the Gospel, all reverenced by Moslems if dished up without
trimmings. Not wishing to impose on that hard-worked word "camouflage,"
I would merely ask, as a naturalist, if such protective mimicry is worth
the irritation it causes. In any case, the system reminds me of an old
Highlander's opening comment on a sword dance by a rock scorpion in a
Tangier saloon. "There is a sairtain elegance aboot yourr grace-steps,
but _get in between the swords_."

No vicarious efforts by propaganda will ever take the place of personal
precept and example. In hunting proselytes among the followers of Islam
it is not advisable to rely too much on the Scriptures, as Moslems doubt
the authenticity of our version and point to our own divergent copies in
proof thereof. Nor is it any use asking them to believe as an act of
faith; if they did they would need no proselytising: an appeal must be
made to their reason, and there is no better appeal than the life,
works, and conduct of one who professes and practises Christianity. Even
if he makes no single convert he has leavened the population around him
with the dignity and prestige of his creed which has produced such a
type. Unfortunately such results cannot be scheduled in mission reports,
though they are real enough and well worth living for, whether a man be
a missionary or not; only they cannot be produced by brilliant
wide-sweeping feats of organisation and enterprise, but by persevering,
consistent lives, which are not easy or spectacular.

Egypt should be a great field of religious warfare by personal
influence, as Christians and Moslems live side by side in daily contact
and reasonable accord, yet few of us take advantage of the fact to
uphold the prestige of our creed or even of our race. We Europeans are
busy with our multifarious interests and duties, while Egyptian Moslems
are either entangled in the web of their environment, as are the
_fellahin_, or eager snatchers at the gifts of civilisation, as are the
more or less cultured effendis, or mere hair-splitters in futile
religious controversy, as are too many of the _ulema_ or sages at the
great collegiate mosque of al-Azhar. In each case, spiritual matters
are apt to get crowded out. The fault lies chiefly with our cosmopolitan
ingredients, which engender feverish living, if not actual vice, and the
over-strained effort on the one side to impart and on the other side to
assimilate a Western system of education which has induced int