THE RELIGION OF THE PROPHET.
In a review of the faiths of Egypt, one cannot overlook that which has
ruled in the land for more than a thousand years, and still rules, not
only in Egypt, but over a large part of Asia and Africa. We arrived in
Cairo a few days too late to witness the departure of the pilgrims for
Mecca. Once in the year there is a gathering of the faithful for a
journey which is the event of their lives. The spectacle is one of the
most picturesque in the East, as a long procession, mounted on camels,
many of which are richly caparisoned, files through the streets of the
city, amid the admiring gaze of the whole population, and takes the
way of the desert. Slowly it moves Eastward to the Red Sea, and
passing around it, turns South to the heart of the Arabian Peninsula.
A caravan of pilgrims crossing the desert to visit the birthplace of
the prophet, is a proof that religious enthusiasm still lives even in
this unbelieving age. Perhaps the Moslem spirit is not so bigoted here
as at Constantinople. The Turk, with his heavy stolid nature, is a
more obstinate religionist than the Arab. And yet Mohammed was not a
Turk; he was an Arab, and the faith which he taught still fires the
heart of his race.
In one view Cairo may be considered the capital of Islam, as it is the
seat of the great University, from which its priests go forth to all
parts of the Mohammedan world. This University is nine hundred years
old--older than Oxford, and still flourishes with as much vigor as in
the palmy days of the Arabian conquest. A visit to it is the most
interesting sight in Cairo. There I saw collected together--not one
hundred or two hundred students, such as are found in our Theological
Seminaries in America--but ten thousand! As one expressed it, "there
were two acres of turbans," assembled in a vast inclosure, with no
floor but a pavement, and with a roof over it, supported by four
hundred columns, and at the foot of every column a teacher, surrounded
by pupils, who sat at his feet precisely as Paul sat at the feet of
Gamaliel. As we entered there rose a hum of thousands of voices,
reciting the Koran. These students are not only from Egypt, but from
all parts of Africa, from Morocco to Zanzibar. They come from far up
the Nile, from Nubia and Soudan; and from Darfour beyond the Great
Desert, and from the western coast of Africa. Asia too is largely
represented in students both from Western Asia, from Turkey, Arabia,
and Persia; and from Central Asia, from Khiva and Bokhara, and
Turkistan and Afghanistan, and the borders of China. They come without
staff or scrip. There is no endowment to support them; no Students'
Fund or Education Board. They live on the charities of the faithful,
and when their studies are ended, those who are to be missionaries on
this continent mount their camels, and joining a caravan, cross the
Desert, and are lost in the far interior of Africa.
This strange sight has set me a-thinking, and the more I think, the
more the wonder grows. A religion that supports great universities
from generation to generation; and that sends forth caravans, that are
like armies, on long pilgrimages, is not dead; it is full of life, and
can bring into the field tremendous forces to uphold its empire in the
East. What is the secret of its power, by which it lives on from
century to century, and seems as if it could not but by annihilating
die? There is no question of more interest to the historical student;
and no one which it is more necessary to understand in order to form
some just idea of the great Eastern War which is already looming above
the horizon. A full recognition of that which is good in Islam, and of
that which gives it power, would prevent many mistakes in forecasting
the future, although it might abate the sanguine confidence of our
missionary friends in the speedy triumph of Christianity over its
hereditary foe.
First of all, we must recognize the fact of its existence as one of
the great religions of the world. The number of its adherents is
variously estimated at from a hundred and fifty to a hundred and
eighty millions. It holds but a corner of Europe, but extends its
empire over a large part of Asia and Africa. The whole of Africa which
is not Pagan, is Moslem. In Asia Islam disputes the sway of Hindooism
in India, where the Queen has more Moslem subjects than the Sultan
himself, and of Buddhism in the islands of the Malayan Archipelago.
Over so large a part of the earth's surface is extended the wide
dominion of the Prophet. His followers number one-tenth, perhaps
one-eighth, or even one-sixth part of the human race.
Nor is this dominion a merely nominal thing. On the contrary, the true
believers are strong believers. It may well be doubted, whether among
the nations nominally Christian the mass of the people really believe
with half the firmness and the fervor of Mussulmans. The Moslems are
as sincere, and in their way as devout, as the adherents of any
religion on the face of the globe. No one can enter the mosque of St.
