evil?" I said, 'I knew nothing about it.' He thought he could tell me; so I let him reason on, till he soon found he knew as little about the matter as myself. He wanted to prove that there was no real difference between good and evil-it was only apparent. I observed, that this difference, though apparent, was the cause of a great deal of real misery.'

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"While correcting the fifth of John, he was not a little surprised at finding such an account as that of an angel coming down and troubling the waters. When he found that I had no way of explaining it, but was obliged to understand it literally, he laughed, as if saying, there are other fools in the world besides Mahometans.' I tried to lessen his contempt and incredulity by saying, 'that the first inquiry was, is the book from God? O, to be sure,' said he; 'it is written in the Bible; we must believe it.' I asked him, ' whether there was any thing contrary to reason in the narrative? whether it was not even possible that the salubrious powers of other springs were owing to the descent of an angel?" Lastly I observed, that all natural agents might be called the angels of God.' 'This,' said he, was consonant to their opinions, and that when they spoke of the angel of the winds, the angel of death, &c. nothing more was meant than the cause of the winds.'

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"27th.-Before I had taken my breakfast, the younger of the youths came, and forced me into a conversation. As soon as he heard the word,' Father,' in the translation, used for 'God,' he laughed, and went away. Soon after, two men came and spoke violently for hours. Seid Ali, and a respectable Mouluwee, whom he brought to introduce to me, took up the cudgels against them, and said,' that the onus probandi rested with them, not with me.' Zachariah told me, this morning, that I was the town talk; that it was asserted, I was come to Shiraz to be a Mussulman, and should then bring five thousand men to Shiraz, under pretence of making them Mussulmen, but in reality to take the city.

"28th. The poor boy, while writing how one of the servants of the High Priest struck the Lord on the face, stopped, and said, 'Sir, did not his hand dry up?"

"30th (Sunday.)-Preached to the Ambassador's suite on the faithful saying; in the evening baptized his child.

"July 1st.-A party of Armenians came, and said, among other things, that the Mahometans would be glad to be under our English government. Formerly they despised and hated the Feringees, but now they begin to say, What harm do they do; they take no man's wife, no man's property.'

Abdoolghunee, the Jew Mahometan, came to prove that he had found Mohammed in the Pentateuch. Among other strange things, he said, that the Edomites meant the Europeans, and Mount Sion was in Europe. Afterward Seid Ali asked me to tell him in confidence, why I believed no prophet could come after Christ. I chose to begin with the Atonement, and wished to show, that it was of such a nature, that salvation by another was impossible. 'You talk,

said he, of the Atonement, but I do not see it any where in the Gospel.' After citing two passages from the Gospels, I read the third chapter of Romans, and the fifty-third of Isaiah. With the latter he was much struck. He asked many more questions, the scope of which was, that though Islam might not be true, he might still remain in it, and be saved by the Gospel, I said, 'You deny the Divinity of Christ.'-' I see no difficulty in that,' said he. 'You do not observe the institutions of Christ-Baptism and the Lord's Sup per. These,' said he, are mere emblems, and if a man have the reality, what need of emblems. Christ,' said I, foresaw that the reality would not be so constantly perceived without them, and there, fore, he enjoined them.' He said, that in his childhood he used to cry while hearing about the sufferings of Christ,' and he wept while mentioning it."

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The 3d of July was distinguished by a conversation

kept up between Mr. Martyn and two Moollahs principally, one of whom displayed a very different spirit from that which had actuated those ministers of the Mahometan religion, who first visited him. "The Jewish Moollah Abdoolghunee, with Moollah Abulhasan," he writes, "came prepared for a stiff disputation, and accordingly the altercation was most violent. Jaffier Ali Khan and Mirza Seid Ali were present, with many others. The Jew began with asking, whether we believed that Jesus suffered? I referred him to the 9th of Daniel, Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself.' I begged him to show who was the Messiah of whom Daniel spoke, if it was not Jesus.

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"At Abulhasan's request, he began to give his reasons for believing that Mahomet was foretold in the' Old Testament. The Jew wanted to show, that when it is said, Moses went out, and the twelve PRINCES with him,' Moses had twelve religious Khaleefs, just like Mahomet. I explained to the Mussulman, that they were not for religious affairs, but worldly, deci. ding causes, &c. and that religious services were con fined to one tribe.

