onaries as zealous bagmen
travelling with excellent samples for a chaotic firm which does not
stock the goods they are trying to push. The missionary may say that he
has no "call" to reform existing conditions in his own country, just as
the bagman may disclaim responsibility for his firm's slackness; but
such excuses book no orders. The travelled Moslem will shake his head
and say that he has seen the firm's showrooms, and their principal
lines appeared to be Labour trouble, profiteering and diluted
Bolshevism, with a particularly tawdry fabric of party politics. He
respects the spiritual commercial traveller and his opinions, if sincere
(he is a judge of sincerity, being rather a casuist himself), but
wherever he has observed the workings of Christianity in bulk it has not
had the elevating and transcendental effect which it is said to have;
that is, he has not found the goods up to sample and will have none of
them.

He seldom realises (to conclude our commercial metaphor) that most
Christian folk in countries which export missionaries are born with
life-members' tickets entitling them to sound, durable goods which are
not displayed in our spiritual shop-windows or in the missionary
hand-bag:--the prayers of childhood and the mother's hymn, the distant
bells of a Sabbath countryside, the bird-chorus of Spring emphasising
the magic hush of Communion on Easter morning, the holly-decked church
ringing with the glad carols of Christmastide and the tremendous promise
which bids us hope at the graveside of our earthly love. It is such
memories as these, and not the stentorian eloquence of some popular
salvation-monger in an atmosphere of over-crowded humanity, which go to
make staunch Christian souls.

The possible proselyte from Islam has to rely on what the missionary has
in his bag. Large quantities of faith are pressed upon him which do not
quite meet his requirements, as it is his reason which should be
satisfied first; no one can believe without a basis of belief.

There is also a great deal of slaughter-house metaphor which does not
appeal to him at all, as he looks on blood as a defilement and a sheep
as the silliest animal in existence--except a lamb. These metaphors were
used by our Lord in speaking to a people who readily understood them,
but for some obscure reason they have not only been retained but
amplified extensively to the exclusion of much beautiful imagery which
is still apposite. We Christians reve