Sophia, and see the worshippers turning their faces towards Mecca, not
only kneeling but prostrating themselves, touching the pavement with
their foreheads, and repeating, in a low, mournful tone, passages from
the Koran, without feeling that these men really believe. Those
prostrate forms, those wailing voices, are not the signs of hypocrisy,
but of a faith that, however mistaken, is at least sincere. In their
own minds they are in the presence of the Highest, and offer worship
to the unseen God. Indeed they are more than believers, they are
zealots, carrying their faith to fanaticism. A body so vast in number,
composed of such fierce religionists, is certainly a great power in
the political and military, as well as religious, forces, that are yet
to contend for the mastery of the Eastern world.
Nor is this power inactive in spreading its faith; it is full of
missionary zeal. Max Mueller divides all the religions of the world
into proselytizing and non-proselytizing. Mohammedanism belongs to the
former class as much as Christianity. The days are past when the
followers of the Prophet swept over large parts of Asia and Africa,
converting tribes and nations by the sword. And yet even at the
present day it keeps up a Propaganda as vigorous as that of the
Catholics at Rome. Its university here is training ten thousand young
apostles. Moslem missionaries preach the Koran, and make proselytes,
in all parts of India. But the chief field of their labors is in
Africa, where they have penetrated far into the interior, and
converted numerous tribes to the faith. It is difficult to obtain
accurate statistics in regard to the spread of Islam in Africa.
Livingstone thought the reports greatly exaggerated. That is quite
possible, and yet, making every allowance, there can be no doubt that
it has obtained a success much greater than that of Christian
missions.
A religion which has such a foundation on the solid earth, holding
nations and empires in its wide dominion; and which has such a
history, stretching over twelve centuries; is a subject worthy the
closest attention of scholars. Its history is not unlike that of
Christianity itself, in the feebleness of its beginning and the
greatness of its results. It started in an obscure corner of the
world--in the deserts of Arabia--and rapidly conquered the East,
overrunning all the adjacent parts of Asia and Africa, and extending
along the Mediterranean to the Straits of Gibraltar, and thence
crossed into Spain, where it maintained itself for eight hundred
years against all the power of Europe to expel it. Such conquests
show a prodigious vitality--a vitality not yet exhausted, as it still
holds the half of Asia and Africa. A faith which commands the
allegiance of so large a part of mankind must have some elements of
truth to give it such tremendous power. Perhaps we can find the key in
the character of its Founder, and in the faith which he taught.
A great deal has been written about the life of Mohammed, but even yet
his character is imperfectly understood. Perhaps we cannot fully
understand it, for there are in it contradictions which perplex the
most patient and candid student. By many he is dismissed at once as a
vulgar impostor, a sort of Joe Smith, who invented monstrous lies, and
by stoutly sticking to them got others to believe in them, and as soon
as he rallied a few followers about him, compelled neighboring tribes
to accept his faith by the unsparing use of the sword.
This is an easy way to get rid of a difficult historical question, but
unfortunately it does not explain the facts. It is by that sort of
cheap reasoning that Gibbon undertakes to explain the rapid spread of
Christianity. But if Mohammed had been a cunning impostor, his first
claim would have been to work miracles, which on the contrary he never
claimed at all, but distinctly repudiated. Nor was he a greedy
mercenary; he was a poor man; his followers relate with pride how he
mended his own clothes, and even pegged his own shoes. But he combined
every element of the visionary and the enthusiast. He had that vivid
imagination that conceives strongly of things invisible to the natural
sense, to which "things that are not become as things that are," and
that ardent temperament that kindles at the sight of these unseen
realities. Perhaps this temperament was connected with his bodily
constitution; from his youth he was subject to epileptic fits, and his
revelations were accompanied with convulsions. Such things are found
in other religions. They are quite common in the history of devout
and passionate Romanists. Nor are they unknown even among Protestants,
who profess to be more sober and rational. Among the Methodists, at
camp-meetings, a very frequent effect of religious emotion has been
that strong men were so prostrated that they fell to the ground and
became as dead, and when they recovered, retained impressions never to
be effaced, as if they had seen things which it was not lawful to
utter. The revelations of Mohammed were all accompanied by these
"physical manifestations." Sometimes the angel spoke to him as one man
to another; at other times something within his bosom sounded like a
bell, which he said "rent him in pieces." At such times he fell to the
ground and foamed at the mouth, or his eyes turned red, and he
streamed with perspiration, and roared like a camel, in his struggle
to give utterance to the revelation of God. This does not look like
imposture, but like insanity. The constitution of such a man is a
psychological study.
