with all that are prepared for it. God then looking down and turning Himself to each of us, it comes to pass that our bodies live and are nourished, receiving strength from the outer rays that come from Him. But, when God turns from us to the contemplation of Himself, it comes to pass that these things are worn out and consumed, but that the reason lives, being made partaker of a blessed life.'

Hindu philosophers too had in very early times their own theories about the nature of the Deity and the manner in which the universe came into existence. In some respects what they have written differs much from what Muslim sages have said, because these latter have clung to belief in a personal God: yet in the theory that the original entity (وجود) must be considered to be a mere barren unit (وحدة) and that plurality was gradually evolved therefrom, we find not a slight resemblance between Hindu, Greek, and Muslim philosophy. This will be clear from the two following extracts:—

In the Rig-Veda it is said, 'That ¹ (ذلك) one thing breathed breathless by itself: other than it there was nothing beyond.'

And in one of the Upanishads we find these words, 'In ¹ the beginning there was that only which is, one only, without a second. It thought, "Let me become many, let me grow forth: it sent forth fire."' The passage goes on to say that in the same way water emanated from fire and earth from water, and thus 'the one became the many'.

All these philosophical attempts to explain God's nature and the existence of the universe are marked by certain common features, by which, in spite of some minor differences, they resemble each other and unite together as man's highest effort to teach that which he cannot understand, and of which his knowledge is so very defective that it almost amounts to ignorance. In illustration of this we venture to recall to our readers the old story of the blind men who described the elephant, each according to the part of its body which he had touched. All men are blind with reference to God Most High, until He graciously opens the eyes of our spirits to see 'the Light of the World'. Their intellectual knowledge of Him who is invisible must therefore be very far from perfect, unless God has revealed Himself. We Christians and our Muslim brothers believe that He has given us a revelation in His holy word. True wisdom then teaches us to learn and accept the statements about the nature