The Hibbert Lectures

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chapter{{Section 4INTEODUCTION.?ISLAM. One of the most striking features of the Hibbeet Lectures is their international character; and none of my hearers will wonder that this is the special point which forces itself upon my attention at the present moment; for to this I owe the honour of now addressing...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chapter{{Section 4INTEODUCTION.?ISLAM. One of the most striking features of the Hibbeet Lectures is their international character; and none of my hearers will wonder that this is the special point which forces itself upon my attention at the present moment; for to this I owe the honour of now addressing you?an honour of which I am deeply sensible, and for which I cannot refrain from offering my sin- cerest acknowledgments, at the outset, to the Hibbert Trustees. A concomitant result, however, is that you are now addressed by one who is but imperfectly acquainted with your language, one whose utterance will declare only too plainly that he is a foreigner, and that in his youth he never had the privilege that was to fall to him in later years of observing and receiving from the lips of Englishmen the mysteries of English pronunciation. Why should I deny that this difficulty has more than once presented itself to my mind in alarming colours during the preparations for my task, and that it has lost none of its terrors now ? But it is useless to expatiate on all this. The die is cast. The difficulty I must now encounter is one which most of you have doubtless experienced yourselves, and, mindful of this experience, you will extend your indulgent kindness to him who now addresses you. With no lack of confidence, therefore, I throw myself upon your mercy; and be assured that in extending it to me, so far from stimulating any pride on my part, you will but increase my sense of the obligation under which you have laid me. The transition is easy from the Hibbert Lectures to their subject-matter, and so likewise from the difficulties of the present Hibbert Lecturer to the material which he has selected for treatment. For if there is no universal language, there certainly are universa...