" We may, and we do, look
forward with earnest expectation to the day when knowledge of salvation
shall be given to these nations "by the remission of their sins, through
the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high hath
visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow
of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."[p]
[Sidenote: Contrast between divine and human work.]
But even apart from these, the special blessings of Christianity, I ask,
which now of the two faiths bears, in its birth and growth, the mark of
a divine hand and which the human stamp? Which looks likest the
handiwork of the God of nature, who "hath laid the measures of the
earth," and "hath stretched the line upon it,"[q] but not the less with an
ever-varying adaptation to time and place? and which the artificial
imitation?
[Sidenote: Islam.]
"As a reformer, Mohammed did indeed advance his people to a certain
point, but as a prophet he left them fixed immovably at that point
for all time to come. As there can be no return, so neither can
there be any progress. The tree is of artificial planting. Instead
of containing within itself the germ of growth and adaptation to
the various requirements of time, and clime, and circumstance,
expanding with the genial sunshine and the rain from heaven, it
remains the same forced and stunted thing as when first planted
twelve centuries ago.
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