condemnation of Canon Taylor’s extravagance but he has made a strong appeal for the transcendent superiority of the Christian faith as that alone which must finally regenerate Africa and the world.  He has called public attention to the following pointed criticism of Canon Taylor’s plea for Islam, made by a gentleman long resident in Algeria, and he has given it his own endorsement:  “Canon Isaac Taylor,” says the writer, “has constructed at the expense of Christianity a rose-colored picture of Islam, by a process of comparison in which Christianity is arraigned for failures in practice, of which Christendom is deeply and penitently conscious, no account being taken of Christian precept; while Islam is judged by its better precepts only, no account being taken of the frightful shortcomings in Mohammedan practice, even from the standard of the Koran."[123] No indictment ever carried its proofs more conspicuously on its face than this.

E. Bosworth Smith’s subsequent tribute to the relative superiority of the Christian faith was given in an address before the Fellows of Zion’s College, February 21, 1888.  I give his closing comparison entire; also his eloquent appeal for Christian Missions in Africa.  “The resemblances between the two Creeds are indeed many and striking, as I have implied throughout; but, if I may, once more, quote a few words which I have used elsewhere in dealing with this question, the contrasts are even more striking than the resemblances.  The religion of Christ contains whole fields of morality and whole realms of thought which are all but outside the religion of Mohammed.  It opens humility, purity of heart, forgiveness of injuries, sacrifice of self, to man’s moral nature; it gives scope for toleration, development, boundless progress to his mind; its motive power is stronger even as a friend is better than a king, and love higher than obedience.  Its realized ideals in the various paths of human greatness have been more commanding, more many-sided, more holy, as Averroes is below Newton, Harun below Alfred, and Ali below St. Paul.  Finally, the ideal life of all is far more elevating, far more majestic, far more inspiring, even as the life of the founder of Mohammedanism is below the life of the Founder of Christianity.

“If, then, we believe Christianity to be truer and purer in itself than Islam, and than any other religion, we must needs wish others to be partakers of it; and the effort to propagate it is thrice blessed—­it blesses him that offers, no less than him who accepts it; nay, it often blesses him who accepts it not.  The last words of a dying friend are apt to linger in the chambers of the heart till the heart itself has ceased to beat; and the last recorded words of the Founder of Christianity are not likely to pass from the memory of His Church till that Church has done its work.  They are the marching orders of the Christian army; the consolation for every past and present failure; the earnest and the warrant,