause of our failure is, I think, that our Christian standard is impracticably high for degraded races. In mathematics, the calculus is a higher and more potent method than the four rules of arithmetic. But to try and teach a child to differentiate and integrate before he has mastered simple addition, must inevitably end in failure. It is much the same with religious teaching. Godliness is higher than manliness. Christianity teaches godliness ; Islam teaches manliness. De- graded African savages most first learn to be manly. This is the A B C of farther progress. The Paganism of Greeks Romans, Teutons, and Scandinavians did teach manliness, and therefore these races were fit for the higher lesson when it came to them. But the fetichism of African cannibals, the worship of snakes and lizards, does not teach even the elements of manli- ness, but, if I may be allowed to use an offensive word in its inoffensive etymological sense, it teaches beastliness. It degrades men to animals ; the animal must first be made a man before we can excite in him any aspiration to become a partaker of the divine nature. And manliness, a feeling of the dignity of human nature, is what Islam does teach more effectively than, any other creed.
So much for the causes of the great success of Islam in Africa. Now for the remedies. Judaism prepared the way for Christianity ; Islam is a reformed Judaism ; and may we not cherish the hope that it has been preparing the way for some- thing better than itself ? The Thirty-nine Articles, as well as the Pauline theology, are unintelligible to cannibals, and even to Moslems, but there is no reason why we should not give them the three Synoptic Gospels, which they gladly receive and read. Moslems recognise the divine mission of Christ ; let us show them what he really taught. Let ns take them by the hand and lead them gently on, instead of denouncing them as enemies and infidels.
Our fault has hitherto been the characteristic fault of Western nations,—impatience. We want to accomplish in a generation a work that necessarily requires centuries. Gantama failed because the ground had not been tilled to receive the seed. Christianity also would have failed if God, in his grand patience, had not waited for twenty centuries till the times were ripe for the revelation of his Son.
Little by little, line upon line, precept upon precept, is the only way in which the lower races can be raised. All sacred history teaches us, I think, that the method of slow progress is the divine method. This is the method in favour of which I have raised my feeble protest, whereas your method, if I under- stand yon aright, is to insist on all at once, or be content, as we shall have to be content, with nothing. Sensible men are satisfied with the practicable,—it is only children who keep crying for the moon.
Allow me to add that I am not, as you suppose, a "fanatic for temperance," or even a teetotaller ; but I think that the gospel of Free-trade in poisonous spirits cannot, in the case of the negro, co-exist with any other gospel. Mr. Joseph Thomson, the African traveller, affirms that "for every African who has been influenced for good by Christianity, a thousand are driven into deeper degradation by the gin trade." It is our greed for gain, and our worship of the fetich of Cobden's shadow, which are the most insuperable obstacles of all to the progress of Christianity in Western Africa.—I am, Sir, &c., ISAAC TAYLOR. [We do not see that Canon Taylor affects our position in the least. He thinks we want too much at once. That is not so. We can wait, as the early Christians waited ; but we do not Avant to see falsehood prevail in order that truth may flourish. Would it flourish? Dr. Taylor says "Yes," for Judaism was the preparation for Christianity. True, for a time ; but of all civilised peoples, Jews now repel Christianity most obstinately. And is not Islam, on at least one of the highest questions, a degraded rather than a " reformed " Judaism P—En. Spectator.]
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