Page:The Mohammedan system of theology (IA mohammedansyste00neal).pdf/130

 God? Since he is the Lord of all things, and no soul shall acquire any merits or demerits but for itself, and no burdened soul shall bear the burden of another. Moreover unto your Lord shall ye return, and he shall declare unto you that concerning which ye now dispute. It is he who hath appointed you to succeed your predecessors upon earth, and hath raised some of you above others, by various degrees of worldly advantages, that he might prove you by that which he hath bestowed upon you. The Lord is swift in punishing and he1s also gracious and merciful."

The grandeur and magnificence in the following citation from the 10th chapter, entitled Jonas, is of course felt more in the original than in a translation: it is respecting the Deluge: "O earth, swallow up thy waters, and thou, O Heaven withhold thy rain. And immediately the water abated, and the decree was fulfilled, and the ark rested on the moun-