CHRISTIANITY VERSUS MAHOME. DANISM.

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 8282, 12 January 1888, Page 2

CHRISTIANITY VERSUS MA HOME. DANISM.

From Sunday Times, October 8. ' At the Church Congress held in Wolver- , hampton on October 7, The Rev. Canon Isaac Taylor said that over a large portion of the world Islamism as a missionary religion is more successful than Christianity, (Sensation.) Not only are the Moslem converts from paganism more numerous than the Christian converts, but Christianity in some regions is actually receding before Islam, while attempts to proselytize Mahomedan nations are notoriously unsuccessful. We not only do not gain ground, but even fail to hold our own. The faith of Islam already extends from Morocco to Java, from Zanzibar to China, and is spreading across Africa with giant strides. It has acquired a footing on the Congo and the Zambesi, while Uganda, the moat powerful of the Negro States, has just become Mahomedan. In India Western civilization, which is sapping Hindooism, only prepares the way for Islam. Of the 255 millions in India 59 millions are already Moslems, and of the whole population of Africa more than half. It is not the first propagation of Islam that has to be explained ; but it is the permanency with which it retains its hold upon its converts. Christianity is less tenacious in its grasp. An African tribe once converted to Islam never reverts to paganism, and never embraces Christianity. Though quite unfitted for the higher races, it is eminently adapted to be a civilising and elevating religion for barbarous tribes. Christianity is too spiritual, too lofty. Islam has done for civilisation more than Christianity. (‘Oh, oh.’) Take, e.g., the statements of English officials or of lay travellers as to the practical results of Islam. When Mahomedanism is embraced by a negro tribe, paganism, devil-worship, fetishism, cannibalism, human sacrifice, infanticide, witchcraft at once disappear. The natives begin to dress, filth is replaced by cleanliness, and they acquire personal dignity and self-respect. Hospitality becomes a religions duty, drunkenness becomer rare, gambling is forbidden, immodest dances and the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes cease, female chastity is regarded as a virtue, industry replaces idleness, licence gives place to law, order and sobriety prevail, blood feuds, cruelty to animals and to slaves are forbidden. A feeling of humanity, benevolence and brotherhood is inculcated. Polygamy and slavery are regulated, and their evils are restrained. Islam, above all, is the most powerful total abstinence association in the world, whereas the extension of European trade means the extension of drunkenness and vice and the degradation of the people ; while Islam introduces a civilisation of no low order, including a knowledge of reading and writing, decent clothing, personal cleanliness, veracity and self respect. Its restraining and civilising effects are marvellous. How little have we to show for the vast sums of money and all the precious lives lavished upon Africa ! Christian converts are reckoned by the thousands, Moslem converts by millions. These are the stern facts wa have to face. , They are extremely unpleasant facts ; it is ■ folly to ignore them. We ought to begin by recognising the fact that Islam is not an anti-Christian faith, but a half Christian faith—an imperfect Christianity, (‘ Oh.’) Islam was a replica of the faith of Abraham ■ and Moses, with Christian elements. Juclaism was exclusive. Islam is cosmopolitan—not like Judaism confined to one race, but extended to the whole world. Moslem s acknowledge four great teachers —Abraham, the friend of God; Moses, the prophet of i God ; the Lord Jesus, the work of God; and 1 Mahomed, the apostle of God. In the creed J of Islam the Lcrd Jesus stands the highest of , the four. Though the teaching of Mahomed i falls grievously short of the teaching of St. Paul, there is nothing in it antagonistic to Christianity. It is midway betweeen Judaism and Christianity. It is better than Judaism, inasmuch as it recognises the miracles and the Messiah ship of Jesus Christ. This reformed Judaism swept so swiftly over Africa and Asia because the African and Syrian doctors had substituted abstruse metaphysical dogmas for the religion of Christ. They tried to combat licentiousness by celibacy and virginity. Seclusion from the world was the road to holiness, and dirt was the charaoterisic of monkish sanctityThe people were practica'ly polytheists, worshipping a crowd of martyrs, saints, and angels, Islam swept away this mass of corruption and superstition. It was a revolt against empty theological polemics ; it was a masculine protest a ainst the exaltation of celibacy as the crown of piety. It brought out the fundamental dogma of religion—the unity and greatness of Gcd. It replaced monkliness by manliness. It gave hope to the slave, brotherhood to mankind, and recognition to the fundamental facts of human nature. The higher Christian virtues—humility, purity of heart, forgiveness of injuries, sacrifice of self—these are not the virtues of Is'am. The Christian ideal is unintelligible to savages ; but the lower virtues which Islam inculcates are what the lower races can be brought to understand—temperance, cleanliness, chastity, justice, fortitude, courage, benevolence, hospitality, veracity, and resignation. They oan be taught to cultivate the four cardinal virtues, and to abjure the seven deadly sins. The Christian ideal of the brotherhood of mm is the highest; but Islam preaches a practical brotherhood—the social equality of all Moslems. This is the great bribe which Islam offers.' The convert is admitted at once to an exclusive social caste; he becomes a member of a vast confraternity of 150,000,000. A Christian convert is not regarded as a social equal, but the Moslem brotherhood is a reality. We have over much * dearly beloved brethren’ in the reading desk, but over little in daily life. (Laughter.) True, the Koran offered a material paradise, but the social privileges attained in this world are a more potent motive. The Jews, of all races the most susceptible to lofty religious ideas, needed nevertheless a training of 2000 years before they were fitted for the higher teaching of Christ. Can we expect the negro, with a low moral and cerebral development, with centuries of fetishism and savagery behind him, to receive at once that lofty Christian morality for which even the prophets and heroes of Hebrew history were not prepared ? The teaching of Islam is not too spiritual or too exalted, but it is the school which may educate the Afrioan into fitness for a higher faith. The Church of England has not been able to make any permanent Impression on the African. Islam, with its material paradise, or the Salvation Army, with its kettledrums (laughter), or the Church of Rome, with its black madonnas, may be able to descend to the level of the n’gro, but the Church of England, with its Thirty-nine Articles, will not be the Church of equatorial Africa for many generations. The two great practical difficulties in the way of the conversion of Africa are polygamy and domestic slavery.

