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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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