nouses of worship are denominated mosques, many of which are very magnificent, and very richly endowed The revenues of some of the royal mosques are said to amount to the enormous sum of 60,000 pounds sterling. In the city of Fez, the capital of the emperor of Morocco, there are near one thousand mosques, fifty of which are built in a most magnificent style, supported by marble pillars. The circumference of the grand mosque is near a mile and a half, in which near a thousand lamps are lighted every night. The Mahometan priests, who perform the rites of their public worship, are called Imams; and they have a set of ministers called Sheiks, who preach every Friday, the Mahometan Sabbath, much in the manner o Christian preachers. They seldom touch upon points of controversy in their discourses, but preach upon moral duties, upon the dogmas and ceremonies of their religion, and declaim against vice, luxury, and corruption of manners. The Mahometan religion is established in, or prevails throughout, the Turkish dominions in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It has, likewise, numerous proselytes in various other countries, as in China, Persia, &c. The number of those professing the Mahometan religion at the present day has been estimated at about one hundred and forty millions.

The grossly sensual character of Mahomet's paradise, constitutes, perhaps, the greatest blemish in his religious system, and has exerted a debasing influence over all the countries where it has acquired an ascendancy. If we needed anything to prove its corrupt human origin, this single feature would be sufficient for our purpose. How immeasurably inferior does it seem, in this point of view, tc the sublime, spiritual morality, which the founder of Christianity enforced by precept and example!

CHAPTER III.

CHRISTIANITY AND ITS EVIDENCES.

CHRISTIANITY.

CHRISTIANITY, to which Judæism was introductory, is the last and most entire dispensation of revealed religion with which God has favored the human race. It was instituted by Jesus Christ, the son of God, who made his appearance in Judea near two thousand years ago. He was born at Bethlehem, brought up at Nazareth, and crucified at Jerusalem. His lineage, birth, life, death, and sufferings, were minutely predicted by a succession of the Jewish prophets, and his religion is now spread over a considerable portion of the globe.

The evidences of the Christian religion are comprised under historical testimony, prophecies, miracles, the internal evidence of its doctrines and precepts, and the rapidity of its first propagation among the Jews and the Gentiles. Though thinking Christians have in every age differed widely respecting some of the doctrines of this religion, yet they are fully agreed in a belief in the divinity of its origin, and the benevolence of its tendency.

The believers in this religion, who had been denominated by the Jews, Nazarines or Galileans, and, by one another, disciples, brethren or saints, were first called Christians at Antioch, A.D. 43. Upon this, Doddridge remarks: "With pleasure let us reflect upon this honorable name, which the disciples of Jesus wore at Antioch; and would to God, no other, no dividing name, had ever prevailed among them! As for such distinguishing titles, though they were taken from Apollos or Cephas, or Paul, let us endeavor to exclude them out of the Church as fast as we can, and while they continue in it let us take care that they do not make us forget our most ancient and most glorious title! Let us take heed that we do not so remem

ber our difference from each other in smaller inatters as to forget our mutual agreement in embracing the gospel of Christ."

As to the progress of Christianity, it suffered during the first three centuries some grievous persecutions, under which, however, it flourished after a wonderful manner, till the conversion of Constantine, A.D. 314, when it became the established religion of the Roman empire. The principal persecutions were those under Nero, A.D. 64; Domitian, 93; Trajan, 104; Hadrian, 125; Marcus Aurelius, 151; Severus, 197; Maximin, 235; Decius, 250; Valerian, 257; Aurelian, 272; Numerian, 283; Dioclesian, and Maximian, and Licinius, 303-313. It was relative to these persecutions that an ecclesiastical historian observes, that," the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church!" From the sixth to the sixteenth century was little else than one black record of ignorance, superstition, and tyranny.

The history of the fortunes of Christianity, in respect of its geographical extension, presents remarkable periods of advance and decline. After the conversion of Constantine, and the gradual decay of Paganism, Christianity continued to spread, but chiefly in the direction of east and south, for more than three centuries, the barbarian conquerers of the Roman provinces soon adopting it. About the middle of the seventh century, Christendom comprehended Europe, south and west of the Rhine and Danube; Africa north of the great desert; Abyssinia; parts of Nubia; Asia to the Euphrates; Armenia, and part of Arabia; and that small colony in Southern India which subsists to this day. The Saracen power rose by conquest from this extensive empire.

In little more than a century, Christendom was deprived of nearly all its Asiatic provinces, of which the faithful inhabitants were reduced to a tributary condition; of the whole of northern Africa, in which they were exterminated or converted; and of Spain. Sicily, the latest conquest of the Saracens, was occupied by them about 830. But just at the same epoch, or that of the lowes

decline, Charlemagne began to extend the limits of Christendom in the North; and the second period of advance extends through the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, in which the reign of the gospel and the church was extended over the North: Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Saxony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Russia. From that time to the sixteenth century, Christianity gradually reconquered Spain on the one hand; while, on the other, the newly arisen power of the Turks wrested from it the remainder of its Asiatic territories and the European provinces of the Greek empire.

Since that period no important changes have taken place in the relative extent of Christendom and Ismalism; but the vast continent of America, as far as it has been colonised, has been added to the former, and the rapid increase of its communities in numbers and civilization has greatly enhanced their comparative importance. The number of Christians inhabiting Europe and America, and scattered in the other parts of the globe, may perhaps be estimated conjecturally as follows:

With regard to the divisions among Christians, Bishop Gibson observes: "It will appear that the several denominations of Christians agree both in the substance of religion and in the necessary enforcements of the practice of it; that the world and all things in it were created by God, and are under the direction and government of his all-powerful hand and all-seeing eye; that there is an essential difference between good and evil; virtue and vice; that there will be a state of future rewards and punishments, according to our behaviour in this life; that Christ was a teacher sent from God, and that his apostles were divinely inspired; that all Christians are bound to declare and profess themselves to be his disciples; that

not only the exercise of the several virtues, but also the belief in Christ, is necessary in order to their obtaining the pardon of sin, the favor of God, and eternal life; that the worship of God is to be performed chiefly by the heart in prayers, praises, and thanksgivings; and as to all other points, that they are bound to live by the rules which Christ and his apostles have left to them in the Holy Scriptures. Here, then, is a fixed, certain, and uniform rule of faith and practice, containing all the most necessary points of religion, established by a divine sanction, embraced as such by all denominations of Christians, and in itself abundantly sufficient to preserve the knowledge and practice of religion in the world."

The late Mr. Clarke, in his answer to the question, "Why are you a Christian?" replies: "Not because Í was born in a Christian country, and educated in Christian principles; not because I find the illustrious Bacon, Boyle, Locke, Clarke, and Newton, among the professors and defenders of Christianity; nor merely because the system itself is so admirably calculated to mend and exalt human nature---but because the evidence accompanying the gospel has convinced me of its truth. The secondary causes assigned by unbelievers, do not, in my judgment, account for the rise, progress, and early triumphs of the Christian religion. Upon the principles of scepticism, I perceive an effect without an adequate cause. I therefore stand acquitted to my own reason, though I continue to believe and profess the religion of Jesus Christ. Arguing from effects to causes, I think I have philosophy on my side. And, reduced to a choice of difficulties, I encounter not so many in admitting the miracles ascribed to the Saviour, as in the arbitrary suppositions and conjectures of his enemies.

"That there once existed such a person as Jesus Christ; that he appeared in Judea in the reign of Tiberius; that he taught a system of morals superior to any inculcated in the Jewish schools; that he was crucified at Jerusalem; and that Pontius Pilate was the Roman Governor, by whose sentence he was condemned and executed, are facts