Page:The Moslem World - Volume 02.djvu/19

 being, the last of the prophets, and consequently the one who said the final word so far as the way of salvation is concerned. Such is his conception of the Koran and of the " prophet " Mohammed. This Koran, in his opinion, denies the death of Jesus, inasmuch as it says, " They did not kill him, neither did they crucify him, but he was represented unto them " ; i.e., they killed another in mistake for Jesus, and God who de^^sed such a strategem took Jesus to himself without dying. Wliat, then, does the Moslem feel when you testify that our Saviour Jesus died upon the Cross ? Does the testimony appeal to him as truth ? Of course it does not, for he is fully persuaded in his own mind that Christ has not yet died, and your bald statement of the Gospel not only prejudices him, but your insistance upon it angers him, and your suggestion that he has been misled makes him your enemy for long afterwards.

Many years ago I was very wTath at the attitude taken up by certain Christians respecting others of a different opinion. I considered their action narrow and un-Christ-like ; and in the heat of my indignation I rem^arked that I should " let them have it," and shew up the falseness of their position. There stood at my elbow a hardy, solid-looking master-gunner in the artillery. He had been listening with an expression of the fullest sympathy ; nevertheless, in two minutes he knocked the bottom out of my valourous intentions with a simple question. " Don't you want to win them to your opinion ? " " Of course I do," I said. " And do you think that if you ' let them have it ' they will be the more disposed to agree with you ? " I had no answer but one. " Well, then," he said, " try another way.'* Do we want to win the Moslem for Christ ? Of course we do. And do we vainly hope that God will bless to him our naked testimony to a matter not only abhorrent to his own opinions, but, as he reads it, at variance with the " revelation " he has from God ? We will be undoubtedly determined to know nothing among the Moslems save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, or we are unworthy of the Master, but we cannot " let them have it." We have got to walk round their supe