not only stopped the mouth of the Christian advocate by affording him no opportunity for discussion, but even debarred him from those scenes and intimacies of social life, which, by rendering him conversant with the ideas and tenets of Mohammedans, would have enabled him to dispute with them to advantage. Thirdly, the bigotry of the Mussulmans, the licence of concubinage and slavery, and their otherwise low standard of morality, acted then, even as they act now, excluding light and rebutting conviction with contempt. Lastly, the hostility of the Mohammedan governments towards Christianity checked inquiry, prohibited any attempt at missionary labours, and suppressed every approach to conversion by sanguinary measures and summary punishment. The last three causes extenuate, though they by no means remove, the charge during those long ages of indifference towards this great controversy.

The fourth grand era of the connection of Christianity with Islam arose with the dominion of Europeans in India. And here every circumstance was in our favour. The presence of Europeans was generally the effect of conquest which, after the first feelings of irritation subside, invests the conqueror's faith and opinions with the prestige of power and authority. Here, too, our opponents are greatly outnumbered by the Hindoos; and the mixed character of the population might be expected to have broken the bond of Mohammedan union, so far at least as to weaken the thraldom of opinion and custom, to diminish the intensity of bigotry, and to exchange the narrow-mindedness of the Turk and the Persian, for somewhat of enlightened liberality in the Musselman of India. Now, at least, we might have expected that Christian Europe would early have improved her advantages for evangelising the East; that Britain, the bulwark of religion in the West, would have stepped forth as its champion in the East, and displayed her faith and her zeal where they were most urgently required. How different are the conclusions which the eighteenth century forces us to draw! England was then sadly neglectful of her responsibility; her religion was shown only at home, and she was careless of the spiritual darkness of her benighted subjects abroad; while her sons, who adopted India as