In my attempt to write an explanation of the reason which caused me to accept the faith of Islam, for the benefit of readers of the Islamic Review, I find myself beset with many difficulties, inasmuch as my position clear, trusting to your charity to make allowanced for any deficiencies in writing technique.

As a youth I was appalled and sickened by the history of the horrible atrocities committed against their "Brothers" by the Early and Middle Age Christians. Especially was this the case when I learned of the beastliness of the Holy Office and Inquisition, under whose direction the "Image of God" was torn asunder, burned alive crimes as these, commited by Christians in the name of Christ, shall never die; it will remain forever as evidence of the terrible contradiction between the commands of Christ and the acts of his followers, and it will be an ever present reminder of what mankind would receive at the hands of these followers of him who said "Blessed are the merciful," should they ever again the power that they have lost.

The years passed, and I look opportunity as it arose to study more closely the Christians and their works. I could not, of course, accept the main dogmas of the Christian Church as they are so obviously mere survivals of Pagan idolatrous belief. But I held to a belief in the Divinity of Christ and the Atonement; the latter was a very comforting belief to such a morally lazy man as barbarities practised by the Christians in the Middle Ages were merely the result of an inhuman environment and a lack of kindly thought which was common to those ages, until I discovered that not so very long ago the churches were opposing, the abolition of slavery with all the means at their command, whilst at the same time they supported the exploitation of child labour.

What a scene it is that histoy presents to us in glorious England after ninteen hunderd years of Christianity ... Mere babies driven off to factories in their early hours of the morning, their timid eyes hardly open in their wan, pinched faces, some even with the marks of the overseer's lash of the previous day still to be seen upon their tender limbs, where the skin shows through the rags that clothe them, and the fear of Christ in the person of their Christian masters, deep hidden, like a loathsome monster, in their fear-deadened souls. Retrospectively, we can that, from the very beginning, Christianity has exerted a retrograde influence upon the march of human intellectual development. The first Christian Roman Emperor destroyed all the reforms that had been introduced into the slave system of the Roman Empire by the humane teachings of the great Senca and, from that time onwards up to the year 1860, the story of slavery within the Christian sphere of dominion is one of abject horror and frightfulness.

If we are to suppose that his followers are obeying the commands of Christ, we are amply justified in regarding Christ as the archenemy of God, for, whilst we know that God is good, and we are certain of his kindliness to mankind, we are equally certain of the evil that Christianity has done to man in the past, and we have no reason to suppose that it will not do evil in the future.

I will not maintain that all Christians are bad; on the contrary, I think that most of them are good and have the wefare of mankind at heart, but I do believe that the system of Christian thought is too vague and elastic to be any lasting good to man; it allows of too loose an interpretation of the meaning of the terms "right" and "wrong", and throughout the Christian era uncrupulous individuals have seized upon this fact and used it to gain their own ends, with the result that the dominating section of Christian Society, the Priesthood, is filled with these doubtful characters and has become rotten and degenerate. The very real danger to society arising out of this state of affairs can only be realised fully when we understand that, though long ages of suppression, the Christians have developed a servility towards their priests that forbid criticism whilst it supports authority.
After long and careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that the days of Christianity are numbered, more and more people each day realizing that the faith of Christ is a mocking absurdity and, daily, Chritian congregations are becoming less in number. There are a few, it is true, who remain loyal to their faith, but their loyalty is an unthinking one whose chief supports are prejudice and habit; it definitely is not one of a considered scientific basis. Intellectual activity has no part in the emotional conviction.

We cannot expect the thousands of priests, and the churches with their vested interests, to give up their good, fat incomes without a struggle, and for many years the battle has been on, but it is a battle of ignorant sentimentality against enlightened intellect and humanity, and the latter must win. Even the leaders of the Christian churches are now admitting the falsity in the fundamentals of Christianity. The Dean of St. Paul's said recently:

"It becomes more and more evident that the Christian Church, as it now exits, cannot fulfill its mission."

Dr. Major, Editor of the Modern Churchman, said:

"Probelms of belief are very simple for traditionalist Christians who believe in the infallibility of the Bible or in the infallibility of the Church or perhaps in the infallibility of both. All that is needful for them is to find out what the Bible teaches and to believe it, or what the Church teaches and to believe it. But a more complete and exacting knowledge of what the Bible teaches and of what the Church teaches has created insuperable difficulties in the way of belief of this kind of the mentally alert and open-minded. Literary criticism and historical research have shown convincingly that in a number of cases the Bible narratives are selfcontradictory and that the statements of the Church's Doctors, Fathers and Councils are also selfcontradicoty.

"Moreover, the advances in scientific knowedge prove that in a number of cases where these authorities do not contradict each other, they are, nevertheless, in error. In short, for the modern man, belief in the infallibility of Bible and Church has become an impossibility."

Within Islam I have found the very reverse of the above picture. Here there is no uncertainty or looseness of doctrine, no scientific inaccuracy, no tribble contradiction between command and practice, no warring dogmas or creeds, and no selfish priesthood to lead the people astray from the clear glory of the worship of the one God. Islam stands as strong today as it has for centuries past, a mighty rock of simple faith set amid the thundering seas of life, a God-given sanctuary and haven for tormented human souls, a guide and comforter for the wandering and distressed ones, a giver of hope to the hopeless persons and a light to guide the feet of those who live in darkness.

Muhammad Abdullah Warren