Life of Ahmad — Page 748
BISHOP OF LAHORE AND ISLAM as 748 inducement to Muslims to offer to Your Lordship a field of discussion in which the merits of both the religions and their founders could be more properly and fairly tested. It is also noticeable that the representative whom they proposed to bring into the field against your Lordship was no mullah or preacher of ordinary degree, for in offering such an opponent they would have made light of your abilities. To do justice to your position and talents, therefore, an adversary was proposed who occupied no mean position but whose claims to the high spiritual rank of the Promised Messiahship had attracted the attention of the whole Indian continent for several years past, and whose sect made a marvellous progress notwithstanding the bitterest opposition from within and without. With two such remarkable personages as the champions of the two great religious systems of the world, the public should not be left in the dark as regards the solution of a question that has occupied the greatest minds of every age. Although your Lordship deems the reparation of the Christian Church from within as your primary duty, yet it cannot be denied that the primary duty of every good Christian must be that of bringing light and life to those who in his opinion have fallen into the pit of death and darkness and who are, therefore, in a much more dangerous state than