7

THE MOHAMMEDAN CONTROVERSY

Dr. Lee, the learned professor of Arabic in the Cambridge University. It is entitled "Controversial Tracts on Christianity and Mohammedanism" (1824), and consists of three portions: a preface, embracing the previous state of the argument; translations of the controversy carried on in Persia between Henry Martyn and the Mohammedan doctors; with Dr. Lee's own continuation and conclusion of the argument. As this excellent work has not obtained that currency and circulation to which, at least in this country, its subject and worth entitle it, we shall now give a brief account of its contents.

It is certainly not very flattering to our national pride that the Portuguese should have so long preceded us in the endeavour to place the arguments for our faith before the Mohammedans. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Hieronymo Xavier presented an elaborate treatise on the truth of Christianity to the Emperor Jehangir. The preface of Dr. Lee's work opens with an account of this treatise, illustrated by a variety of extracts. Xavier visited Lahore during the reign of the great Akbar, and having finished his book in the year 1609, presented it to his Successor. The table of contents, and the specimens which are produced of his reasoning, appear to justify the author's remark that Xavier was a man of high ability, sparing no pains to recommend his religion to the Mohammedan or Heathen reader, but that he trusted more to his own ingenuity than to the plain declarations of Holy Writ. Indeed, from Lee's brief review of the several chapters and a few of the extracts, we cannot but perceive under what disadvantage a Roman Catholic labours in attempting to argue with the Moslem. He is compelled to leave his strongholds, and descend to the relief of the defenceless outworks; and his skill and subtlety are wasted in arguments for the reasonableness of relics and miracles, of prayers for the dead and worship of images. Such arguments imply not simply a loss of time and trouble; they throw discredit upon the whole reasoning with which they are connected, and weaken the force of the attack. We have space only for two short extracts:

"The section closes with a panegyric on the advantages arising from observing the days of the Saints and of the Holy Virgin; and stating that