ious functions,
minutely and precisely fixed in respect to time, place and manner, so
that neither less nor more is required of them, retains too tight a grip
upon them, when the circumstances which justified it have changed or
vanished away. The moral growth of those who live under such a system of
minute and punctilious restraint is stunted and retarded. The tendency
of mankind to formalism is so strong that they very commonly, though
often unconsciously, fall into the error of imagining that there is a
peculiar intrinsic merit and virtue in the mere discharge of those
prescribed forms of duties and religious ceremonies. Morality is with
them not in the abstract but in the concrete, as consisting of a mass of
religious observances, rather than of a certain disposition of heart
towards God and man. The Koran deals with vice and virtue as a whole as
well as in fragmentary details. It treats of inward motives as much as
of outward practice, of exhortations equally with precepts and commands.
It holds up before man the hatefulness and ugliness of vice _as a
whole_. It does not enclose the whole of the practical morality and
piety within the narrow compass of a fixed number of precepts. It lays
the foundation of that far-reaching charity which regards all men as
equal in the sight of God, and recognizes no distinction of races and
classes.

120. "And abandon the semblance of wickedness and wickedness
itself. They, verily, whose _only_ acquirement is iniquity shall be
repaid for what they have gained."

152. "Say: Come, I will rehearse what your Lord hath made binding
on you, that ye assign not aught to Him as sharers of his Divine
honour, and that ye be good to your parents; _and_ that ye slay not
your children because of poverty, for them and for you will We
provide; and that ye come not near to pollutions, outward or
inward; and that ye slay not anyone whom God hath forbidden you,
unless for a just cause. This hath He enjoined on you: haply ye
will understand."--Sura VI.

31. "Say: Only hath my Lord forbidden filthy actions, whether open
or secret, and iniquity, and unjust violence, and to associate with
God that for which He hath sent down no warranty, and to speak of
God that of which ye have no knowledge."--Sura VII.

33. "To those who avoid great crimes and scandals, but commit only
lighter faults, verily, thy Lord will be rich i