Mahomet, like Moses, did not prohibit them; that would have been impossible ; but he endeavoured to mitigate their evils. Slavery is no part of the creed of Islam. It was tolerated as a necessary evil by Mahomet as it was by Moses and St. Paul. In the hands of the Moslem it is a very mild institution, far milder than negro slavery in the United States, Polygamy is a mote difficult question. Moses did not prohibit it. It was practised by David, and it is not directly forbidden in the New Testament, though contrary to its spirit. Mahomet limited the unbounded license of polygamy ; it is the rule rather than the exception m the most civilised Moslem lands, European Turkey, Algiers, and Egypt. The more intelligent Moslems are of opinion that the tima is coming for its restraint or abolition as unsuited to the times. The Bishop of Lahore, among others, has made a courageous protest for the admission of polygamist converts to baptism, though not to holy orders. It is unreasonable and cruel to expect a convert to put away a wife to whom he has lawfully married by the law of Islam. Are these women, the mothers of a man's children, to be turned adrift to a life ot ignominy ? No man fit to become a Christian would be capable of such an unnatural and cruel act. Polygamy, with all its evils, has its counterbalancing advantages. It has abolished female infanticide, and gives every woman a legal protector. Owing to polygamy Mahomedan countries are free from professional outcasts, a greater reproach j to Christendom than polygamy is to Islam. [ The strictly regulated polygamy of Moslem lands is infinitely less degrading to women and less injurious to men than the promiscuous polyandry which is the curse of Christian cities and which is absolutely unknown in Islam. The polyandrous English are not entitled to cast stones at polygamous Moslem'. (Hear, hear.) Let us first pluck out the beam from our own eye before we meddle with the mote in our brother's eye. The four chief evils ot Mahomedan lands—polygamy, slavery, servile concubinage, and licence of divorce —are no exclusive reproach to Islama. Within our own memory, if net now, they have all prevailed in aggravated forms in the United States—a land nominally Christ an and peopled by a race of j English brotherhood. If Christian missions j are to make any way in Africa we must change our tactics. European teachers will never christanize Africa—the experiment has been tried and has failed. The climate alone is a fatal obstacle and the social gulf is too wide- The heathen tribes can only be converted by bringing over from the United States civilized Christian negroes in large numbers. With regard to Moslems, can we not attack the fortress ot Islam from within, rather than from without ? Instead of raising antagonism by denouncing Mahomet as a false prophet and Moslems as infidels, let us begin by showing, not ho w much Christianity differs from Islam, but how much it resembles it. Let us remember that in some respectsMoalemmoralityis better than ourown. In resignation to God’s will, in temperance, charity, veracity, and in the brotherhood of believers, they set us a pattern we should do well to follow. Islam has abolished drunkenness, gambling, and prostitution—the three curses of Christian lauds. Islam is the closest approach to Christianity which has been able to take hold of Eastern or Southern nation*). It is superior to the grovelling superstition of the Coptic and Abyssinian churches. Moslems are already imperfect Christians ; let ua try to perfect their religion rather than vainly endeavour to destroy it, and we may possibly transform Islam into Christianity. Thus we may find that in God’s scheme, Mahomet has been preparing the way for Christ. (Cheers.)