We must, then, see this in detail; we must put the papers on the table.
594. Against the history of China.--The historians of Mexico, the five suns,
of which the last is only eight hundred years old.
The difference between a book accepted by a nation and one which makes a
nation.
595. Mahomet was without authority. His reasons, then, should have been very
strong, having only their own force. What does he say, then, that we must
believe him?
596. The Psalms are chanted throughout the whole world.
Who renders testimony to Mahomet? Himself. Jesus Christ desires His own
testimony to be as nothing.
The quality of witnesses necessitates their existence always and everywhere;
and he, miserable creature, is alone.
597. Against Mahomet.--The Koran is not more of Mahomet than the Gospel is
of Saint Matthew, for it is cited by many authors from age to age. Even its
very enemies, Celsus and Porphyry, never denied it.
The Koran says Saint Matthew was an honest man. Therefore Mahomet was a
false prophet for calling honest men wicked, or for not agreeing with what
they have said of Jesus Christ.
598. It is not by that which is obscure in Mahomet, and which may be
interpreted in a mysterious sense, that I would have him judged, but by what
is clear, as his paradise and the rest. In t
Later, in response to a suggestion on the part of the Governor, for a
more explicit statement as to wherein his views differ from those of
the Chinese and of Dr. Eitel, the Chief Justice says, among other
things:
"I do not admit the statements of Dr. Eitel. They do not apply
to Hong Kong, but they may, and probably do, apply to certain
respectable classes in China proper, where China family life
proper exists. What I assert is that family life does not, in the
proper Chinese sense, exist in Hong Kong, and that although, under
certain very restricted conditions, the buying and selling, and
adopting and taking as concubines, boys and girls in China proper,
is permitted as exceptions to the penalties inflicted by Chinese
law in China proper, these conditions do not exist in Hong Kong;
and that the conditions necessary to these exceptions in their
favor in the Chinese Criminal Code do not exist in Hong Kong,
and that the penalties would apply, if in China, to all such