OUTLINE OF THE ESSAY.


The progress of Islam was slow until Mohammed cast aside the precepts of
toleration and adopted an aggressive, militant policy. Then it became
rapid. The motives which animated the armies of Islam were
mixed--material and spiritual. Without the truths contained in the
system success would have been impossible, but neither without the sword
would the religion have been planted in Arabia, nor beyond. The
alternatives offered to conquered peoples were Islam, the sword, or
tribute. The drawbacks and attractions of the system are examined. The
former were not such as to deter men of the world from embracing the
faith. The sexual indulgences sanctioned by it are such as to make Islam
"the Easy way."

The spread of Islam was stayed whenever military success was checked.
The Faith was meant for Arabia and not for the world, hence it is
constitutionally incapable of change or development. The degradation of
woman hinders the growth of freedom and civilization under it.

Christianity is contrasted in the means used for its propagation, the
methods it employed in grappling with and overcoming the evils that it
found existing in the world, in the relations it established between the
sexes, in its teaching with regard to the respective duties of the civil
and spiritual powers, and, above all, in its redeeming character, and
then the conclusion come to that Christianity is divine in its origin.