has arisen, no conquest of Islam been won. On all hands Christianity has gained upon the crescent. The whole of the Mogul dominion has passed into Christian hands. In the Levant, Islam has quailed before the disciples of the Greek Church; and has held its crown only by Christian suffrage. In Persia it lies at the mercy of the Russian power. In Algeria again, the disciples of the Roman Church have supplanted it in wide dominions. Thus, before all the three chief forms of Christianity has Islam fallen; before Protestantism in India; before Romanism in Africa; and before the Greek Church in Europe. In every part of the world a want of vigor marks the once impetuous Islam; and now, for many years, the only hero it has produced appears to be the wild and wondrous Abd-al-Kadir.

Mohammedanism sweeps away idols, and abridges superstition; but it leaves man without any Gospel of redemption, without any atonement before God, and without any clear account of the way whereby the sinful obtain grace. It also dooms private life to the miseries of polygamy, and leaves woman in a position of contempt. Nations it curses with a code of blood, which wields the conscience by the sword. In the character of its author we have a forcible contrast with the stainless

purity of our blessed Redeemer. Turning from the Koran to the Gospel, a deep awe falls upon us, to view that unearthly holiness; a holiness so far above the human heart to conceive, as are the starry worlds above the human hand to build. Mohammedanism is superior to paganism, borrowing so much from the holy Scriptures, that it is rather a Christian heresy of the most fatal kind, than an original system. Heathenism, in its dark night, exhibits a few feeble rays of truth, glimmering like stars; Mohammedanism, like its own emblem, the waxing moon, outshines the stars of heathenism; but leaves man

still in night. The Gospel arises, the Sun of righteousness, flooding the world with truth, and warming the heart with love.

The great practical lesson to be learned from the history of Mohammedanism, is, "Keep yourselves from idols." The disciples of that Jesus, who demanded for God a worship purely spiritual, and who, though inspiring four of his disciples to write his life, permitted not their admiration to lead them into one sentence descriptive of his person-even his disciples had filled their temples with images, and worshiped, bowing before stones. From an idolatrous land a sword came, drawn avowedly against idolatry, vindicating the will of God to be worshiped without images; and that sword swept the lands where Christianity had been born, and had been corrupted. Let us beware. Idols are an abomination to the Lord, nor will any land turn to them without multiplying its sorrows.

SELECT LECTURES.

II.

Agents in the Religious Revival of the last Century.

BY REV. LUKE H. WISEMAN.

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION,

IN EXETER HALL, LONDON,

DURING THE WINTER COURSE OF 1854-5.

II.

The Religious Revival of the last Century.

No

one in this assembly can regret, so much as I do, the absence of the gentleman whose name has been announced for this evening-my friend, Mr. Edward Corderoy. It is to be regretted on his own account, that the state of his health makes it impossible for him to attend; on my account, that I should be called to occupy the place of so eloquent a lecturer; on your account, that the pleasure you were anticipating is exchanged for disappointment; and on account of the Young Men's Christian Association, which require that these lectures should not be monopolized by us of the clergy. Among men not of our profession you have already heard, with delight and advantage, the historian, the lawyer, the geologist, the physician, and the champion of temperance; to-night, for the first time, you were to have heard a man of commerce-a most worthy and able representative of that great mercantile class to which so many of yourselves belong. But he is not here; and as the managers of this Association have requested me to take his place and his theme, I reckon on your indulgence, while we glance at an extensive and somewhat delicate subject-"Agents in the Religious Revival of the last Century."