impressive mystery to us, and even to future ages.

But if, in comparison with Christianity, it is a corrupt and false
religion, as many assume, then what deductions must we draw from its
amazing triumphs? For the fact stares us in the face that it is rooted
deeply in a large part of the Eastern world, or, at least, has prevailed
victorious for more than a thousand years.

First, we must conclude that the external triumph of a religion,
especially among ignorant or wicked people, is not so much owing to the
purity and loftiness of its truths, as to its harmony with prevailing
errors and corruptions. When Mohammed preached his sublimest doctrines,
and appealed to reason and conscience, he converted about a score of
people in thirteen years. When he invoked demoralizing passions, he
converted all Arabia in eleven years. And does not this startling
conclusion seem to be confirmed by the whole history of mankind? How
slow the progress of Christianity for two hundred years, except when
assisted by direct supernatural influences! How rapid its triumphs when
it became adapted to the rude barbaric mind, or to the degenerate people
of the Empire! How popular and prevalent and widespread are those
religions which we are accustomed to regard as most corrupt! Buddhism
and Brahmanism have had more adherents than even Mohammedanism. How
difficult it was for Moses and the prophets to keep the Jews from
idolatry! What caused the rapid eclipse of faith in the antediluvian
world? Why could not Noah establish and perpetuate his doctrines among
his own descendants before he was dead? Why was the Socratic philosophy
unpopular? Why were the Epicureans so fashionable? Why was Christianity
itself most eagerly embraced when its light was obscured by fables and
superstitions? Why did the Roman Empire perish, with all the aid of a
magnificent civilization; why did this civilization itself retrograde;