[J] Capt. Canot, pp. 153, 180, 181. Wilson’s Western Africa, 75, 79, 92. Richardson’s Great Desert, II., 63, 129. Johnstone’s Abyssinia, I., 267; Allen’s Niger Expedition, I., 383. Du Chaillu, Ashango Land, xiii., 129. Barth, passim, especially (I., 310): “That continual struggle, which always continuing further and further, seems destined to overpower the nations at the very equator, if Christianity does not presently step in to dispute the ground with it.” He says “that a great part of the Berbers of the desert were once Christians, and that they afterwards changed their religion and adopted Islam” (I., 197, 198). He represents the slave merchants of the interior as complaining that the Mohammedans of Tunis have abolished slavery, but that Christians still continue it (I., 465). “It is difficult to decide how a Christian government is to deal with these countries, where none but Mohammedans maintain any sort of government” (II., 196). “There is a vital principle in Islam, which has only to be brought out by a reformer to accomplish great things” (I., 164).
Reade, in his Savage Africa, discusses the subject fully in a closing chapter, and concludes thus: “Mohammed, a servant of God, redeemed the eastern world. His followers are now redeeming Africa.... Let us aid the Mohammedans in their great work, the redemption of Africa.... In every Mohammedan town there is a public school and a public library.” He complains that Christianity utterly fails to check theft, but Mohammedanism stops it entirely (pp. 135, 579, English ed.).
For Asiatic Mohammedanism see Sleeman’s Recollections, II., 164, and compare Tennent’s Christianity in Ceylon, p. 330, and Max Müller’s Chips from a German Workshop, II., 351. The London Spectator, in April, 1869, stated that “Mohammedanism gains thousands of converts every year,” and thus described the activity of its organization, the statement being condensed in the Boston Journal: “Of all these societies, the largest, the most powerful, the most widely diffused, is the Mohammedan population. Everywhere it has towns, villages, temples, places within which no infidel foot ever is or can be set. Its missionaries wander everywhere, keeping up the flame of Islam,—the hope that the day is coming, is at hand, when the white curs shall pass away, and the splendid throne which Timour won for the faithful shall again be theirs. They have their own papers, their own messengers, their own mail carriers, and they trust no other. Repeatedly, before the telegraph was established, their agents outstripped the fastest couriers the government could employ. The government express was carried by Mussulmans, who allowed the private messengers to get on a few hours ahead. Every dervish, moollah, or missionary, is a secret agent. This organization, which has always existed, has of late been drawn closer, partly as the result of their great mutiny, which taught the priests their hold over the soldiery, partly by the expiration of the ‘century of expiation,’ and partly by the marvelous revival of the Puritan element in Mohammedanism itself.”
[K] See Southey’s Wesley, chap. III. Report of Joint Delegation of the Society of Friends, 1869. Hedge’s Primeval World of Hebrew Tradition, p. 83. Coffin’s New Way Round the World, pp. 270, 308, 361. Colden’s History of the Five Indian Nations (dedication). He says also, “We have reason to be ashamed that those infidels, by our conversation and neighborhood, are become worse than they were before they knew us.” It appears from this book (as from other witnesses), that one of the worst crimes now practiced by the Indians has sprung up since that day, being apparently stimulated by the brutalities practiced by whites towards Indian women. Colden says, “I have been assured that there is not an instance of their offering the least violence to the chastity of any woman that was their captive” (Vol. I., p. 9, 3d ed.). Compare Parkman’s Pontiac, II., 236.
[L] “Cum ea quæ Romani polluerant fornicatione, nunc mundent barbari castitate.”—Salvian de Gubern. Dei. ed. 1623, p. 254, quoted in Gilly’s Vigilantius, p. 360.
[M] “Neither history nor more recent experience can furnish any example of the long retention of pure Christianity by a people themselves rude and unenlightened. In all the nations of Europe, embracing every period since the second century, Christianity must be regarded as having taken the hue and complexion of the social state with which it was incorporated, presenting itself unsullied, contaminated, or corrupted, in sympathy with the enlightenment or ignorance or debasement of those by whom it had been originally embraced. The rapid and universal degeneracy of the early Asiatic churches is associated with the decline of education and the intellectual decay of the communities among whom they were established.”—Tennent’s Christianity in Ceylon, p. 273. For the influence of Mohammedanism on the revival of letters in Europe, see Andres, Origine di ogni litteratura. Jourdain, Recherches critiques sur les traductions latines d’Aristote. Schmölders, Ecoles philosophiques entre les Arabes. Forster, Mohammedanism Unveiled. Urquhart, Pillars of Hercules. Lecky’s Rationalism, II., 284.
[N] “Quid igitur nos antecellimus? Num ingenio, doctrina, morum moderatione illos superamus? Nequaquam. Sed vera Dei agnitione, invocatione et celebratione præstamus.”—Melancthon, quoted by Feuerbach, Essence of Christianity (Eng. tr.) p. 284. He also cites the passage from Luther.
[O] Rabbi Wise’s remarks may be found in the Report of the Free Religious Association for 1869, p. 118. For Swaamee Narain, see Heber’s Journal, II., 109-121 (Am. ed.). For Ram Mohun Roy, see his translation of the Sama Veda (Calcutta, 1816), his two tracts on the burning of widows (Calcutta, 1818, 1820), and other pamphlets. Victor Jacquemont wrote of him from Calcutta in 1830, “Il n’est pas Chrétien, quoi qu’on en dise.... Les honnetes Anglais l’exècrent parce que, disent-ils, c’est un affreux déiste.”—Letters, I., 288.
Transcriber's Note
The following amendments have been made: