(1876.) The Christian World of the 1st inst. has another note on the article on “Some Muslim Laws and Beliefs.” As Mr. Foote responded to the first note on behalf of the Secularist, I, as the author of the obnoxious article, which was mainly mere compilation from the work of a Christian scholar and gentleman, may say a few words on my own behalf in reply to the second, which is as follows:—
“A correspondent writes:—In your ‘Notes by the Way’ last week there is a painful, though not unseasonable, quotation from a writer on ‘Muslim Laws and Beliefs.’ This, as coming from a Secularist, is deplorable enough. It is very much more so that the late Viscount Amberley, a son of a veteran statesman, should in his ‘Analysis of Religious Belief,’ which might indeed more justly be termed ‘A Panegyric of all Heathen Beliefs, and a Travesty of that of the Christian,’ have given a like description of the paradise of the Koran, and should have sneeringly told us that the Christian Scriptures, in their pictures of the heavenly life, ‘strangely overlook this enjoyment’ of ‘ever virgins’ never growing old, who are to ‘supply the faithful with the pleasure of love’ (vide Vol. II., p. 200). This is but a specimen of the disdainful and derisive tone with which this writer, who at length leaves himself stranded in a region of the dreariest Atheism, continually speaks of that Book which what he terms ‘the illusions of our younger days’ might have taught him o respect.”
I do not doubt that the quotation was painful to the Christian correspondent, since it is always painful to have our lifelong prejudices shocked by those who have never shared them, or who have attained freedom from their yoke. One might give not a few quotations from any number of the Christian World which would be very painful to a pious Muslim. Nor do I doubt that the quotation was not unseasonable, for quotations from the Secularist must always be seasonable in an influential Christian periodical, when they tend to expand the Christian narrowness, and show that there is much to be said in favor of other beliefs. And I admit that, like many other things coming from a Secularist, it must have been deplorable enough to a Christian suckled on the Bible, and assured in his unreflecting ignorance that it is the one true word of the three-in-one true god. But the correspondent finds it very much more deplorable that a son of a veteran statesman should agree with the Secularist—as if the sons of veteran statesmen were naturally expected to be sunk deeper than other persons in the prevailing superstition. The correspondent who, we may presume, has always been taught, and has never doubted, that all heathen beliefs are wholly devilish, and that the Christian belief is wholly divine, thinks that Viscount Amberley’s book is a panegyric of the former and a travesty of the latter. If the unfortunate correspondent had the courage and intelligence to enter upon a real analysis of religious belief, he would soon discover that he and his co-religionists have been all along travestying every form of what they call heathenism. With amusing simplicity he is astonished that Lord Amberley gives a like description of the paradise of the Kur-an to that which I gave in the Secularist, as if he could have been accurate in giving any other, when mine was drawn from one of the most careful and accurate of writers, the Oriental Englishman, unequalled in his knowledge of Arabic literature and life! Why, in the very week following the attack on the Secularist, the Christian World’s twin sister, the Literary World (perhaps incited thereto by its study of our vilified paper), showed that it had been reading or dipping into Lane, by an article on him under the queer title of “A Man of One Book,” he being distinguished for three—“The Manners and Customs of the Modem Egyptians,” the translation of the “Arabian Nights,” with its peerless notes, and the monumental “Arabic Lexicon”; and the said queerly-named article echoed the general praise of his thoroughness and accuracy, and repeated the statement of those who knew him, that he was a deeply pious man. I am not concerned with the defence of Lord Amberley, and shall therefore not follow further the correspondent’s remarks on his book, save to note that a man who says that any such writer “leaves himself stranded in a region of the dreariest Atheism,” proves himself by this one phrase utte............