“A Christian missionary could not thus bring over a Pagan or a Muslim tribe to Christianity, even if he would; he ought not to try thus to bring them over, even if he could.  ‘Missionary work,’ as remarked by an able writer in the Spectator the other day, ’is sowing, not reaping, and the sowing of a plant which is slow to bear.’  At times, the difficulties and discouragements may daunt the stoutest heart and the most living faith.  But God is greater than our hearts and wider than our thoughts, and, if we are able to believe in Him at all, we must also believe that the ultimate triumph of Christianity—­and by Christianity I mean not the comparatively narrow creed of this or that particular Church, but the Divine Spirit of its Founder, that Spirit which, exactly in proportion as they are true to their name, informs, and animates, and underlies, and overlies them all—­is not problematical, but certain, and in His good time, across the lapse of ages, will prove to be, not local but universal, not partial but complete, not evanescent but eternal."[124]

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 97:  Sprenger’s Life of Mohammed, pp. 40, 41.]

[Footnote 98:  It is a suspicious fact that the first chapter of the Koran begins with protestations that it is a true revelation, and with most terrible anathemas against all who doubt it.  This seems significant, and contrasts strongly with the conscious truthfulness and simplicity of the Gospel narrators.]

[Footnote 99:  Nor have later defenders of the system failed to derive alleged proofs of their system from Biblical sources.  Mohammedan controversialists have urged some very specious and plausible arguments; for example, Deut. xviii. 15-18, promises that the Lord shall raise up unto Israel a prophet from among their brethren.  But Israel had no brethren but the sons of Ishmael.  There was also promised a prophet like unto Moses; but Deut. xxxiv. declares that “There arose no Prophet in Israel like unto Moses.”

When John the Baptist was asked whether he were the Christ, or Elijah, or “that prophet,” no other than Mohammed could have been meant by “that prophet.”]

[Footnote 100:  Rev. Mr. Bruce, missionary in Persia, states that pictures of the Father, the Son, and Mary are still seen in Eastern churches.—­Church Missionary Intelligencer, January, 1882.]

[Footnote 101:  Sales, in his Preliminary Discourse, Section 1st, enumerates the great nations which have vainly attempted the conquest of Arabia, from the Assyrians down to the Romans, and he asserts that even the Turks have held only a nominal sway.]

[Footnote 102:  China owes her present dynasty to the fact that the hardy Manchus were called in as mercenaries or as allies.]

[Footnote 103:  Dr. Koelle:  quoted in Church Missionary Intelligencer.]