Recent discussions and investigations have brought the subject of Mohammedanism prominently before the reading public, and the writings of Weil, and Noldeke, and Muir, and Sprenger, and Emanuel Deutsch, have taught the world that “Mohammedanism is a thing of vitality, fraught with a thousand fruitful germs;” and have amply illustrated the principle enunciated by St. Augustine, showing that there are elements both of truth and goodness in a system which has had so wide-spread an influence upon mankind, embracing within the scope of its operations more than one hundred millions of the human race; that the exhibition of the germs of truth, even though “suspended in a gallery of counterfeits,” has vast power over the human heart. Whatever may be the intellectual inferiority of the Negro tribes (if, indeed, such inferiority exists), it is certain that many of these tribes have received the religion of Islam without its being forced upon them by the overpowering arms of victorious invaders. The quiet development and organization of a religious community in the heart of Africa has shown that Negroes, equally with other races, are susceptible of moral and spiritual impressions, and of all the sublime possibilities of religion. The history of the progress of Islam in the country would present the same instances of real and eager mental conflict of minds in honest transition, of careful comparison and reflection, that have been found in other communities where new aspects of truth and fresh considerations have been brought before them. And we hold that it shows a stronger and more healthy intellectual tendency to be induced by the persuasion and reason of a man of moral nobleness and deep personal convictions to join with him in the introduction of beneficial changes, than to be compelled to follow the lead of an irresponsible character, who forces us into measures by his superior physical might. Mungo Park, in his travels seventy years ago, everywhere remarked the contrast between the pagan and Mohammedan tribes of interior Africa. One very important improvement noticed by him was abstinence from intoxicating drinks. “The beverage of the pagan Negroes,” he says, “is beer and mead, of which they often drink to excess; the Mohammedan converts drink nothing but water.” Thus, throughout Central Africa there has been established a vast total abstinence society; and such is the influence of this society that where there are Moslem inhabitants, even in pagan towns, it is a very rare thing to see a person intoxicated. They thus present an almost impenetrable barrier to the desolating flood of ardent spirits with which the traders from Europe and America inundate the coast at Caboon.