in any society with derision. These things are, perhaps, not in
themselves evidence of belief, for hypocrites have everywhere their
reward, but the fact even of hypocrisy proves the general spirit to be
one of avowed belief.

The truly devout are doubtless rare, but where we find them it is
evident that their belief pervades their lives in as strict a sense as
it does devout persons among ourselves. It would probably be difficult
to point out in Europe men who in the world--I do not speak of
ecclesiastics or persons in religious orders--lead more transparently
religious lives than do the pious Moslems of the better class whom one
may find in almost any oriental town, or men who more closely follow
the ideal which their creed sets before them. To doubt the sincerity and
even, in a certain sense, the sanctity of such persons, would be to
doubt all religion. In any case it is notorious that the faith of Mecca
is still the living belief of a vast number of the human race, the rule
of their lives, and the explanation to them of their whole existence.
There is no sign as yet that it has ceased to be a living faith.

Neither in considering its future is it easy for a candid English mind
to escape the admission that, for all purposes of argument, the
Mohammedan creed must be treated as no vain superstition but a true
religion, true inasmuch as it is a form of the worship of that one true
God in whom Europe, in spite of her modern reason, still believes. As
such it is entitled to whatever credit we may give true religions of
prolonged vitality; and while admitting the eternal truth of
Christianity for ourselves, we may be tempted to believe that in the
Arabian mind, if in no other, Islam too will prove eternal.

In its simplest form Islam was but an emphatic renewal of the immemorial
creed of the Semites, and as long as a pure Semitic race is left in the
world, the revelation of Mecca may be expected to remain a necessary
link in their tradition. No modern arguments of science are ever likely
to affect the belief of Arabia that God has at sundry times and in
sundry places spoken to man by the mouth of his prophets; and among
these prophets Mohammed will always be the most conspicuous because the
most distinctly national. Also the law of Islam--I am not speaking
merely of the Sheriat as we now see it--will always remain their law
because it is the codification of their custom, and its political
organization their political org