Perhaps one might be content, so far as the Ḳur'an is concerned, with a selection of Suras, supplemented by extracts from other religious classics of Islam. I have often thought that we want both a Catholic Christian lectionary and a Catholic prayer-book. To compile this would be the work not of a prophet, but of a band of interpreters. An exacting work which would be its own reward, and would promote, more perhaps than anything else, the reformation and ultimate blending of the different religions. Meantime no persecution should be allowed in the reformed Islamic lands. Thankful as we may be for the Christian and Bahaite heroism generated by a persecuting fanaticism, we may well wish that it might be called forth otherwise. Heroic was the imprisonment and death of Captain Conolly (in Bukhara), but heroic also are the lives of many who have spent long years in unhealthy climates, to civilize and moralize those who need their help. SYNTHESIS OF RELIGIONS 'There is one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.' These words in the first instance express the synthesis of Judaism and Oriental pantheism, but may be applied to the future synthesis of Islam and Hinduism, and of both conjointly with Christianity. And the subjects to which I shall briefly refer are the exclusiveness of the claims of Christ and of Muḥammad, and of Christ's Church and of Muḥammad's, the image-worship of the Hindus and the excessive development of mythology in Hinduism. With the lamented Sister Nivedita I hold that, in India, in proportion as the two faiths pass into higher phases, the easier it becomes for the one faith to be brought into a synthesis combined with the other. Ṣufism, for instance, is, in the opinion of most, 'a Muḥammadan sect.' It must, at any rate, be admitted to have passed through several stages, but there is, I think, little to add to fully developed Ṣufism to make it an ideal synthesis of Islam and Hinduism. That little, however, is important. How can the Hindu accept the claim either of Christ or of Muḥammad to be the sole gate to the mansions of knowledge? The most popular of the Hindu Scriptures expressly provides for a succession of _avatârs_; how, indeed, could the Eternal Wisdom have limited Himself to raising up a single representative of Messiahship. For were not Sakya Muni, Kabir and his disciple Nanak, Chaitanya, the Tamil poets (to whom Dr. Pope has devoted himself) Messiahs for parts of India, and Nisiran for Japan, not to speak here of Islamic countries?