slavery, and by crushing all freedom of judgment in religion has interposed the most effectual
barrier against the reception of Christianity. "No system," he says, "could have been devised with
more consummate skill for shutting out the nations over which it has sway, from the light of truth.
Idolatrous Arabs might have been aroused to spiritual life and to the adoption of the faith of Jesus;
Mahometan Arabia is, to the human eye, sealed against the benign influences of the gospel .... The
sword of Mahomet and the Coran are the most fatal enemies of civilization, liberty, and truth."^140
This is no doubt true of the past. But we have not yet seen the end of this historical problem.
It is not impossible that Islâm may yet prove to be a necessary condition for the revival of a pure
Scriptural religion in the East. Protestant missionaries from England and America enjoy greater
liberty under the Mohammedan rule than they would under a Greek or Russian government. The
Mohammedan abhorrence of idolatry and image worship, Mohammedan simplicity and temperance
are points of contact with the evangelical type of Christianity, which from the extreme West has
established flourishing missions in the most important parts of Turkey. The Greek Church can do
little or nothing with the Mohammedans; if they are to be converted it must be done by a Christianity
which is free from all appearance of idolatry, more simple in worship, and more vigorous in life
than that which they have so easily conquered and learned to despise. It is an encouraging fact that
Mohammedans have, great respect for the Anglo-Saxon race. They now swear by the word of an
Englishman as much as by the beard of Mohammed.
Islâm is still a great religious power in the East. It rules supreme in Syria, Palestine, Asia
Minor, Egypt, North Africa, and makes progress among the savage tribes in the interior of the Dark
Continent. It is by no means simply, as Schlegel characterized the system, "a prophet without
miracles, a faith without mysteries, and a morality without love." It has tenacity, aggressive vitality
and intense enthusiasm. Every traveller in the Orient must be struck with the power of its simple
monotheism upon its followers. A visit to the Moslem University in the Mosque El Azhar at Cairo
is very instructive. It dates from the tenth century (975), and numbers (or numbered in 1877, when
I visited it) no less than ten thousand students who come from all parts of the Mohammedan world
and present the appearance of a huge Sunday School, seated in small groups on the floor, studying
the Koran as the beginning and end of all wisdom, and then at the stated hours for prayer rising to
perform their devotions under the lead of their teachers. They live in primitive simplicity, studying,
eating and sleeping on a blanket or straw mat in the same mosque, but the expression of their faces
betrays the fanatical devotion to their creed. They support themselves, or are aided by the alms of
the faithful. The teachers (over three hundred) receive no salary and live by private instruction or
presents from rich scholars.
Nevertheless the power of Islâm, like its symbol, the moon, is disappearing before the sun
of Christianity which is rising once more over the Eastern horizon. Nearly one-third of its followers
are under Christian (mostly English) rule. It is essentially a politico-religious system, and Turkey
is its stronghold. The Sultan has long been a "sick man," and owes his life to the forbearance and
jealousy of the Christian powers. Sooner or later he will be driven out of Europe, to Brusa or Mecca.
The colossal empire of Russia is the hereditary enemy of Turkey, and would have destroyed her
in the wars of 1854 and 1877, if Catholic France and Protestant England had not come to her aid.
In the meantime the silent influences of European civilization and Christian missions are undermining
(^140) Life of Mahomet, IV. 321, 322.