revailed in Arabia down
to his time. For an abandoned profligacy was substituted a
carefully regulated polygamy, and the practice of destroying female
infants was effectually abolished.

"As Islam gradually extended its conquest beyond the boundaries of
Arabia, many barbarous races whom it absorbed became in like manner
participators in its benefits. The Turk, the Indian, the Negro, and
the Moor were compelled to cast away their idols, to abandon their
licentious rites and customs, to turn to the worship of one God, to
a decent ceremonial and an orderly way of life. The faith even of
the more enlightened Persian was purified: he learned that good and
evil are not co-ordinate powers, but that just and unjust are alike
under the sway of one All-wise and Holy Ruler, who ordereth all
things in heaven and earth.

"For barbarous nations, then, especially--nations which were more
or less in the condition of Arabia itself at the time of
Mahomet--nations in the condition of Africa at the present day,
with little or no civilisation, and without a reasonable
religion--Islam certainly comes as a blessing, as a turning from
darkness to light and from the power of satan unto God."[137]

[Footnote 133: The Life of Mahomet by Sir W. Muir, LL.D., Vol. II, pp.
269-71.]

[Footnote 134: The Life of Mahomet by Sir W. Muir, Vol. IV, pp. 320-21.]

[Footnote 135: Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, by Marcus Dods, D.D., pp.
17-19 & 119.]

[Footnote 136: Christianity and Islam: The Bible and the Koran, by Rev.
W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 94, 104, 112, London, 1877.]

[Footnote 137: Christianity and Islam: The Bible and the Koran, by the
Rev. W.R.W. Stephens, pp. 129-30, London, 1877.]

[Sidenote: Indictment against Mohammad.]

36. What the opponents of Mohammad can possibly say against his mission
is his alleged moral declension at Medina.[138] They accuse him of
cruelty[139] and sensuality[140] during his sojourn in that city after
he had passed without any blame more than fifty-five years of his age,
and had led a pious missionary life for upwards of fifteen years. These
moral stains cannot be inconsistent with his office of being a prophet
or reformer. It is no matter if a prophet morally degrades his character
under certain circumstances, or morally degrades his character at the
end of his age--after leading for upwards of fifty-five years a life of