Life of Ahmad — Page 747
as BISHOP OF LAHORE AND ISLAM 747 be discussed, the fairness of the terms and last though not the least from the highly beneficial result that was expected to come out of it— deserved your Lordship’s unqualified acceptance. The members of the Muslim community who ventured to address you on this point hailed from all parts of the country and were all men of good position and high education whose request deserved a deeper consideration. The proposal was made in an earnest and sincere spirit to lead, if possible, the public out of the sea of doubt in which it floated as to the true religion. The terms were as fair as could be desired, for hostile attacks were excluded from the pale of the controversy. Your Lordship’s work as a Missionary for many years in this country, your-acquaintance with the manners, creeds and language of the Eastern people, the toleration with which you allowed Muslims to refute your arguments in the lecture delivered by you at Lahore—to which facts immense importance was added by your present exalted position—all combined to convince the Muslims that you would be the best representative of Christianity in the fair field of controversy. Your initiative in calling upon the Muslims to prove the innocence and life of their own Prophet sa against those of Jesus Christ as —a sort of controversy in which one side was quite unprepared and unrepresented—was a further