books, our narrators were eye witnesses;
yours are not, nor nearly so.'

"In the evening Seid Ali asked me the cause of evil. I said I knew
nothing about it. He thought he could tell me, so I let him reason on
till he soon found he knew as little about the matter as myself. He
wanted to prove that there was no real difference between good and
evil; that it was only apparent. I observed that the difference, if
only apparent, was the cause of a great deal of misery.

"June 30, Sunday. Preached to the Ambassador's suite on the 'Faithful
Saying.' In the evening baptized his child. Zachariah told me this
morning that I was the town talk." Indeed Shiraz was stirred to its
depth by the presence of Mr. Martyn during the whole year of his stay.
Men of every kind, especially the learned and zealous, came singly and
in groups almost every day to argue and dispute against Christ. Now it
was a party of Armenians, now learned Jews, now a prince, now a
general, now the very Moojtuhid himself, the professor of Mohammedan
law. This great dignitary invited Mr. Martyn to his house, where for
hours he talked on and on, defending his Prophet and showing his
learning; he was greatly annoyed at any difference of opinion, and
decided it was "quite useless for Mohammedans and Christians to argue
together, as they had different languages and different histories."
But fearing Mr. Martyn's influence he was stirred to write a defense
of his faith, which was said to surpass all former treatises on Islam.
He concludes it in these words, addressed to Mr. Martyn: "Oh, thou
that art wise! consider with the eye of justice, since thou hast no
excuse to offer to God. Thou hast wished to see the truth of miracles.
We desire you to look at the great Koran: that is an everlasting
miracle." Mr. Martyn replied, showing why men are bound to reject
Mohammedanism; that Mohammed was foretold by no prophet, worked no
miracles, spread his religion by means merely human, appeals to man's
lowest and sensual nature, that he was ambitious for himself and
family, that the Koran is full of absurdities and contradictions, that
it contains a method of salvation wholly inefficacious, sadly
contrasting with the divine atonement of Jesus Christ. The Prince's
nephew, hearing of the attack on Mohammed, said, "the proper answer to
it is the sword."

Mr. Martyn writes, February 8: "This is my birthday, on which I
complete my thirty-first year. The Persian New Testament has been