This natural ardor was inflamed by long seclusion. From his youth he
loved solitude. Like the old prophets, he withdrew from the world to
be alone with God. Like Elijah, he hid himself in a cave. Every year,
during the month of Ramadan, he retired to a cave in Mount Hera, three
miles from Mecca, to give himself up to religious contemplation; and
there, it is said, amid spasmodic convulsions, he had his first
vision, in which the angel Gabriel appeared to him.
This explanation of a mind half disordered, subject to dreams and
visions and fanatical illusions, is much more rational than that of
supposing in him an artful design to impose a new religion on his
countrymen. Like other enthusiasts, he became the victim of his own
illusions. His imagination so wrought upon him that he came to accept
his visions as Divine revelations. In this he was not playing a part;
he was not the conscious hypocrite. No doubt he believed himself what
he wished others to believe. Indeed he made them believe, by the very
sincerity and intensity of his own convictions.
Mohammedanism may be considered as a system of theology, and as a
system of morality. The former seems to have been derived largely from
Judaism. Mohammed belonged to the tribe of the Koreishites, who
claimed to be descended from Abraham through Ishmael. His family were
the keepers of the Caaba, or holy place of Mecca, where is the black
stone which was brought from heaven, and the spring Zemzem, which
sprang up in the desert to save the life of Hagar and her child. Thus
he was familiar from his earliest years with the traditions of the
patriarchs.
When a boy of fourteen he made a journey with his uncle into Syria,
where he may have learned more of the ancient faith. Much is said of
his becoming acquainted with a Nestorian bishop or monk, from whom he
is supposed to have learned something of Christianity. But he could
not have learned _much_, for his views of it were always extremely
vague. It is doubtful whether he ever saw the New Testament, or had
any knowledge of it other than that derived from some apocryphal
books. There is no trace in the Koran of the sublime doctrines of the
Gospel, or even of its moral precepts. Although Mohammed professed
great reverence for Jesus, whom with Moses he considers the greatest
of prophets next to himself, yet his ideas of the Religion which He
taught were of the most indefinite kind.
But one thing he did learn, which was common to Judaism and
Christianity--that there is but one God. The Monotheism of the Hebrews
took the stronger hold of him, from its contrast to the worship around
him, which had degenerated into gross idolatry. The tribes of Arabia
had become as base idolaters as the Canaanites. Even the holy Caaba
was filled with idols, and the mission of the prophet--as he regarded
it--was to restore the worship of the One Living and True God. His
first burst of prophetic fire and prophetic wrath was a fierce
explosion against idolatry, and it was a moment of triumph when he was
able to walk through the Caaba, and see the idols dashed in pieces.
Here then is the first and last truth of Islam, the existence of one
God. The whole is comprehended in this one saying, "God is God, and
Mohammed is his prophet."
With the homage due to God, is the respect due to His revealed will.
Moslems claim for the Koran what many Christians do not claim for the
Bible--a literal and verbal inspiration. Every word is Divine.
And not only is the unity of God the cardinal truth, but it is vital
to salvation. In this respect Islam is a Religion. It is not a mere
philosophy, the acceptance or rejection of which is a matter of
indifference. It is not merely a system of good morals--it is a Divine
code for the government of mankind, whose acceptance is a matter of
life and death--of salvation or damnation.
The doctrine of _retribution_ is held by the Moslems in its most rigid
form--more rigid indeed than in the Christian system: for there is no
atonement for sin. The judgment is inexorable; it is absolute and
eternal. Before their eyes ever stands the Day of Judgment--the Dies
Irae--when all men shall appear before God to receive their doom.
But in that last day, when unbelievers shall be destroyed, the
followers of the prophet shall be saved. They can go to the tribunal
of their Maker without trembling. One day riding outside the walls of
Constantinople, we approached a cemetery just as a funeral procession
drew near, bearing the form of the dead. We stopped to witness the
scene. The mourners gathered around the place where the body was laid,
and then the ulema approached the grave, and began _an address to the
dead_, telling her (it was a woman) not to be afraid when the angel
came to call her to judgment, but to appear before the bar of the
Almighty, and answer without fear, for that no follower of the prophet
should perish.
The religious observances of the Moslems are very strict. As God is
the sole object of worship, so the great act of Religion is communion
with Him. Five times a day the voice of the muezzin calls them to
prayer. The frequent ablutions were perhaps derived from the Jewish
law. Fasting is imposed with a severity almost unknown in the
Christian world. The most rigid Catholics hardly observe the forty
days of Lent as the Moslems do the month of Ramadan. Almsgiving is not
only recommended, but required. Every true believer is commanded to
give one-tenth of his income to charity.
