To attempt to answer all the objections which may be derived from the
want of conformity in the doctrines of Christianity to the usual order of
events would be an interminable labour. My first principle is, that
religion has nothing to do with the common order of events; it is a pure
and divine instinct intended to give results to man which he cannot
obtain by the common use of his reason, and which at first view often
appear contradictory to it, but which when examined by the most refined
tests, and considered in the most extensive and profound relations, are,
in fact, in conformity with the most exalted intellectual knowledge, so
that, indeed, the results of pure reason ultimately become the same with
those of faith--the tree of knowledge is grafted upon the tree of life,
and that fruit which brought the fear of death into the world, budding on
an immortal stock, becomes the fruit of the promise of immortality.

_Onu_.--You derive Christianity from Judaism; I cannot see their
connection, and it appears to me that the religion of Mahomet is more
naturally a scion from the stock of Moses. Christ was a Jew, and was
circumcised; this rite was continued by Mahomet, and is to this day
adopted by his disciples, though rejected by the Christians; and the
doctrines of Mahomet appear to me to have a higher claim to divine origin
than those of Jesus; his morality is as pure, his theism purer, and his
system of rewards and punishments after death as much in conformity with
our ideas of eternal justice.

_Amb_.--I will willingly make the decision of the general question
dependent upon the decision of this particular one. No attempts have
been made by the Mahometans to find any predictions respecting their
founder in the Old Testament, and they have never pretended even that he
was the Messiah; therefore, as far as prophecy is concerned, there is no
ground for admitting the truth of the religion of Mahomet. It has been