I shall now make a few general observations on the religion of the prophet of Arabia. Whatever Islam may have become through pharisaic artificiality and theological subtlety, its leading principles are as broad as the starriest heavens and as enduring as the everlasting hills. It contains, in common with other great religions, those eternal truths which are only too liable to be forgotten in blind zeal, in warmth of controversy, in sectarian narrow-mindedness, in religious fanaticism but which our education and culture teach us to discover and appreciate, wherever we find them. The governing principle of all religions is the same. In the language of the apostle James: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this; to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” This is the burden of all religions and this the burden of Islam. The kernel and doctrine of Islam, Goethe has found in the second _surah_ which begins as follows:--“This is the Book. There is no doubt in the same. A guidance to the righteous, who believe in the unseen, who observe the prayer and who give alms of that which we have vouchsafed unto them. And who believe in that which has been sent down unto thee--(the Revelation) which had been sent down to those before thee, and who believe in the life to come. They walk in the guidance of their Lord, and they are the blessed. As to them who believe not--it is indifferent to them whether thou exhortest them or not exhortest them. They will not believe. Sealed hath Allah their hearts and their ears and over their eye is darkness and theirs will be a great punishment.--” “And in this wise,” Goethe continues, “we have _surah_ after _surah_. Belief and unbelief are divided into higher and lower. Heaven and hell await the believers or deniers. Detailed inductions of things allowed and forbidden, legendary stories of Jewish and Christian religion, amplifications of all kinds, boundless tautologies and repetitions, form the body of this sacred volume, which, to us, as often as we approach it, is repellent anew, next attracts us ever anew and fills us with admiration, and finally forces us into veneration.”