As to the moral results of Mohammedanism, it produces some excellent
effects. It inculcates the strictest temperance. The Koran prohibits
the use of wine, even though wine is one of the chief products of the
East. In this virtue of total abstinence the Moslems are an example to
Christians.
So in point of integrity; the honesty of the Turk is a proverb in the
East, compared with the lying of Christians. Perhaps this comes in
part not only from his religion, but from the fact that he belongs to
the conquering race. Tyrants and masters do not need to deceive, while
falsehood and deceit are the protection of slaves. Subject races,
which have no defence before the law, or from cruel masters, seek it
in subterfuge and deception. But this claim of integrity may be pushed
too far. However it may be in Asia Minor, among simple-minded Turks,
who have not been "spoiled by coming in contact with Christians,"
those who have to do with Turks in the bazaars of Constantinople, are
compelled to confess, that if they do not tell lies, they tell very
big truths. However, as between the Turk and the Greek, in point of
honesty, it is quite possible that those who know them both would give
the preeminence to the former.
Whatever the weakness of Mohammedanism, it does not show itself in
_that sort_ of vices. His very pride makes the Mussulman scorn these
meaner sins. His religion, as it lifts him up with self-esteem,
produces an effect on his outward bearing. He has an air of
independence which is unmistakable. I think I never saw a Mussulman
that was afraid to look me in the face. He has none of the sneaking
servility that we see in some races. This is a natural consequence of
his creed, according to which God is so great that no man is great in
his sight. Islam is at once a theocracy and a democracy. God is sole
Lawgiver and King, before whom all men stand on the same level. Hence
men of all nations and races fraternize together. In Constantinople
blacks and whites, the men of Circassia and the men of Ethiopia, walk
arm in arm, and stand on the level of absolute equality.
This democratic spirit is carried everywhere. There is no caste in
Islam, not even in India, where it is at perpetual war with the castes
of Hindooism. So as it spreads in the interior of Africa, it raises
the native tribes to a degree of manliness and self-respect which they
had not known before. It "levels up" the African race. Our
missionaries in Liberia, who come in contact with certain Moslem
tribes from the interior, such as the Mandingoes, will testify that
they are greatly superior to those farther South, on the Gold Coast,
the Ashantees and the people of Dahomey, who have filled the world
with horror by their human sacrifices. All this disappears before the
advance of Islam. It breaks in pieces the idols; it destroys devil
worship and fetichism and witchcraft, and puts an end to human
sacrifices. Thus it renders a service to humanity and civilization.
So far Islam is a pretty good religion--not so good indeed as
Christianity, but better than any form of Paganism. It has many
elements of truth, derived chiefly from Judaism. So far as Mohammed
followed Moses--so far as the Koran followed the Old Testament--they
uttered only the truth, and truth which was fundamental. The unity of
God is the foundation of religion. It is not only a truth, but the
greatest of truths, the first condition of any right religious
worship. In declaring this, Mohammed only proclaimed to the Arabs what
Moses had proclaimed to the Hebrews: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God
is one Lord." But he repeated it with great vehemence and effect,
wielding it as a battle-axe to break in pieces the idols of the
heathen. And so far--as against idolatry--Islam has served a great
purpose in history. But there its utility ends. It teaches indeed that
there is but one God. But what a God is that which it presents to our
worship! "This God is not our God." The Mohammedan idea of God is very
different from the Christian idea of a Father in heaven. It is the
idea of the Awful, the Invisible--grand indeed, yet cold and distant
and far away, like the stars on the desert, or in the Arctic night,
"wildly, spiritually bright," shining with a glittering splendor, but
lofty and inaccessible, beyond the cries of human agony or despair.
This view of God is so limited and partial as to produce the effect of
positive error. In a just religious system there must be included the
two ideas of God and man; and these in their proper relation to each
other. Exclusive contemplation of either leads astray. When man
fastens on the idea of one God, he plants himself on a rock. But he
must not bow himself upon the rock, and clasp it so as to forget his
own separate individuality, lest the mighty stone roll over upon him
and crush him. This the Mussulman does. He dwells so on the idea of
God, that his own existence is not only lost sight of, but
annihilated. The mind, subdued in awe, is at length overpowered by
what it beholds. Man is nothing in that awful presence, as his life is
but a point in the Divine eternity.