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"He proceeded to Deut. xviii. 18, The Lord will raise from among their brethren,' &c. 'Brethren,' he said, must mean some other than Jews. That Moses and Jesus were not alike. Moses gave a law before he went: Jesus did not; his disciples made one for him; whereas Mahomet left a book himself, That Moses was a warrior; that Christ was not; but that Mahomet was.' I replied, that the words of God, 'from among their brethren,' Moses explained by those, from among thee;' and that this excludes the possibility of Mahomet being meant.' After they were gone, I found Lev. xxv. 46, which supplies a complete answer. In reply to the objection, that Moses and Christ were not alike, I said, ' that in respect of the prophetic office, there was such a likeness, as did not exist between any other two prophetsthat each brought a new law, and each was a Mediator.

"The Jew next read the sixty-first of Isaiah, and commented. I then read the same chapter, and observed, that Christ had cited one of the passages for himself. The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,' &c. This they attended to, because Christ had said so; but as for Peter's appropriating the passage in Deuteronomy to Christ (Acts iii.) they made no account of it. So ignorant are they of the nature of a Revelation.

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"When we were separating the Moollah Abulhasan gravely asked me, whether, if I saw proof of Mahomet's miracles, I would believe and act as one who sought the truth? I told him, 'I wished for nothing but the truth.' He then said, 'we must have an umpire.' But where,' said I, shall we find an impartial one?" He must be a Jew,' said one, Well then,' added another, 'let Abdoolghunee be the man.' The apostate Jew swore, by the four sacred books, that he would give 'just judgment.' I could not conceal my indignation at such a ridiculous proposal, and said to the Jew, 'You impartial! As a Mahometan, you ought to speak well of Christ; but it is easy to see, that, like your brethren, you hate Jesus as bitterly as ever." He was quite alarmed at this charge before the Mahometans; by whom he has long been considered as no true Mahometan: and, in the most gentle manner possible, he assured me, 'none could have a greater respect for Jesus than he had; and that, possibly, in the text in Deuteronomy, Jesus might be meant, as well as Mahomet.'

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"At the end of this vehement controversy, when they were most of them gone, I said to Seid Ali, 'that thought, whatever others did, he would not have denied me common justice.' He took me aside, and said to me very earnestly, You did not understand me. Abulhasan is my enemy; nothing does he want so much as to bring me into danger; I must, therefore, show some little regard for the religion.' He told me, that Mirza Ibraheem, the preceptor of all the Moollabs, was now writing a book in defence of Mahometanism,

and that it was to this Abulhasan alluded, as that which was to silence me for ever.

"4th.-Seid Ali having informed the Jew that I had found an answer to his argument from Genesis xvii. he came to know what it was, and staid the whole morning, asking an infinity of questions. He showed himself extremely well read, in the Hebrew Bible and Koran, quoting both with the utmost readiness. He argued a little for the Koran, but very coldly. He concluded by saying, 'he must come to me every day: and either make me a Mussulman, or become himself a Christian.'”

The progress of the translation gave rise to the following affecting discourse between Seid Ali and Mr. Martyn. "Seid Ali, while perusing the twelfth of John, observed, 'How he loved these twelve persons!' "Yes,' said I; and all those who believe in him through their word.' After our work was done, he began to say, 'From my childhood I have been in search of a religion and am still undecided. Till now. I never had an opportunity of conversing with those of another religion: the English I have met in Persia have generally been soldiers, or men occupied with the world.' To some remarks I made about the necessity of having the mind made up upon such a subject, considering the shortness of our stay here, he seemed cordially to assent, and shed tears. I recommended prayer and the consideration of that text, 'If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine,' and spoke as having found it verified in my own experience, that when I could once say before God, What wilt thou have me to do!' I found peace.-I then went through all the different states of my mind at the time I was called to the knowledge of the Gospel. He listened with great interest, and said, 'You must not regret the loss of so much time as you give me, because it does me good.'

The situation of those whose forefathers crucified the Lord of Glory is ever pitiable to a Christian mind: but how much more are the Jews entitled to compas