ry large portion of our race. Considering the
asserted origin of this book,--indirectly from God himself,--we might
justly expect that it would bear to be tried by any standard that man
can apply, and vindicate its truth and excellence in the ordeal of
human criticism. In our estimate of it, we must constantly bear in
mind that it does not profess to be successive revelations made at
intervals of ages and on various occasions, but a complete production
delivered to one man. We ought therefore to look for universality,
completeness, perfection. We might expect that it would present us
with just views of the nature and position of this world in which we
live, and that whether dealing with the spiritual or the material, it
would put to shame the most celebrated productions of human genius, as
the magnificent mechanism of the heavens and the beautiful living
forms of the earth are superior to the vain contrivances of man. Far
in advance of all that has been written by the sages of India, or the
philosophers of Greece, on points connected with the origin, nature,
and destiny of the universe, its dignity of conception and excellence
of expression should be in harmony with the greatness of the subject
with which it is concerned.

[Illustration: _AFRICAN ARABIC MANUSCRIPT._

Thirteenth Century. National Library, Paris.

Reduced fac-simile of part of a page of an Arabic Koran, in
the African character, captured at Tunis by Charles V.

The scribes of the East are distinguished by their efforts to
acquire a perfect style of execution; and their success
merits the greater praise, since they generally stand while
writing, resting only on the left arm; and notwithstanding
the inferiority of the reed to the modern pen, the Arabs have
succeeded in producing the most excellent specimens of
calligraphy.]

We might expect that it should propound with authority, and
definitively settle, those all-important problems which have exercised
the mental powers of the ablest men of Asia and Europe for so many
centuries, and which are at the foundation of all faith and all
philosophy; that it should distinctly tell us in unmistakable language
what is God, what is the world, what is the soul, and whether man has
any criterion of truth; that it should explain to us how evil can
exist in a world the Maker of which is omnipotent and altogether good;
that it should reveal to us in what t