It cannot be denied that the idea of God, and God alone, may produce
some grand effects on human character. It inspires courage. If God be
for us, who can be against us? That God _is_ for him, the Mussulman
never doubts; and this confidence inspires him in danger, and on the
field of battle, so that he fights with desperation. But if the
fortune of war be against him, who so well as the devout Mussulman
knows how to suffer and to die? He murmurs not; but bows his head,
saying "God is great," and submits to his fate. Thus his creed carried
out to its logical consequence ends in fatalism. He believes so
absolutely in God, that the decrees of the Almighty become a fixed
fate, which the will of man is impotent to resist. All this comes from
an imperfect idea of God. Here Islam is defective, just where
Christianity is complete.
There is nothing in Mohammedanism that brings God down to earth,
within the range of human sympathy or even of human conception. There
is no incarnation, no Son of God coming to dwell among men, hungry and
weary, bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, suffering in the
garden, and dying on the cross.
The Mussulman does not feel his need of such help. In his prayers
there is no acknowledgment of sin, no feeling of penitence, no
confession of unworthiness. He knows not how poor and weak he is, with
a religion in which there is no Saviour and Redeemer, no Lamb of God
that taketh away the sin of the world, no Holy Spirit to help our
infirmities, to strengthen our weaknesses.
So with Moslem morality; if we scan it closely, we find it wanting in
many virtues. Some writers give the most elevated ideas of it. Says
Chambers' Cyclopaedia: "Aside from the domestic relations, the ethics
of the Mohammedan religion are of the highest order. Pride, calumny,
revenge, avarice, prodigality, and debauchery, are condemned
throughout the Koran; while trust in God, submission to His will,
patience, modesty, forbearance, love of peace, sincerity, frugality,
benevolence, liberality, are everywhere insisted upon."
This is very high praise. But mark the exception: "Aside from the
domestic relations." That exception takes out of the system a whole
class of virtues, and puts a class of vices in their place. Here is
the great crime of Islam against humanity--its treatment of woman. We
will not charge against it more than belongs to it. The seclusion of
woman is not a Mohammedan custom so much as an Oriental one, and one
of a very ancient date. When Abraham sent a servant to find a wife for
Isaac, and he returned bringing Rebekah, as the caravan drew near
home, and Isaac went out to meditate at eventide, as soon as Rebekah
saw him in the distance, she lighted off from her camel and "veiled
herself." Polygamy too existed before Mohammed: it existed among the
patriarchs. It is claimed that Mohammed repressed it, limiting a man
to four wives, although he far exceeded the number himself. Gibbon,
who never misses an opportunity of making a point against the Bible,
says: "If we remember the seven hundred wives and three hundred
concubines of the wise Solomon, we shall applaud the modesty of the
Arabian who espoused no more than seventeen or fifteen wives." But
this pretence of self-restraint is a mockery. It is notorious that
Mohammed was a man of the grossest licentiousness; and the horrible
and disgusting thing about it is that he grew more wicked as he grew
older; and while trying to put restraint upon others put none upon
himself. He punished licentiousness with a hundred stripes, and
adultery with death, and yet he was a man of unbounded profligacy, and
to make it worse, pleaded a Divine revelation to justify it!
This example of the prophet has had its influence on all the
generations of his followers. It has trailed the slime of the serpent
over them all. Any one who has been in a Mohammedan country must have
felt that the position of woman is a degradation. One cannot see them
gliding through the streets of Cairo or Constantinople, with their
faces veiled as if it were a shame to look on them, and passing
swiftly as if indeed it were a sin for them to be seen abroad,
without a feeling of pity and indignation.
And in what a position are such women at home, if it can be called a
home, where there is no family, no true domestic life! The wife of a
Mohammedan--the mother of his children--is little better than a slave.
She is never presented to his friends--indeed you could not offer a
greater insult to a Turk than to ask after his wife! Of course there
is no such thing as society where women are not allowed to appear.
Such a society as that of London or Paris, composed of men eminent in
government, in science and literature--a society refined and elevated
by the presence of women of such education and manners and knowledge
of the world as to be the fit companions of such men--could not
possibly exist in Constantinople.
But the degradation of woman is not the only crime to be charged to
Islam. In fit companionship with it is cruelty. Mohammed had many
virtues, but he had no mercy. He was implacable toward his enemies. He
massacred his prisoners, not from hard necessity, but with a fierce
delight. Fanaticism extinguished natural compassion, and he put his
enemies to death with savage joy. In this his followers have "bettered
his instructions." The Turks are cruel, perhaps partly by nature, but
partly also because any tender sympathies of nature are kept down by a
fiery zeal. Their religion does not make them merciful. When a people
have become possessed with the idea that they are the people of God,
and that others are outcasts, they become insensible to the sufferings
of those outside of the consecrated pale.
