Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/107

 to his deluded followers, is a place of debauchery, a sink of "iniguity." Whole troops of beautiful houris are provided to gratify the everlasting and insatiable lust of the Mahometan elect, and that there may be no stint, no progeny ever follows this unbridled concubinage: it is an everlasting enjoyment of the basest pleasures, without the end or the sanction of marriage: pleasures which, as mankind now tastes them, are essentially allied with the debasements of original sin, and which the pure religion of Jesus had restricted to the single use of marriage, while it taught men to forego them altogether, if they would seek perfectly to please their Heavenly Creator, by imitating here on earth the purity and the innocence of angels. Jesus Christ had restored woman to her original rank in the scale of God's creation; Mahomet degraded her again into the mere instrument of passion, and the slave of man. Our Lord had made marriage the holiest and the happiest union of man and wife, to be for ever consecrated to each other, with no thought of another to inspire jealousy or divide their love, and this union He pronounced indissoluble, except by death. Mahomet restored polygamy, and consecrated divorce. Thus, instead of developing the holy tendencies of Christianity, he threw men back, and as he impiously pre-