66 'Verily, a lie is justifiable in three cases: to women, in war, and to patch up a quarrel between friends."-MOHAMMED. "The moral sense, in its objective form, is still very incomplete in little children, even between the ages of two and four. They have, however, a very advanced idea of what is allowed and what forbidden, of what they must or may, and what they must not do, as regards their physical and moral habits. Moral law is for them embodied in their parents, in the mother especially, even during their absence."-BERNARD PEREZ in "The First Three Years of Childhood." "Man is the absolute master and woman the slave. She is the object of his sensual pleasures, a toy, as it were, with which he plays, whenever and however he pleases. Knowledge is his, ignorance is hers. The firmament and the light are his, darkness and the dungeon are hers. His is to command, hers is to blindly obey. His is everything that is, and she is an insignificant part of that everything."-KASIM BEY AMIN of Cairo, in his book "The New Woman." S V MORAL TRAINING AND NEGLECT UCH moral training as is given to the child of Mohammedan parents is necessarily based on their own ideas and ideals of ethics. If Christian ethics is conditioned by our faith in the teachings of the New Testament and the ideals of the character of Jesus Christ, to an equal degree Moslem ethics is based upon the Koran and the moral character of Mohammed. In this again we see the unity of Islam. However different the environment, the stage of progress, or the degree of civilization, all Mohammedans everywhere believe that ideal virtue is to be found through imitation of Mohammed, that the moral law is recorded in the precepts of the Koran, and that the highest good for the individual and for the community consists in what Islam offers for this life and the life to come. In considering the moral training of a child, therefore, we must first study the moral concepts of this religion which, in the words of Dr. Robert E. Speer, "is held by many who have to live under its shadow to be the most degraded reli gion, morally, in the world. Missionaries from India will tell you that the actual moral conditions to be found among Mohammedans everywhere are more terrible than those to be found even among the pantheistic Hindus themselves." And Adolph Wutke, in his "System of Ethics," speaks of Islam as an "attempt of heathenism to maintain itself erect under an outward monotheistic form." The Moslem's idea of God and of His moral attributes differs widely from that of the Christian. His conception of sin is different, and the division of sins into great and little, as well as the fact that there is no clear distinction between the ceremonial and the moral law, have an evil tendency in the sphere of ethics. All sins except great ones are easily forgiven, because God is merciful and clement. Dr. George F. Herrick, after fifty years' experience in Turkey, says: "The Moslem's apprehension of the moral attributes of God differs widely from that of the Christian. Paternal love has no place in his view of God. According to Islam, mercy and justice have no relation one to the other. Sin is not guilt, but weakness, and is forgiven through pity to the formally penitent. Religion and life are strangers one to the other." But this must not surprise us in the history of Moslem morals. A stream cannot rise higher than its source. A tower cannot be broader than its foundation. The measure of the moral stature of Mohammed is the source and foundation of all moral ideals in Islam. His conduct is the standard of character. Every detail of his life is attributed to divine permission or command, and so what appear to us as faults in his character are interpreted as special privileges or signs of superiority. Moslem boys and girls are taught to believe that God favoured their prophet above all creatures, and his name is never uttered by them or by their parents without the addition of these words, "Mohammed, upon him be prayers and peace." Poems in praise of the Prophet are read at festivals, sung by travelling dervishes, and printed in books of devotion. Here is an example of those current in China, and is supposed to have been written by the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. It is less extravagant than many similar poems of Arabic literature. "In the beginnings of the heavens and the earth Of the great Preacher and Prophet, Of all Prophets he is the chief, Assisting the heavens in their rotation, Protecting and shielding the reigning sovereign, Observing five times for prayer each day, Retaining the true Lord in the heart, Saving from the curse of sin, Causing benevolence to cover the earth again, Subduing the depraved who turn to the Lord, (JAMES HUDSON in the National Review, Shanghai, It is not necessary to enter into the details of Mohammed's life and character. These are sufficiently revealed not only in the standard biographies by Western scholars, but in the earliest sources of Islam itself,-the Koran and Tradition. The picture is anything but attractive. Bosworth Smith, who has perhaps written the most able apology for the life of Mohammed, and who certainly cannot be accused of any bias, wrote: "The religion of Christ contains whole fields of morality and whole realms of thought which are all but outside the religion of Mohammed. opens humility, purity of heart, forgiveness of injuries, sacrifice of self, to man's moral nature; it gives scope for toleration, development, boundless progress to his mind; its motive power is stronger, even as a friend is better than a king, It |