The laws of Christianity deter men from carnal indulgences.
Islam the "Easy Way."]
What I desire to make clear is the fact that such things may be
practiced _with the sanction_ of the Scripture which the Moslem holds to
be divine, and that these same indulgences have from the first existed
as inducements which helped materially to forward the spread of the
faith. I am very far, indeed, from implying that excessive indulgence in
polygamy is the universal state of Moslem society. Happily this is not
the case. There are not only individuals, but tribes and districts,
which, either from custom or preference, voluntarily restrict the
license given them in the Koran; while the natural influence of the
family, even in Moslem countries, has an antiseptic tendency that often
itself tends greatly to neutralize the evil.[66] Nor am I seeking to
institute any contrast between the morals at large of Moslem countries
and the rest of the world. If Christian nations are (as with shame it
must be confessed) in some strata of society immoral, it is in the teeth
of their divine law. And the restrictions of that law are calculated,
and in the early days of Christianity did tend, in point of fact, _to
deter men_ devoted to the indulgences of the flesh from embracing the
faith.
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