In the Greek Revolution the people of Scio joined in the rebellion. A
Turkish army landed on the island, and in two months put 23,000 of the
inhabitants to the sword, without distinction of age or sex; 47,000
were sold into slavery, and 5,000 escaped to Greece. In four months
the Christian population was reduced from 104,000 to 2,000.
What the Turks are in Europe and Asia, the Arabs are in Africa. The
spread of Mohammedanism is a partial civilization of some heathen
tribes. But, alas, the poor natives come in contact with
"civilization" and "religion" in another way--in the Arab
slave-hunters, who, though they are Mohammedans, and devoutly pray
toward Mecca, are the most merciless of human beings. One cannot read
the pages of Livingstone without a shudder at the barbarities
practised on defenceless natives, which have spread terror and
desolation over a large part of the interior of Africa.
These cruel memories rise up to spoil the poetry and romance which
some modern writers have thrown about the religion of the prophet.
They disturb my musings, when awed or touched by some features of
Moslem faith; when I listen to the worship in St. Sophia, or witness
the departure of pilgrims for Mecca. Whatever Oriental pomp or
splendor may still survive in its ancient worship, at its heart the
system is cold, and hard, and cruel; it does not acknowledge the
brotherhood of man, but exalts the followers of the prophet into a
caste, who can look down on the rest of mankind with ineffable scorn.
Outside of that pale, man is not a brother, but an enemy--an enemy not
to be won by love, but to be conquered and subdued, to be made a
convert or a slave. Not only does the Koran not bid mercy to be shown
to unbelievers, but it offers them, as the only alternatives,
conversion, or slavery, or death.
Needs it any argument to show how impossible is good government under
a creed in which there is no recognition of justice and equality? I
think it is Macaulay who says that the worst Christian government is
better than the best Mohammedan government. Wherever that religion
exists, there follow inevitably despotism and slavery, by which it
crushes man, as by its polygamy and organized licentiousness, it
degrades and crushes woman. Polygamy, despotism, and slavery form the
trinity of woes which Mohammedanism has caused to weigh for ages,
like a nightmare, on the whole Eastern world. Such a system is as
incompatible with civilization as with Christianity, and sooner or
later must pass away, unless the human race is to come to a
standstill, or to go backward.
But when and how? I am not sanguine of any speedy change. Such changes
come slowly. We expect too much and too soon. In an age of progress we
think that all forms of ignorance and superstition must disappear
before the advance of civilization. But the _vis inertiae_ opposes a
steady resistance. It has been well said, "We are told that knowledge
is power, but who has considered the power of ignorance?" How long it
lives and how hard it dies! We hear much of the "waning crescent," but
it wanes very slowly, and it sometimes seems as if the earth itself
would grow old and perish before that waning orb would disappear from
the heavens. Christian Missions make no more impression upon Islam
than the winds of the desert upon the cliffs of Mount Sinai.
I do not look for any great change in the Mohammedan world, except in
the train of political changes. That religion is so bound up with
political power, that until that is destroyed, or terribly shaken,
there is little hope of a general turning to a better faith. War and
Revolution are the fiery chariots that must go before the Gospel, to
herald its coming and prepare its way. Material forces may open the
door to moral influences; the doctrines of human freedom and of human
brotherhood may be preached on battle plains as well as in Christian
temples. When the hard iron crust of Islam is broken up, and the
elements begin to melt with fervent heat, the Eastern world may be
moulded into new forms. Then will the Oriental mind be brought into an
impressible state, in which argument and persuasion can act upon it;
and it may yield to the combined influence of civilization and
Christianity. The change will be slow. It will take years; it may
take centuries. But sooner or later the fountains of the great deep
will be broken up. That cold, relentless system must pass away before
the light and warmth of that milder faith which recognizes at once the
brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God.
In that coming age there may be other pilgrimages and processions
going up out of Egypt. "The dromedaries shall come from far." But
then, if a caravan of pilgrims issues from Cairo, to cross the desert,
to seek the birthplace of the founder of its religion, it will not
turn South to Mecca, but North to Bethlehem, asking with the Magi of
old, "Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his
star in the East, and are come to worship him."